Tag: Technology

Will Artifical Intelligence Mean Massive Job Loss?

This article is from the
September/October 2016 issue. Dear Dr. Dollar:

What’s the story with artificial intelligence and jobs? Will the application of robotics to production really lead to massive unemployment?
—Anonymous, via email In the late 1970s, my early years at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB), the Department of Economics had two secretaries. When I retired, in 2008, the number of faculty members and students in the department had increased, but there was only one secretary. All the faculty members had their own computers, with which they did much of the work that secretaries had […]

A burger-flipping robot? How automation threatens to disrupt the workforce

A burger-flipping robot? How automation threatens to disrupt the workforce

In this Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 photo, a robot places a pizza into an oven at Zume Pizza in Mountain View, Calif. The startup, which began delivery in April, is using intelligent machines to grab a slice of the multi-billion-dollar pizza delivery market. Robots are capable of taking over countless tasks that human workers are paid to perform, and these meddlesome machines are not just out for low-paying jobs — they can replace many of the duties of six-figure income earners.

These revelations are contained in research compiled at San Francisco’s McKinsey Global Institute, which studies emerging economic trends. Its […]

Ben Chu: Why a robot is not going to steal your job

We live not so much in the age of the robots as in the age of worrying about the robots. New books and think pieces proliferate about the threat to the world’s workers from the twin forces of digitisation and automation.

The shadow Chancellor John McDonnell this week has cited new technology as a reason why his party is looking closely at a Universal Basic Income.

The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, last year suggested that 15m British jobs could be automated.Such is the buzz around the subject that one half expects to arrive at the office one morning […]

How one business brought back manufacturing jobs

How one business brought back manufacturing jobs

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A look inside the Zentech manufacturing facility. – If you want to find out how to bring manufacturing jobs back from Asia, one route might be to start with someone who’s done it. Matt Turpin is CEO of Zentech, an electronics manufacturer in Baltimore, Maryland. His company manufactures goods or components for other companies.“We’ve brought back probably four projects in the past two years,” he said. There are “probably 30 people associated with those projects.”How’d he do it? First, “the level of automation has increased dramatically," Turpin said. "What used to take two to three […]

“Basic Income”: A Solution To Unemployment In The Era Of Automation?

“Basic Income”: A Solution To Unemployment In The Era Of Automation?

The online buzz about the concept of “basic income” is getting stronger and stronger, even within just the last two weeks. What is this all about, and how might this impact you in the future?

Well, let’s say that increasing innovations in AI and robotics start putting more and more of the population out of a job. For example, suppose the self-driving vehicle thing really becomes a thing . That’s millions and millions of people out of work, who will have to learn a new skill in order to get employment—seeking employment in the greatly decreased job pool because automation […]

John McDonnell thinks the chance of a robot stealing your job is so high we need a universal basic income – but he’s wrong

John McDonnell thinks the chance of a robot stealing your job is so high we need a universal basic income – but he's wrong

We live not so much in the age of the robots as in the age of worrying about the robots.

New books and think pieces proliferate about the threat to the world’s workers from the twin forces of digitisation and automation. Read more McDonnell pledges £10-an-hour minimum wage and backs universal income Labour’s Chancellor John McDonnell this week has cited new technology as a reason why his party is looking closely at a Universal Basic Income.

The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, last year suggested that 15m British jobs could be automated.Such is the buzz around the subject that […]

Fewer Routine Jobs But More Routine Work

Fewer Routine Jobs But More Routine Work

Martina Bisello In the digital age, there are fewer routine jobs because of a higher risk of automation. But a great paradox of this age is this: workers in most types of jobs, including high-skilled ones, are reporting higher levels of routine at work. This emerges from a new study of the task content of occupations in Europe .

The concept of routine tasks has become prominent in research and policy debates on the future of employment. An influential 2003 MIT paper argued that computerization facilitates the automation of tasks and jobs involving a high degree of routine. Many researchers […]

What to study to prevent robots stealing your job

What to study to prevent robots stealing your job

Up to one-third of our jobs are at risk of computerisation over the next 20 years

Some 44 per cent of companies that reduced their number of employees since the global financial crash in 2008 did so by means of automation. Photograph: Getty Images Beware of the robots – they are on the rise and could be after your job. It might sounds like something from an outlandish sci-fi movie, but the figures are all too real.

A report by McKinsey Global Institute shows that 44 per cent of companies that reduced their number of employees since the global […]

Deckle McLain: Rise of bots can’t be ignored in economy

Deckle McLain: Rise of bots can't be ignored in economy

Zoom Robots and software bots are poised to dominate routine work; thus, steps to keep jobs in the United States may not improve the availability of work as much as hoped, the claims of 2016 presidential contenders notwithstanding. Some experts say bots are now shrinking the total number of jobs for all time. Two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, have concluded that since 2000 productivity has increased while employment has declined, reaching a significant gap by 2011. Nevertheless, sanguine experts believe that after painful adjustments automation will create as many jobs as […]

Why we must embrace digital disruption and ensure no worker is left behind

Why we must embrace digital disruption and ensure no worker is left behind

An industrial robot holds a sports car at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago. The jobs of the future are likely to be in areas where machine thinking and robotics imitate human thought. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images Disruption in the workforce is hardly a new phenomenon. Mechanisation of manufacturing, mass production and the advent of the internet and computers have all changed the way that work is done.

Earlier waves of industrialisation have primarily affected low-skilled manual labour and past improvements in technology have typically made jobs at the lower end of the skills spectrum obsolete – for […]