Tag: Services

‘Robotic process automation is the beginning, expect further disruption in technology and services’

‘Robotic process automation is the beginning, expect further disruption in technology and services’

White collar automation has been happening for a very long time. Robotics is a cool name for efficient software that has led to the creation of a new stream called Robotics Process Automation (RPA). RPA eliminates mundane and tedious tasks freeing workers to focus on higher value work. Since the 4-5 years of its evolution, RPA is now the buzzword for CTOs and CFOs as it delivers 30-40 percent savings and operational efficiency in the first year of adoption and continues to improve efficiencies thereafter. Some of the leading industries adopting RPA in the West are financial services, healthcare […]

Higher Productivity Is Good for Workers

Higher Productivity Is Good for Workers

(Ralph Orlowski/REUTERS) For most of our history Americans have supported increased productivity, even if it led to economic disruption and worker displacement. Unfortunately, over the last decade that support has weakened. Productivity gains are now portrayed as a tool for greedy corporations to jack up their profits at the expense of workers. Moreover, workers are now seen as so fragile that all automation must be feared. So, rather than support productivity, the dominant narrative favors redistribution and protection from change.

The emergence of this new “productivity doesn’t benefit workers” narrative matters because government policies in a wide array of areas […]

100 years of ILO, and the future of jobs and social justice

100 years of ILO, and the future of jobs and social justice

ILO hits a ton; that’s great news!

Indeed. The International Labour Organisation will become 100 years old in October, and the celebrations have already begun. You may recall the ILO was set up as an arm of the League of Nations barely a year after World War-I ended in 1918, as part of the Versailles Treaty. Ever since then, the global labour watchdog has played a pivotal role in highlighting labour issues across the globe, triggering debates that led to polices that eventually helped improve the conditions of workers worldwide. In fact, the formation of ILO was based […]

When Computers Create Code, Who Owns It Is a Question Worth Billions

When Computers Create Code, Who Owns It Is a Question Worth Billions

Juhari Muhade via Getty Images NEW YORK— Google’s DeepDream has generated artwork; the What-If Machine created the characters and story for a West End Musical ; music composed by programs was performed in the London Symphony in 2012. We talk about jobs that may be lost to automation, but there is scant attention paid to who owns the intellectual property created by machines.

Artificial intelligence technology no longer allows us the luxury to vacillate. With the advent of AI, software and computers will be creating a number of programs and original works.

But in many parts of the world, IP […]

A bot on your office computer could be sizing you up

A bot on your office computer could be sizing you up

SINGAPORE – Imagine a bot on your work computer that tracks your every click and keystroke, helping determine which of your tasks could be handled by one of its robot brethren.

Call it automating automation. It’s McKinsey & Co.’s entry into robotic process automation, which is spreading “robots” from the factory floor to the office cubicle as advancing technologies make it easier and more economically feasible for software to perform cognitive tasks now done by humans.

It’s transforming office work across the world, including in the Philippines’ offshoring business processing centers, which employ more than a million people and generate annual […]

Balancing Thailand’s healthcare resources: ageing, declining population, and medical tourism

Balancing Thailand's healthcare resources: ageing, declining population, and medical tourism

It’s been known for decades that Thailand is the home to the world’s most capable doctors and healthcare staff who can offer the best services, unlikely to be found anywhere else. Many famous Thai doctors have received their medical training in Western countries at renowned medical schools and institutions. They have accumulated their knowledge and experience along with the most advanced technology and techniques in healthcare. Coming back home from overseas studies, they have been able to gain more experience and reputation in their practice as specialists in many fields. There is still a lot of room to grow […]

Reskill to survive: Tech firms retrain staff on war footing

Reskill to survive: Tech firms retrain staff on war footing

Employees are being taught “new IT” skills such as digital, cloud and security, with artificial intelligence at the core. MUMBAI | NEW DELHI: Indian IT and IT services companies, including the ones that have been in the news for layoffs , are reskilling employees on a war footing.

Companies such as Accenture , Infosys NSE -0.13 % , Cognizant , Tech Mahindra NSE -0.46 % , Mphasis NSE -1.39 % , among others, are making an effort to reskill and prepare employees for the future.

Accenture has reskilled 85% of its technology workforce in India in the last three years. Employees […]

A New, Higher Minimum Wage Hurts Everyone

A New, Higher Minimum Wage Hurts Everyone

(Tethysimagingllc/Dreamstime.com) The House just recently passed the Wage Act to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. In the midst of their self-congratulatory back slapping, comments like "it’s an important step towards creating an economy that works for everyone" were tossed around. But is that statement true?

Yes, it is true that surviving on $8 or $9, or even $10 an hour, particularly in expensive metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, is difficult if not impossible. But raising the minimum wage is not going to provide a pathway out of poverty for workers making so […]

How Automation Makes Life – Not Just Work – More Human

Robotic process automation (RPA) is one of the most transformative technologies of the century, allowing enterprises to eliminate tedious tasks, freeing workers to focus on the higher-value, strategic work that only humans can do, and dramatically increasing efficiency and reducing costs in the process.

Businesses have long recognized the potential of RPA to transform the future of work, with the global market emerging as an estimated $100 billion opportunity according to KeyBanc Capital Markets. Gartner further estimates that by 2020, 40 percent of large enterprises will have deployed RPA software.

However, why should the benefit of RPA be confined to the […]

How artificial intelligence will do our dirty work, take our jobs and change our lives

How artificial intelligence will do our dirty work, take our jobs and change our lives

Fifty years after the moon landing, a new Irish Times series looks on what the future holds for us and the next generations. Here, part 1 explores how artificial intelligence will change our lives in the next half-century

At its crudest, most reductive, we could sum up the future of artificial intelligence as being about robot butlers v killer robots.

We have to get there eventually, so we might as well start with the killer robots. If we were to jump forward 50 years to see what artificial intelligence might bring us, would we – Terminator-style – step into a […]