Tag: software

Billionaire Jack Ma, booster of 12-hour days, now says AI will allow 12-hour weeks

Billionaire Jack Ma, booster of 12-hour days, now says AI will allow 12-hour weeks

Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, has vigorously endorsed China’s grueling "996" culture, or working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. But now he has an even bolder vision for the future of work thanks to artificial intelligence: the 12-hour workweek.

In the future, people may end up working only three days a week, with only four hours of work per day, Ma said at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. In Ma’s view, the development of AI could free humanity to partake in activities […]

How I learned to stop worrying and love automation

How I learned to stop worrying and love automation

PHOTO © ZAPP2PHOTO | ADOBE STOCK U.S. manufacturing seemingly isn’t in a good position. According to data published by The U.S. Federal Reserve, factory production slumped through most of 2019’s first half, recovering slightly in May and June. Reports by the Institute for Supply Management echoed a similar sentiment, stating that U.S. factories had declined in multiple areas, including employment, orders, production, and deliveries.

The prevailing narrative of the media is that nothing can stop the ongoing decline of manufacturing. However, the industry’s savior may lie in one of its supposed antagonists – automation .

America has an unusual relationship with […]

How to Choose a Job That Won’t Be Replaced By Robots

How to Choose a Job That Won't Be Replaced By Robots

Indypendenz/Shutterstock Both blue- and white-collar routine jobs are at risk of displacement by robots, while nonroutine, abstract occupations are more difficult to automate – for now.

Jobs involving creativity and emotional intelligence are the least likely to be replaced by automation.

Lifelong re-education may be the surest way to professional survival. If the idea of a C-3PO-like robot occupying your current job, whether that’s teaching a class of kindergarteners or auditing taxes, sounds far-fetched 10 years from now, you’re not wrong. However, experts caution that 25% of U.S. jobs are at "high risk" of automation (with another 36% at […]

How Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Transform the Engineers’ Jobs

How Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Transform the Engineers' Jobs

Smart factory ipopba/iStock An engineer checking and controlling welding robotics automatic arms machines in an intelligent industrial automotive factory using a monitoring system software used to belong to the science fiction realm.

However, this is the reality of d igital manufacturing operations in today’s Industry 4.0 smart factories. Industry 4.0 is a concept that originated in Germany and is related to the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology with networking and analytics with industry processes.

Another ingredient in Industry 4.0 is Artificial Intelligence , one of the fastest growing emerging technologies with a market expected to reach […]

The robots are here, but creativity can fend them off

The robots are here, but creativity can fend them off

There’s no doubt data and artificial intelligence are changing the face of employment. According to a recent study, 45% of American jobs are at risk of being automated within 20 years.

For evidence, look no further than the autonomous vehicle — a technology we already see on our roads. Is it implausible to imagine a world without taxi and ride-sharing drivers, truck and delivery drivers, or ship and airline captains?

Few debate the impact that analytics, machine learning and related technologies will have on nearly every facet of our economy and, as a result, the way we work. Many argue the […]

Labour pains: our rapidly changing workplace

Labour pains: our rapidly changing workplace

While Australian manufacturing never fully recovered from that tumult, the US, at least, had Apple and Microsoft leading the charge as its manufacturing base atrophied, with “Silicon Valley” now a byword for the digital economy. Australia continued, largely, to live off the back of a mining boom driven by China’s historic economic expansion, while investment in innovation lagged, and today is half that of countries like the US and Germany.

We hear a lot about the jobs of the future, usually from American media outlets gushing out a range of blue-sky predictions. What’s the next big thing? What will […]

Thought travel

Thought travel

Let me begin with an excerpt from the latest book of a great thinker in our time, Yuval Noah Harari:

“On December 7, 2017, a critical milestone was reached, not when a computer defeated a human at chess—that’s old news—but when Google’s AlphaZero program defeated the Stockfish 8 program. Stockfish 8 was the world’s computer chess champion for 2016. It had access to centuries of accumulated human experience in chess, as well as decades of computer experience. It was able to calculate seventy million chess positions per second. In contrast, AlphaZero performed only eighty thousand such calculations per second, and […]

Advanced Manufacturing Disrupts the Location Process

Advanced Manufacturing Disrupts the Location Process

Broadly speaking, advanced manufacturing can be defined as the inclusion of new, more efficient manufacturing methods enabled by technological innovation. The adoption of technology-driven automation in manufacturing has been omnipresent since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, but the rapid pace of advancements — especially around robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and 3-D printing/additive manufacturing — is changing the industrial landscape faster than ever before. When the time comes to select a physical location for a new advanced manufacturing facility, these technological shifts are manifesting themselves in an updated approach to location strategy, specifically when it comes to hiring profiles, […]

SEEK boss warns mid-level jobs will disappear

Middle-ranking jobs are the ones disappearing, he said.

"My theory, and I hope I’m wrong, is that once there is a downturn there will be a justification to automate roles rather than re-hire people," Mr Bassat said.

Mr Bassat said he was particularly worried about the kinds of "unoriginal businesses" which dominate the Australian economy, singling out the big banks which are all laying off staff.National Australia Bank has committed to a $1 billion cost-cutting drive, aiming to reduce headcount by 2000 a year for three years, whereas Commonwealth Bank is expected to shed about 4000 roles from asset sales alone, […]

Tech Jobs Are Evolving — Are We Keeping Up?

Tech Jobs Are Evolving -- Are We Keeping Up?

Technology by nature advances quickly. As a transportation industry analyst observed : If a Ford Mustang had evolved as quickly as the pace of computer innovation over the last 35 years, it would now get a reliable 3,666,652 miles per gallon and cost less than $5,000 to acquire. The exponential progression of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advanced analytics means that technologies of the future are now part of our everyday lives . This means we use them at work — and at home — every time we search on Google, use Uber, get on a […]