Tag: Services

Robots can’t solve the crisis in the NHS – we still need workers with empathy

Robots can't solve the crisis in the NHS – we still need workers with empathy

Nurses on the frontline of the health service have empathy with patients. Could ‘chatbots’ really replace them? Images of trolleys laden with suffering people in corridors, old people hooked up to drips on beds in cupboards – not pictures emerging from Syria, but the latest crisis to hit the NHS .

Waiting times in A&E are unacceptable, with hospitals operating at full capacity; dozens of beds are occupied by people who have nowhere else to go. When even the Health Minister – the normally unflappable Mr Positive, Jeremy Hunt – admits things are problematic, it’s probably not the best time […]

Technobabble: Automation and the modern worker

Technobabble: Automation and the modern worker

Technobabble is our look at the weird, wonderful and wildly creative aspects of technology and the tech industry. If you have any babble, feel free to email directly or reach out on Twitter .

For decades, pundits have discussed the plight of the American worker. Without fail, as technology has advanced and become more automated, some workers have been displaced.

Take the assembly line, for example. Workers en masse were employed to ensure every part of the manufacturing process kept up with industry standards. But as machines entered into the assembly line, work became automated and fewer employees were required, […]

Yes, there’s a job creation argument for automation and technology

Yes, there's a job creation argument for automation and technology

© Getty Images It may not be obvious, but the U.S. presidential election offers critical lessons about how policy and technology leaders should think about the future of artificial intelligence. In fact, just days before Donald Trump was sworn into office, these lessons were a focus of the Davos meeting of the global elite.

Technology executives expressed concern over a growing fear throughout the world that robots destroy jobs and discussed the possibility of a backlash against innovation. It was this same fear of job loss that has contributed to the recent backlash against trade agreements.

After all, proponents of trade […]

No, a robot isn’t going to take your job

No, a robot isn’t going to take your job

Fear not. AI anxiety is not new. This is the third in a series of articles exploring a delivery bot pilot program that was rolled out in D.C. last month.

It has been a tumultuous and passionate few weeks here in the nation’s capital, so you could be forgiven if you didn’t notice the other day that an autonomous food delivery bot made its first trial run in the District.

Quiet, white, unobtrusive and below the line of sight, it whirred along at about four miles per hour, using nine cameras and a GPS to navigate around obstacles. Most remarkably, […]

Actors, teachers, therapists – think your job is safe from robots? Think again

Actors, teachers, therapists – think your job is safe from robots? Think again

In the battle for the 21st century workplace, computers are winning. And the odds of us puny humans making a comeback are not very good.

A January 2017 report from the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that roughly half of today’s work activities could be automated by 2055, give or take 20 years. (McKinsey helpfully offers a search portal to find out how likely you’ll be given the boot by a bot.)

Bottom line is robots want our jobs. And no one is going to build a wall around them or tariff them out of existence.In a way this is nothing new. […]

Economic advisory council delivers Bill Morneau an odd report: Walkom

Hamilton Spectator

The latest report from Ottawa’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth is an odd document. It foresees a world in which almost half of Canadians will have lost their jobs to automation. Yet it spends much effort trying to figure out how to encourage more workers to compete for this diminishing number of jobs.

Like the council’s first report in October, this one walks a fine line between market economics and activist government.It wants private capitalists to lead the way but it also wants government to both guide and backstop their efforts.In that sense it hearkens back to the Asian […]

Hoteliers would like to employ more robots

Hoteliers would like to employ more robots

IN A recent blog post , Gulliver expressed his exasperation at having to interact with other humans when he stayed at hotels. After all, in the age of mobile check-in and automated bartenders, it must be possible to swerve most of these pointless encounters (and avoid having to hand over tips for the most mundane services, such as pouring a beer or being shown to your room).

One solution that didn’t occur to him was robot butlers. The M Social Singapore hotel is introducing a droid that can deliver room service to guests. It navigates using 3D cameras and can […]

Robots, Yes Robots, Could Be Trump’s Greatest Threat

Robots, Yes Robots, Could Be Trump’s Greatest Threat

(image used under Creative Commons license via tecnalia) The rise of automation is destined to replace some worker employment, and it could increasingly cause friction with efforts to create new jobs, a hallmark of the Donald Trump administration.

Many studies have forecast a day when repetitive and labor-intensive jobs will be recast by automation, though the jury is still out about whether the humans now holding those jobs will be elevated to more meaningful positions that utilize automation or will be replaced outright.

One particular technology, self-driving cars, is on pace to emerge en masse in 2021, right around the next […]

HR/AI = (-x) – The employment/automation equation

Valentine’s Day is looming next week and for commercial flower growers it represents one of the biggest sales opportunities of the year. Assuming they can get their products cut and collected from the fields, that is. In the wake of Brexit, the boss of one horticultural business recently told a select committee on immigration that finding field workers had become difficult. “Automation is an inevitability,” he said.

It is a story being repeated across many sectors right now. But while tighter rules on immigration are the overt reason for replacing human workers with automated replacements, a deeper current is driving […]

Will automation take away all our jobs? | David Autor

Here’s a paradox you don’t hear much about: despite a century of creating machines to do our work for us, the proportion of adults in the US with a job has consistently gone up for the past 125 years. Why hasn’t human labor become redundant and our skills obsolete? In this talk about the future of work, economist David Autor addresses the question of why there are still so many jobs and comes up with a surprising, hopeful answer.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers […]