Tag: Technical

Artificial Intelligence as Augmenting Automation: Implications for Employment

There has been great concern in recent years that artificial intelligence (AI) may cause widespread unemployment, but proponents say that AI augments existing jobs. Both of these positions have substance, but there is a need is to articulate the mechanisms by which AI may actually do both, and in the process, transform work and business organizations alike. We use economic studies showing past transformations automation wrought on the structure of employment and skills (such as the favouring of nonroutine skills) to articulate a ground for discussion. We then use case evidence of AI and automation to show how AI […]

“Down But Not Out: Resilience in a Post-COVID World” – Keynote Speech by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, MAS, at Singapore Maritime Lecture, on 2 September 2020

Good afternoon to everyone tuning in from Asia, and good morning to the rest watching from across the globe.

Let me thank the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) for the opportunity to deliver this Singapore Maritime Lecture virtually.

The global economy is facing its worst crisis since the Second World War. The IMF has forecast that the global economy will shrink by 4.9% this year. According to the WTO, global merchandise trade volumes contracted by an estimated 14% in the first half of 2020. And the recovery will not be spectacular – even in its more optimistic scenario, […]

Can Workers Hack It on China’s Automated Factory Lines?

Can Workers Hack It on China’s Automated Factory Lines?

Sociologist Xu Yi Since the launch of the Made in China 2025 initiative five years ago, China’s central government has issued a raft of policies and documents pushing companies to embrace intelligent manufacturing and industrial upgrading. Three decades of rapid development earned China the nickname “ the world’s factory .” Now, faced with an aging population and dwindling pool of migrant labor, officials hope to keep the title via automation.

In theory, this process should create new knowledge-based and technical jobs for an increasingly skilled workforce. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has claimed automation will lead to […]

My Say: The apt use of technology is to create new jobs and not just automate existing ones

My Say: The apt use of technology is to create new jobs and not just automate existing ones

The world is experiencing an unprecedented acceleration in technological advancement and implementation, leading to profound shifts in the workforce. Innovations are penetrating every sector of the economy, making human-performed work increasingly redundant.

The 21st century’s digital revolution has unleashed a new wave of artificially intelligent processes and advanced machines, further automating complex tasks and jeopardising skilled workers in positions once considered difficult to automate. Thus, it is only natural that opponents of digital disruption voice grim apprehension towards such advancements by highlighting massive displacement of jobs and the increased unemployment of low-skilled labour.

However, a proper grasp of the situation requires […]

Leveraging Tech for the Re-Industrializing of America

Leveraging Tech for the Re-Industrializing of America

As far back as the 1980s, there was a great deal of public handwringing over a development that became known as the “hollowing out” of America’s economy. This meant that the country’s manufacturing sector was deteriorating because companies were opting to shift their production to low-wage factories overseas, leaving the nation without robust production capabilities while posing a threat to full employment.

That phenomenon was not unique to the United States. Japan and other developed countries also followed a similar shift of production to emerging countries where labor costs were a fraction of what was being paid at home. After […]

‘Judge, a robot stole my job’ – Spain’s courts take on automation in the workplace

‘Judge, a robot stole my job’ – Spain’s courts take on automation in the workplace

A robot serves a coffee at the 2019 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Cecilia had been working as an accounting officer at a hotel in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria for 13 years when she was fired by her company. The reason for the sacking was the purchase of a new computer system capable of doing all her work and that of her team without stopping even for a break. This is not an isolated case. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), half of all jobs in Spain are at risk of disappearing or of […]

How robotics and automation could create new jobs in the new normal

How robotics and automation could create new jobs in the new normal

Transform 2020

Depending on who you ask, AI and automation will either destroy jobs or create new ones . In reality, a greater push toward automation will probably both kill and create jobs — human workers will become redundant in certain spheres, sure, but many new roles will likely crop up. A report last year from PA Consulting, titled “ People and machines: From hype to reality ,” supports this assertion, predicting that AI and automation will lead to a net gain in job numbers. This is pretty much in line with findings from The Organization for Economic […]

AI won’t replace humans, just like computers didn’t

Experts are confident that artificial intelligence will operate hand in hand with humans in the workplace, not take their jobs.

With everything else that’s been going on in our busy lives, it’s been easy for humans to forget about the oncoming technological storm. As automation creeps into factories, workplaces and homes, artificial intelligence is making itself part of day-to-day life in numerous industries. Already deployed in devices used by three-quarters of global consumers, self-learning machines are observing the way we live, and copying the way we complete tasks.

In many ways, we’re already letting the machines take over…Should we fear this […]

Jobs that might not exist in 50 years

Jobs that might not exist in 50 years

ery, thousands of jobs are unlikely to ever return. Whether that’s because In a 2016 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Steven Greenhouse (labor and workplace reporter for the New York Times from 1995 to 2014) predicted that the rise of automated cars will erase 5 million American jobs. Few are expected to be hit harder than taxi drivers, who face unemployment not only from driverless vehicles, but also from ridesharing apps like Uber. Forbes reported on a study that suggests many cabbies will be forced to join the enemy, and become Uber drivers themselves. As early as 2016, […]

Jobs that might not exist in 50 years

Jobs that might not exist in 50 years

With more than 40 million Americans unemployed amid the coronavirus pandemic, there are thousands of jobs unlikely to ever return. Whether that’s because businesses will ultimately shutter (or permanently reduce staff) or industries will be reinvented, there are myriad unknowns when trying to chart projections for the economic future of the U.S. economy. A paper released in May 2020 by the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago projected that 42% of layoffs caused by the pandemic will be permanent .

In addition to fewer jobs being available in certain sectors, other employment sectors as a whole are at […]