Tag: Technical

Rise of the robots

We need urgent and concerted intervention if we are to shape emerging technology to prevent it determining our future in an inimical way, writes JOHN GREEN

WHILE Marx and Engels predicted that the proletariat would be the gravediggers of capitalism, the left-wing German economist Wolfgang Streek says that today capitalism has become its own gravedigger.

He quotes Gramsci: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”And, boy, are we experiencing the morbid symptoms.The most recent technological changes that are shaking our […]

Automation Won’t Create New Jobs Like Technology Did In The Past

Automation Won't Create New Jobs Like Technology Did In The Past

(Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Westfield) “Increased productivity leads to more wealth, cheaper goods, greater spending power and ultimately, more jobs ,” said the Wall Street Journal in the latest entry in the counterpoint to articles declaring the end of work.

This essentially is the problem with calls to put aside worry about automation. They sit on an assumption that, somehow, something will come along to save the day, even though no one has the slightest idea of what it might be. Call it the Magical Job Savior, the inexorable and unstoppable unforeseen something that increases the number of jobs even as technology eliminates them but somehow enables the rescue.

Full Post at www.forbes.com

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

Part 3 of a series. To those who have, more shall be given. Cities get more investment. From those who have little, more shall be taken. Small towns are finding that they are excluded from the excitement happening everywhere else and little investment goes their way.

The idea of capitalism – that goods should bear market prices, that justly acquired property is yours, and exchange between willing participants be free of encumbrances – is everywhere under threat.

There is, however, little policy difference between the extreme-left and extreme-right populist response. Both demand a remarkably statist approach to government, and both are […]

The answer to America’s working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

The answer to America's working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

View Caption Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File

Malden, Mass. — Antonio Blanc, a senior at Malden High School, knows the risk of being left behind.

He’s struggled to keep up at school, distracted by family instability and the part-time kitchen jobs he needs to pay the bills now he’s living alone. His plan after graduation is to enroll in a technical college and get a certificate in precision machinery.“I want to learn a skill, something I can do when I’m done with school,” he says.For students like Mr. Blanc, that step of education beyond high school holds the […]

Cobotisation – the solution to Industry 4.0 in Singapore

Traditionally, robots sit in the factory within a finite space and with fixed rules, a safe distance away from its human operators. Today, the capabilities of robots have grown and humans and robots can almost work hand in hand. This may have resulted in the fear of robots for taking over jobs or the loss of the "human touch".

Against the backdrop of the tightening labour market and rising manpower costs, adopting robotic technology could potentially boost productivity, in addition to strengthening competitiveness and generating growth, whilst retaining staff employment. Studies have shown that robotics and automation have made a […]

This Is The Hidden Challenge In The Future Of Work

This Is The Hidden Challenge In The Future Of Work

[Photo: Rawpixel/iStock] On the heels of a mostly positive jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (4.6% unemployment is the lowest it’s been in nine years), the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released a more sobering snapshot of the world of work.

A briefing by MGI director James Manyika, compiled from the company’s extensive research, took a deeper dive into employment numbers. He writes: In the United States and the 15 core European Union countries (E.U.-15), there are 285 million adults who are not in the labor force—and at least 100 million of them would like to work more. […]

Forget Robots—People Skills Are the Future of American Jobs

Forget Robots—People Skills Are the Future of American Jobs

You might call it pink-collar work. Experts call it the future of the labor market.

Automation may be gutting American manufacturing jobs, but there’s one thing the robots still can’t beat us at: people skills.

It just so happens that the future of American labor will require a lot of them.The occupations projected to add the most jobs in the next 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , all require people skills—like home health aides, registered nurses, and retail and service workers.Yet the jobs the president-elect has focused on reviving—mostly in manufacturing, dominated by men—are the ones most […]

Jobs For All

Jobs For All

Line for unemployment benefits in San Francisco, CA in 1938. Dorothea Lange / Library of Congress The new issue of Jacobin is out now. To mark its release, we’re offering discounted introductory subscriptions . ull Employment . . . has become an aim of Conservative policy and the strongest argument against socialist critics.” That’s famed economist Joan Robinson, in 1962 trolling to her left and her right. British unemployment had been below 2 percent for most of the period since the war, without runaway inflation. Keynes had solved the problem of unemployment, converted the Conservatives, and stolen the communists’ […]

Steve Rattner: US Manufacturing Jobs, Wages, Declining

The Obama administration is downplaying President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence had brokered a deal to save as many as 1,000 jobs at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory, but economic analyst Steve Rattner said Thursday thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past year.

Further, Rattner told MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" panel, Trump and other officials are not addressing the issue of continually declining wages.

"We created in this country 1.8 million jobs so far this year," Rattner told the panel, asking how many of those jobs were in manufacturing.His fellow panelists threw out several positive figures, […]

Automation, Jobs And The New Techno-Pessimism

Automation, Jobs And The New Techno-Pessimism

A strange vision is gaining traction in the developed world: a vision of a future economy so dramatically changed by technology that it is beyond recognition. This is not the apocalyptic prophecy of a real-world Skynet, turning computerised gadgets and artificial intelligence systems against the human population, but a growing fear of automation replacing people in an increasingly robotised world of work.

While it is plain to see how machines have improved humanity’s lot in the past despite putting their overlords out of work, some argue that this time, it is different. No doubt, sophisticated IT and AI are likely […]