Tag: Technology

Confusion about job creation is obscuring America’s productivity crisis

Confusion about job creation is obscuring America's productivity crisis

Robots work on a new Volkswagen Crafter production line at the newly opened Volkswagen factory in Wrzesnia near Poznan, Poland, in September. There is perhaps no other topic in economics that is more prone to illogical thinking than job creation. It is a wellspring of hysterical nonsense.

Let’s start with the canard that technology and automation kill jobs. Notwithstanding the fact that US productivity growth rates are at an all-time low, a growing chorus blames technology for killing our jobs. Writing in The New Yorker, NYU professor Gary Marcus alleges that, “as machines continue to get smarter, cheaper, and more […]

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 […]

How Trump’s Victory Will Affect Jobs Vs. Automation Issue?

How Trump’s Victory Will Affect Jobs Vs. Automation Issue?

The election of Donald Trump has gotten more experts talking about the automation’s anticipated effect on the job market.

Jobs Vs. Automation

Computer scientist Moshe Vardi started a debate six months ago about the anticipated effect of automation on the job market, according to Geek Wire . As a no political candidate, the scientist was talking about the potential impact of automated manufacturing and autonomous cars on future employment.Today, the topic became hot, after the election of Trump as the next U.S. president. Rice University’s Vardi said that the debate went practically mainstream from being just somewhat esoteric. In […]

A New Film Urges Americans to Start SERIOUSLY Worrying About Unemployment (Video)

A New Film Urges Americans to Start SERIOUSLY Worrying About Unemployment (Video)

0

Robots, immigrants, and low-wage workers in other countries have all been scapegoated as potential threats to America’s employment. And sometimes for good reason. Automation and artificial intelligence have already taken away thousands of jobs from U.S. employees of the human kind – in factories, on computers, and even at Uber . Though happening at a rate blown far out of proportion (by the likes of President-Elect Donald Trump and others), there are immigrants who come to the United States willing to take low-paying jobs at even lower pay than their American counterparts, effectively decreasing the amount of Americans in […]

Welcome to the future of work

Welcome to the future of work

Brooks Rainwater is the director of the Center for City Solutions and Applied Research at the National League of Cities .

How to join the network

Nicole DuPuis is the senior associate for infrastructure at the Center for City Solutions and Applied Research at the National League of Cities How to join the network With advances in information technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence developing at a rapid rate, workforce dislocations are happening now and are here to stay. As existing trends accelerate and irreversibly change the workforce as we know it, the question to be answered is–what will […]

Divide and Automate

Divide and Automate

Illustration by Lydia Wojack-West

As a species, we are poised at the brink of a transformation unlike any before.

The ancestor of this coming metamorphosis was not political or philosophical in nature; it did not emerge from the ashes of the American Revolution or the Bolshevik’s, nor did it germinate from the teachings of Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad. The predecessor to the singularity we so boldly march toward was something far more primordial, far more tangible. It was industrial.The last three industrial revolutions transformed the fabric of human civilization: The first, borne of steam and coal, powered newly invented […]

Mexico taking US factory jobs? Blame robots instead

Mexico taking US factory jobs? Blame robots instead

1 of 2 A worker loads spools of thread Oct. 21 at the Repreve Bottle Processing Center, part of the Unifi textile company in Yadkinville. America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to an inflation-adjusted $1.91 trillion last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. That’s a notch below the record set on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007, and it makes U.S. manufacturers No. 2 in the world behind China.

WASHINGTON […]

Donald Trump’s victory brings the jobs vs. automation issue into the spotlight

Donald Trump’s victory brings the jobs vs. automation issue into the spotlight

Robots work on Ford F-150 trucks at a factory in Norfolk, Va. The plant was closed in 2007. (Ford Photo) Six months ago, computer scientist Moshe Vardi felt as if he was a voice crying in the wilderness when it came to automation’s anticipated effect on the job market . No political candidate, it seemed, was talking about the potential impact of autonomous cars and automated manufacturing on future employment.

Today, the topic still isn’t quite on President-elect Donald Trump’s radar screen. But his election has gotten a lot more experts talking about the issue.

“It went from being somewhat esoteric […]

Some jobs are going but it’s automation, not free trade, that’s the problem

Some jobs are going but it’s automation, not free trade, that’s the problem

There has been a lot of talk of late – especially fired up due to the US presidential election – over the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is not a new phenomenon, after all Bruce Springsteen was singing in 1984 that “these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back”. And while the blame is easily laid at the feet of trade, figures from the USA show that the bigger reason is automation – and it will not be limited to manufacturing.

One of the problems with Trump’s narrative that free-trade agreements have been the major cause of job […]

Still optimistic about the future of jobs in a bot driven world

Still optimistic about the future of jobs in a bot driven world

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my optimistic discussion about the future of jobs in a bot driven world published earlier this month.

The quality of thinking and the passion of this readership is encouraging. In this article, I’d like to address some of the many thoughtful comments that were left. Before doing so, it’s important to draw attention to some of the underpinnings of my thinking which you can find here and here . They provide both a historical and economic context as to why I am optimistic, despite the many dire predictions that have, in my view, raised […]