Tag: software

One Stat Shows America’s Shift From Manufacturing Cars To Manufacturing Nerds

Todd Fisher hugs an R2-D2 robot near an empty chair for his late sister, actress Carrie Fisher. [Photo: DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images] The U.S. automobile manufacturing industry has taken a backseat to Silicon Valley, as the top three tech companies had almost the same revenues in 2014 as the Detroit’s Big Three did in 1990, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report.

The American automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler — needed 1.2 million people to produce revenues of $250 million. In contrast, the biggest corporations in Silicon Valley, the colloquial term for the region and people within the tech […]

Robots are friends, not foes

Robots are friends, not foes

Popular movies like The Terminator have helped instill a certain level of fear that the introduction of robots into everyday life will lead to widespread unemployment and ultimately a planet-wide robot uprising that will spell the end of humanity as we know it.

In recent years, the complexity, range, and quantity of tasks that robots can execute is astounding, and already, different types of robotic automation are taking on new tasks in the workplace – from data entry to customer support. Naturally, there is fear that with the growing number of tasks that can be automated, there will soon be […]

As Amazon purchases Whole Foods, don’t fear for the cashier. Fear for the supermarket

As Amazon purchases Whole Foods, don’t fear for the cashier. Fear for the supermarket

When Amazon announced its plan to pay $13.7 billion for Whole Foods Market last week, pundits wondered what it meant for the workers at Whole Foods’ more than 450 store locations.

Whole Foods’ infamously high prices are partly the result of its highly human approach to groceries. The stores post experts in every department and offers human service at specialty counters.

Amazon’s brick-and-mortar retail ambitions, meanwhile, have been focused around a technology that eliminates the need to interact with human employees at all . Instead, customers take products off of shelves and walk out of the stores. Amazon’s technology keeps tabs […]

The robots are coming: here are some jobs that won’t exist in 10 years

The robots are coming: here are some jobs that won’t exist in 10 years

The World Economic Forum forecasts that 5.1 million jobs will be lost to machines between 2015 and 2020. Photo: Sunny Lee The tech industry has already already embedding cognitive (conscious mental activities such as human thinking, understanding, learning) AI into a variety of products. Photo: Alamy AI is now at the centre of a myriad of real world applications, from facial recognition software and cybersecurity to more futuristic technologies such as autonomous self-driving vehicles. Photo: AFP An engineer holds the head of Samantha, a sex doll packed with artificial intelligence providing her the capability to respond to different scenarios […]

When It Comes to Automation, Wall Street Needs to Learn from the Rust Belt

When It Comes to Automation, Wall Street Needs to Learn from the Rust Belt

This article was written by Devin Gharibian-Saki, Chief Solution Officer at Redwood Software.

It’s an innovative change that has already started slipping into reality: Wall Street’s corporations are waking up to the potential of automation and robotics in their workplaces. New automation software and integrations for robotics are filtering into Wall Street and, as a result, are implying a need for change in the industry. Manufacturing

Rust Belt cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo have already seen the effects of automation on their respective workforces. Manufacturing jobs that once inundated these cities saw robotics and automation exert robust […]

Robots are winning the jobs race

Job creation is the most difficult task for any administration. Having a secure job with good prospects of advancement is the dream of those who aspire to be productive members of society. So it is understandable that many fret about the risk of losing their jobs to robots that are replacing humans in many industries.

In the 1970s the western world experienced yet another industrial revolution when manufacturing was most affected by the introduction of robots on factory floors. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claims that “for every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost […]

Thai students woefully under-prepared for next industrial revolution

Thai students woefully under-prepared for next industrial revolution

OPINION

Thai students woefully under-prepared for next industrial revolution

Special to The Nation Last month, schools across Thailand began a new academic year. The new school year brings with it new friends, new teachers and new experiences, but one aspect of school life will remain unchanged: the outdated and ineffective system of teaching, learning and assessment, so appalling it now threatens to abandon children in a previous century, implying a “Thailand 0.4” instead of the government’s dream of a national reboot. The failings of the education system have been well documented, with the country consistently ranking poorly […]

With all the talk of future job automation… how will GIS stand up?

With all the talk of future job automation... how will GIS stand up?

That really seems to smack of wishful thinking, unfortunately. Given the sheer level of capability we’re already seeing in certain types of software–let alone their capacity for learning–I don’t see GIS being particularly resistant to automation.

Off the top of my head, I can’t really think of any "bespoke" GIS work that is fundamentally more complex than producing art, writing news stories, diagnosing a patient, or providing legal counsel, all of which are already in the process of being successfully automated to a greater or lesser extent.

Sure, there’ll be a learning curve with automating GIS, but there is with every […]

RISE of the ROBOT

RISE of the ROBOT

A four-part look at how robots are changing the way we work. First up, robots aren’t killing jobs, they’re creating new ones and more of them
— at least at a GE Aviation plant in Quebec

By Drew Hasselback in Bromont, Que.
About 180 robots here are doing work that humans used to do at a GE Aviation plant that makes parts for jet engines. But they haven’t replaced the humans. Indeed, the opposite is true. Since a new, automated section of the plant ramped up at the start of the decade, the number of people working here […]

Career planning will be critical in the age of automation

Career planning will be critical in the age of automation

Press Release: Massey University

Most New Zealanders are still confident their jobs will be safe from advances in technology over the next decade, according to the latest findings of an ongoing research project into attitudes around the future of work.

Dr David Brougham from the Massey Business School and Professor Jarrod Haar from AUT surveyed 500 New Zealand employees earlier this year and found that 80 per cent of participants did not think their job could be automated.The results did not deviate significantly from data collected in 2015 and 2016, despite extensive media coverage of the issue over that time.Dr […]