Tag: Services

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

A common gripe in the UK and European tech communities is that there are few homegrown unicorns, few billion-dollar players to rival those of the US or China. “We just can’t grow them here,” people say – at least, not since SAP or (whisper it carefully) Autonomy. Even the UK’s DeepMind went for a song – a reported $500 million – when Google snapped it up and rebuilt its AI vision around it. Meanwhile Europe seems to want to break up the US giants rather than grow its own.

Yet if you mention the name Blue Prism to many analysts […]

Perspective: Artificial intelligence and automation — the U.S. manufacturing challenge

Perspective: Artificial intelligence and automation — the U.S. manufacturing challenge

In the U.S. manufacturing sector, there are “production-focused” positions that are low-skilled and “skilled production” positions that require specific training to develop complex skill-sets. As to the future of production-focused positions, the manufacturing sector is choosing to eliminate them through increased automation .

However, for skilled production positions, more than half of manufacturing executives in the skills gap study cite technology/computer skills, digital skills, programming skills for robots/automation, working with tools and technology, and critical thinking skills to be in demand over the next three years.

what is the U.S. manufacturing sector doing beyond turning more to automation and AI to […]

The new spirit of postcapitalism

The new spirit of postcapitalism

Capitalism emerged in the interstices of feudalism and Paul Mason finds a prefiguring of postcapitalism in the lifeworld of the contemporary European city. Raval, Barcelona, March 2019. The streets are full of young people (and not just students)—sitting, sipping drinks, gazing more at laptops than into each other’s eyes, talking quietly about politics, making art, looking cool.

A time traveller from their grandparents’ youth might ask: when is lunchtime over? But it’s never over because for many networked people it never really begins. In the developed world, large parts of urban reality look like Woodstock in permanent session—but what is […]

Regulating Work in an Age of Fissuring and Automation

Regulating Work in an Age of Fissuring and Automation

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Employers may increasingly automate their workplaces, requiring a new approach to workplace regulation.

Why and when do firms hire employees? This question has grown urgent in light of two trends that are undermining the standard employment relationship: “fissuring,” or firms’ growing tendency to secure inputs from outside suppliers, and automation, or the replacement of human labor with machines. The latter has been going on for centuries. But many informed observers argue that “this time is different,” and that innovations in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are likely in the foreseeable future to destroy more jobs than they create—and […]

The autonomous car revolution is here

The autonomous car revolution is here

Driverless cars used to be the sort of thing you’d see in reel life, but today they are becoming real in real life. India is a different ball game for driverless cars with jaywalkers, poor pothole-ridden roads and bad road discipline. Steven Spielberg’s "Minority Report" nailed the driverless car technology way back in 2002 with its futuristic Lexus-designed auto-piloted car. In one of the scenes, Tom Cruise decides to "run" from the authorities and sets off an exciting driverless car chase.

Driverless cars used to be the sort of thing you’d see in reel life, but today they are becoming […]

Robots invade foodie San Francisco, promising low prices, tasty meals and cheap labor

Robots invade foodie San Francisco, promising low prices, tasty meals and cheap labor

San Francisco restaurants like Creator are leaning on automation to create low cost food. This could be an issue for humans as robots take over jobs. USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — The lunchtime line is out the door at Creator, a recent addition to this city’s hip downtown foodie scene.

But the chef here has no Michelin stars, no attitude and no heart. Because the chef is a robot.Steak, tomatoes, onions, buns and condiments get loaded into an ingenious machine, and a freshly ground, gourmet hamburger rolls out. Long known as a hotbed of hand crafted foods, some San Francisco restaurants […]

The Curious Task: The Automation Problem

The Curious Task: The Automation Problem

[Fair warning, this post is a bit long. This is a transcription from a Podcast Episode. If the post is a bit long for your tastes, please consider listening to the podcast episode instead.] Does automation kill jobs?

Since 1900, Manufacturing and Agriculture jobs have diminished a great deal. Using a measurement of total US employment, we can observe there has been damage to employment in these industries. Agriculture went from almost 40% in 1900, to less than 2% by 2010. Manufacturing from 25% in 1900, to just under 10% in 2010.

While automation is not responsible for the total […]

A UTOMATION AND JOBS: Labour-saving technologies can boost employment [read]

The policy challenge posed by new labour-saving technology is not mass unemployment but how to help workers to make the transition from industries, occupations and regions where automation has destroyed jobs to those where jobs have been created. That is the central conclusion of new research by James Bessen. His study notes that while many people associate automation with a large-scale loss of jobs, as in many of today’s manufacturing industries, in the early years of the cotton textile, primary steel and automotive industries, employment grew strongly along with automation for many decades (see Figure 1 ). The key […]

In a new book, Salman Anees Soz lists four key policymaking principles to tackle unemployment

In a new book, Salman Anees Soz lists four key policymaking principles to tackle unemployment

Workers at a MNREGA construction site. | HT Photo When the next government takes over, it will have to attend to multiple challenges. Before we discuss those, however, we need to talk about an overarching challenge that is at the heart of any discussion involving India’s future – employment generation.

If the economy produces the kinds of decent jobs that Indian youth are struggling to find right now, the ramifications will be massive and positive. India could end extreme poverty, reduce inequality and achieve upper-middle-income country status. The table below provides the World Bank’s income classification. India’s gross national income […]

Could Automation Take Your Job?

Could Automation Take Your Job?

The future of employment looks very different from today. If you count only those jobs ranked in the top 10 most popular professions in the U.S., only counting within those the ones with a 90% or more likelihood of automation, there will be 16 million jobs lost to automation within the next few years.

Click the image to view the full-size infographic. <a href="https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/lifestyle/could-automation-replace-your-job/"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/titlemax-media/26ef3483-could-automation-take-your-job-6.png" alt="Could Automation Take Your Job? – TitleMax.com – Infographic" title="Could Automation Take Your Job? – TitleMax.com – Infographic"></a><br><a href="https://www.TitleMax.com" alt="TitleMax.com" title="TitleMax.com">Created by TitleMax.com</a> Retail sales employees represent nearly a fourth of that number: 4,442,909 […]