Tag: Services

Thanks to AI, the need for humans to work for survival could soon be at an end

Thanks to AI, the need for humans to work for survival could soon be at an end

Should we fear the rise of the robots? Earlier this month, a report warned that over 6 million workers in the UK fear losing their jobs as a result of developments in automation. The Bank of England has gone further: its own study in 2015 estimated that 15 million British jobs could be at risk; more recently Mark Carney, the bank’s governor, suggested job losses caused by the technological revolution could re-create conditions seen after the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The response to these warnings has been a flurry of comments in national newspapers, coloured by […]

How to Turn Workers into Innovators

How to Turn Workers into Innovators

In about a decade, one-third of current jobs could be automated. This doesn’t have to be a doomsday prediction if your plant can figure out how this paradigm shift will enhance your current workers.

Every week, there’s a new article about AI and automation becoming more efficient at manual tasks. By 2030, the McKinsey Institute estimates 39 to 73 million jobs — or one-third of the United States workforce — will be automated.

With no added context, this statistic sounds scary. Why would Americans invent themselves out of work? Unemployment and automation are not synonymous. Using these advancements, in tandem with […]

Here’s how vulnerable to automation your job is

Here’s how vulnerable to automation your job is

What impact will the robot revolution have? Explore the latest strategic trends, research and analysis Another week, another warning about technology taking your job.

This time it comes in the shape of a report from the OECD that finds “the tasks that AI and robots cannot do are shrinking rapidly.” The report goes on to say 14% of jobs across 32 countries are “highly vulnerable” to automation.

Such themes are not new. A World Economic Forum report on jobs predicted the Fourth Industrial Revolution would transform labour markets and the Bank of England’s Chief Economist, Andy Haldane, has warned "large swathes" […]

AI news: AI technologies are 2018’s biggest tech trends

AI news: AI technologies are 2018's biggest tech trends

AI icons You’d be hard pushed to have a conversation about technology today that doesn’t mention Artificial Intelligence (AI) at some point. The technology has massive potential to shape and enhance our working and personal lives, but for all the pros, some remained worried about the downsides.

With talk of job loss a result of increased use of AI, should we be that concerned?

Perhaps not if analyst firm Gartner’s predictions are to be believed. It reckons that AI will eliminate 1.8 million jobs. That’s the bad news. The good news is that AI will also be responsible for creating 2.3 […]

AI Might Take Jobs, But CEOs Are Giving Them Away

AI Might Take Jobs, But CEOs Are Giving Them Away

Shutterstock Nearly 50 years ago, the first ATM doled out dollars to curious Americans. This cash-spewing, automated machine teller caused a wave of panic for banking professionals. Newspapers offered warnings, with headlines exclaiming how robots would be replacing our jobs.

The panic was short-lived. Although tellers were replaced by ATMs, banks were eventually able to open more branches and actually hire more tellers. Now, ATMs are ubiquitous, and there are more tellers doing a wider variety of customer service tasks. However, we shouldn’t forget that the expansion of banks came with extreme growing pains for employees, businesses and the economy. […]

Jobs and careers in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’

By Jock Finlayson
and Kristine St.-Laurent
Business Council of B.C.

The work world is being transformed by rapidly evolving digital technologies as we march into what many are calling the “fourth industrial revolution.” Jock Finlayson With disruptive technologies pushing the frontiers of automation, some of the comparative advantages humans traditionally have enjoyed relative to technology are eroding. Computers and learning-based algorithms have progressed beyond replacing repetitive, manual tasks with mechanical execution.Now, recognizing patterns, providing diagnoses and communicating complex information – three activities once seen as within the purview of people – are increasingly performed by computers. Doctors, lawyers, accountants […]

The zero-sum economy

LONDON — Across the global economy, the potential for automation seems huge. Adidas’ “Speedfactory” in Bavaria will employ 160 workers to produce 500,000 pairs of shoes each year, a productivity rate over five times higher than in typical factories today. The British Retail Consortium estimates that retail jobs could fall from 3 million to 2.1 million within ten years, with only a small fraction replaced by new jobs in online retailing. Many financial-services companies see the potential to cut information-processing jobs to a small fraction of current levels.

And yet, despite all this, measured productivity growth across the developed economies […]

The Zero-Sum Economy

The Zero-Sum Economy

The anthropologist David Graeber has argued that as much as 30% of all work is performed in “bullshit jobs,” which are unnecessary to produce truly valuable goods and services but arise from competition for income and status. But the deeper problem is that more and more economic activity performs a merely distributive function.

LONDON – Across the global economy, the potential for automation seems huge. Adidas’ “Speedfactory” in Bavaria will employ 160 workers to produce 500,000 pairs of shoes each year, a productivity rate over five times higher than in typical factories today. The British Retail Consortium estimates that retail […]

Coping with Technology: Challenges and Opportunities for ASEAN+3 Economies

Coping with Technology: Challenges and Opportunities for ASEAN+3 Economies

Technology Technological change and the relentless pace of automation offer significant opportunities for productivity growth and improved efficiency, but they also bring related risks of increased worker displacement and the challenge of upskilling labor.

While the rise in trade protectionism (discussed in the first part of this interview ) is an immediate reality the ASEAN+3 economies are confronted with, coping with technological advances and using them to drive productivity and growth is a medium- to long-term challenge for the region.

In this second part of the interview, AMRO’s chief economist, Hoe Ee Khor, touches upon this topic, as well as other […]

Economics101: Automation need not endanger human jobs

Economics101: Automation need not endanger human jobs

Many people are terrified that automation and artificial intelligence are the beginning of the end for human jobs. ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP Many people are terrified that automation and artificial intelligence are the beginning of the end for human jobs.

The result is dystopian visions of a world where most humans do nothing all day, being denied a dignified existence, while an elite class who own and control robots amass immeasurable wealth. Are such fears well-founded?

Before we discuss the latest research, it is worth noting an old but still instructive observation made by the British economist Nicholas Kaldor in 1961. Decades of […]