Tag: Services

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 […]

How to Get the AI-powered Economy We Want

How to Get the AI-powered Economy We Want

The American economy accelerated nicely in the middle of last year. A Two Percent Economy no more! Well, at least for a bit. Economic growth now seems to be reverting to the humdrum pace seen over most of the post-Financial Crisis recovery. (The Trump White House, it should be noted, sees things more optimistically .) The combo of slower labor force growth and productivity growth means the economy’s growth potential isn’t what it once was.

But maybe artificial intelligence can accelerate economic growth on a sustained basis by boosting productivity growth. In their 2018 paper, “ AI and the Economy […]

‘Everyone wants to collect data, but a few firms have found a meaningful use’

'Everyone wants to collect data, but a few firms have found a meaningful use'

(From left) Rajrishi Singhal, consulting editor, Mint; Sanjeev Sharma, MD, ABB India Ltd & ABB R&D India; Karan Virwani, CWeO, WeWork India; Rajesh Janey, president and MD, India enterprise, Dell EMC; Sashi Sreedharan, MD, Microsoft India; Rahul Agarwal, CEO and MD, Lenovo India, Piyush Shah, co-founder and president, marketing cloud and data cloud, InMobi at Mint Digital Innovation Summit 2019. Companies need to focus more on putting data to meaningful use rather than just blindly gathering the data. This was the consensus at the CEO Panel during the Mint Digital Innovation Summit . The panel comprised Sanjeev Sharma, managing […]

A Declining Population is a Supreme Asset in The Age of AI, Robotics And Automation

A Declining Population is a Supreme Asset in The Age of AI, Robotics And Automation

A slew of articles from western outlets as well as the Hong Kong based anti-Beijing South China Morning Post have suggested that as China’s population is set to contract, this will have a negative impact on the economy. Ironically, this comes at a time when US Presidential candidate Andrew Yang is proposing a new economic model to deal with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and increased automation that will render many human jobs redundant sooner rather than later. As China is already a global leader in AI, China’s history of managing once uncontrollable population growth has led the […]