Tag: software

Disappearing factory jobs driving Iowa voter angst

Disappearing factory jobs driving Iowa voter angst

Small business owners and former employees say they continue to struggle to get by after hundreds of manufacturing jobs left Mason City, but city officials insist the jobs are there. Buy Photo MASON CITY, Ia. — It used to be hard to find a seat at the Kozy Korner.

In the 1970s and ’80s, the bar opened its doors at 6 a.m. to serve overnight workers as they finished their shifts in factories on the city’s north end. On Thursdays and Fridays, the Kozy kept piles of money on hand to cash workers’ paychecks. People lined up to play pool, […]

Humans today, robots tomorrow

Humans today, robots tomorrow

Photo by William Harvey On Sept. 19 the College of Architecture hosted Nick Srnicek, author of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. Srnicek spoke about the future of automation and its economic impact upon modern capitalistic systems as a part of the Department of Architecture fall lecture series.

Over the next 20 years, general purpose automation will likely be integrated into every field of industry. Srnicek said a world like this would inhibit high unemployment rates.

“Various establishments have said 47 percent of present U.S. jobs could be automated over the next two decades…A similar study for the […]

Automation: It’s All About the Workflow

10 Surprising Ways Automation Can Simplify IT

The enterprise is quickly heading into the era of workflow automation with dreams of placing all the mundane, routine tasks of running a business in the hands of intelligent software while humans get to do the fun, creative stuff.

While the effects of this on employment are hotly debated, the fact remains that the technology is quickly coming of age and the enterprise needs to prepare for it or risk losing out to automated rivals.According to Marlon Miller, director of workflow automation at Xerox Corp., the first challenge is to determine the kind […]

Will IoT and robotics mean less work for farmers?

Will IoT and robotics mean less work for farmers?

Decline in unskilled workers may be offset by technology-centric roles.

Will the Internet of Things and robotics lead to a reduction in agriculture jobs in the future? According to a panel of industry experts, the goal of these emerging technologies is not to replace a human workforce, but to augment it.

The experts shared their thoughts at the recent IoT and AgTech Summit in Sydney, co-hosted by KPMG and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC).“Our aim with technologies such as robotics is not to replace the farmers themselves, but to make them more productive, give them decision support tools for […]

Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza

Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Did robots help make your pizza?

If you ordered it from Silicon Valley’s Zume Pizza, the answer is yes.

The startup, which began delivery in April, is using intelligent machines to grab a slice of the multibillion-dollar pizza delivery market.Zume is one of a growing number of food-tech firms seeking to disrupt the restaurant industry with software and robots."We’re going to eliminate boring, repetitive, dangerous jobs, and we’re going to free up people to do things that are higher value," said co-founder Alex Garden, a former Microsoft manager and president of mobile game maker Zynga Studios.Inside […]

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Robots are after our jobs: what can we do?

Photo: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images Will smart automation, intelligent software bots and brainy robots take away our jobs anytime soon?

Pose this question to any Indian working in a company where unions are strong, or to any Indian who has a government job, or to the majority of Indians who work in the unorganized sector—those who drive taxis, trucks pull handcarts, hawk goods on footpaths or are employed as maids—and you will, in all probability, be looked at askance or even dismissed as an uninformed prophet of doom.

The reaction may not be surprising in emerging countries like India, […]

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Brunell: China betting on advanced robots

Don Brunell China has a new industrial strategy which is capturing attention worldwide. It is striving to become an innovation economy using advanced automation, connected robots and artificial intelligence.

China intends to shake the image of just being a nation for low-cost manufacturing. Instead, it wants to be known for producing cutting-edge, reliable and high-quality products — even making robots.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, the Chinese are creating an “industrial internet” which gathers information and uses it across manufacturing networks, including suppliers and customers.Their robots are connected systems with advanced sensors, sophisticated software and actuators (devices which can […]

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans

Labor Day is becoming a time of dismal reflection as automation technology continues its incursion into new places in the jobs economy. For example, self-driving taxis were rolled out for public testing in Singapore and Pittsburgh in August. A robot security guard was sighted in a San Francisco parking lot earlier in the summer. In California, the new $15 minimum wage has pushed fast food restaurants to replace counter workers with ordering kiosks . It was reported a few days ago that Walmart is cutting hundreds of accounting and invoicing jobs , which sounds like a software upgrade or […]

The future of automation and your job

The future of automation and your job

Buy Photo Imagine it’s 2030, and it’s nearing time to eat dinner.

You text a grocery store where your order is taken for a pound of ground beef, a box of Hamburger Helper and maybe some lettuce and tomatoes for a salad. Possibly you want to fancy it up with a bottle of cabernet. The beef was butchered and packaged by a machine. Robots picked and processed the grapes, which where then bottled and shipped to a market by automation.

A driverless car, or possibly a drone aircraft, delivers the goods to your front door. You never see a person from […]

The new technology revolution – impact on SL

The new technology revolution - impact on SL

( Continued from yesterday )

By C.R. de Silva,
Retired World Bank Official
Artificial Intelligence (AI) -The Second Machine Age is Here.The Nobel Prize winner in behavioural economics Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, believes that robots will actually replace CEOs, which is well beyond the limits of manual or physical labour. His view is that there is no concrete evidence that expert human cognition does better than intelligently constructed formulas, meaning algorithms conjoined with artificial intelligence(AI) to create good business judgement. So, what is AI ? It is the invention and deployment to actual situations of intelligent or […]