Miscellaneous

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/H95VPDsfLjo

No job is safe from technology, with Andrew McAfee (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?7126)

Published on Feb 5, 2015


Automation is a major threat to the median American worker who specializes in what is called "routine knowledge work." Andrew McAfee of the MIT Sloan School of Management explains that this is the sweet spot where technology is making its greatest inroads. Jobs like tax preparation, which often requires a mastery of formulas and policy, are becoming easier and easier to automate. At the same time, there are quite a few high-skill professions that are also feeling this sort of pressure. Computer programs can more accurately discover a smoking gun hidden within hundreds of pages of court documents.

[Airicist]

Article "Robots are leaving the factory floor and heading for your desk – and your job (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/09/robots-manual-jobs-now-people-skills-take-over-your-job)"
Will robots cause unemployment or create new types of jobs and increased leisure time for humans? Expert opinion is divided…

by Zoe Corbyn
February 9, 2015

[Airicist]

Book "Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?527)"

by Federico Pistono, 2014

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/PmfvSfgOGew

Will Robots Take Our Jobs?

Published on May 13, 2015


Thanks to automation and robotics technology, we’ve already replaced a great deal of human labor with faster and cheaper alternatives. And the trend is only accelerating. So is YOUR job at risk? An increase in robotics could mean the creation of new jobs, but will it be enough to outweigh those we eliminate?

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/-naGYaiAlFA

Will your job get outsourced to a robot?

Published on May 20, 2015


It's not just basic tasks anymore: Computers can now do work once deemed possible only by humans. And in some cases, the computers are doing it better. In an economy driven increasingly by intelligent automation, which jobs will survive? Hari Sreenivasan reports.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/DKsrNKIEMBE

Martin Ford on Singularity 1on1: Technological Unemployment is an Issue We Need To Discus

Published on Jun 13, 2015


singularityweblog.com/martin-ford-on-technological-unemployment (https://www.singularityweblog.com/martin-ford-on-technological-unemployment)

Technological unemployment is an issue that I have mentioned a few times during my past interviews. In fact, I would go as far as saying that it is at the bottom of the top 5 biggest problems humanity faces today. So while it may not be the very biggest issue we face right now, it definitely is a huge challenge that, if not resolved, has the potential to impact negatively on a variety of other ones – from global warming to economic growth and social stability. And so today’s interview is devoted exclusively on technological unemployment and I am very happy to discuss it with Martin Ford, who has written two best-selling books on the topic: Lights in the Tunnel and Rise of the Robots.

During our 70 min conversation with Martin Ford we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: Martin’s background as a small software entrepreneur in Silicon Valley; his interest in technological unemployment and whether it is ok that Robot’s Will Steal Your Job; why this time automation is fundamentally different from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; whether education and hard work are enough for success; the dangers and possible implications of high technological unemployment; the proposal for Guaranteed Minimum Income; the incentives to work, capitalism and the need for systemic change…

[Airicist]

Article "Estimating the impact of robots on productivity and employment (https://robohub.org/estimating-the-impact-of-robots-on-productivity-and-employment)"

by Georg Graetz, Guy Michaels
July 14, 2015

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/ULYRb80iLM0

Top 10 jobs most likely to be replaced by robots

Published on Oct 4, 2015

[Airicist]

Article "What happens if robots take the jobs? The impact of emerging technologies on employment and public policy (https://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/10/26-robots-emerging-technologies-public-policy-west)"

by Darrell M. West
October 26, 2015

[Airicist]

Article "Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’ (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/07/artificial-intelligence-homo-sapiens-split-handful-gods)"
A new report suggests that the marriage of AI and robotics could replace so many jobs that the era of mass employment could come to an end

by Charles Arthur
November 7, 2015

[Airicist]

Article "Stand by for the next generation of financial advice … from a robot (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/nov/08/financial-advice-robot-automated-treasury-fca-service)"
The Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority are assessing the benefits of an automated service which could provide help for smaller investors

by Melanie Wright
November 8, 2015

[Airicist]

Article "The Bank of England has a chart that shows whether a robot will take your job (https://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-england-chart-on-robots-taking-jobs-2015-11)"

by Jim Edwards
November 13, 2015

[Airicist]

Article "Global economic turmoil to dominate Davos discussions (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/17/global-economic-turmoil-dominate-davos)"
Business leaders and policymakers at the World Economic Forum will focus on Chinese downturn, a commodities rout and stock market turmoil

by Katie Allen
January 17, 2016

Article "Women to lose out in technology revolution as robotics threatens jobs, warns WEF (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/women-to-lose-out-in-jobs-revolution-wef-warns)"
Survey on future of working life predicts white collar and administrative roles to see the greatest job losses

by Jill Treanor
January 18, 2016

Article "Robots, new working ways to cost five million jobs by 2020, Davos study says (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-employment-idUSKCN0UW0NV)"

by Ben Hirschler
January 18, 2016

[Airicist]

Article "The Automation Paradox (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/automation-paradox/424437)"
When computers start doing the work of people, the need for people often increases.

by James Bessen
January 19, 2016

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/rtSqlfZgnm4

People and Power - The Tech Threat

Published on May 28, 2015


Are advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies leading to fewer jobs and more inequality?

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/Yvs7f4UaKLo

The last job on Earth: imagining a fully automated world

Published on Feb 17, 2016


Machines could take 50% of our jobs in the next 30 years, according to scientists.

"Automation may mean a post-work society but we shouldn't be afraid (https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/17/automation-may-mean-a-post-work-society-but-we-shouldnt-be-afraid)"

by Paul Mason
February 17, 2016

[Airicist]

Article "Mercedes replaces robots with people on its assembly line (https://www.engadget.com/2016/02/25/mercedes-benz-replaces-robots-with-humans)"
Robots can't keep up with all the custom options.

by Billy Steele
February 25, 2016

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/aY8_F8I1Y_U

Ross Rants: robot jobs

Published on Mar 22, 2016

[Airicist]

Article "How to benefit from the robotic skill shortage (https://robohub.org/how-to-benefit-from-the-robotic-skill-shortage)"

by Alex Owen-Hill, Robotiq Inc.
April 22, 2016

[Airicist]

Article "Artificial intelligence will create a ‘useless class’ of humans as machines take over, historian warns (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3601514/Artificial-intelligence-create-useless-class-humans-machines-historian-warns.html)"
AI capabilities may turn humans into ‘eternally useless' beings author says
As AI takes jobs, and humans will lose their economic and political value
This will lead humans to lose sense of meaning, and turn to drugs and VR

by Cheyenne Macdonald
May 20, 2016

[Airicist]

Article "De-automation is a thing (https://robohub.org/de-automation-is-a-thing)"

by Alan Winfield
December 29, 2016

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/ezSEauxQhcs

Bill Nye: Will Robots Take Everyone's Job?

Published on Apr 18, 2017


There are two schools of thought about job automation: one rejects the idea as robots "stealing" human jobs, while the other cannot wait to put its feet up and tuck into some Proust — finally, free time for all those 3,000-page beasts of literature! The reality, as usual, is somewhere in between. An increasing number of professions will become automated, but Bill Nye believes there will always be a place for human ingenuity. We started building complex machines centuries ago because there are things we would rather be doing — like building new machines, refining mathematics, continuing our education, or exploring the universe. There are some jobs it would be better for robots to have: industrial welding, driving trains, packing warehouse orders, admin — why not make our lives less strenuous? "We want to automate the world to the extent that is comfortable, but no more," Nye says. Job automation is scary in the way that large-scale change usually is, but Nye thinks it will be a positive inflection point for humanity, enriching our existence with more debate, art, invention, sport, and discovery. Bill Nye's most recent book is Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.

Transcript: Hey Bill. My name’s Ian and I’m a computer science student. So the fields of machine learning and robotics have been making technological advances and replacing human labor at a blinding speed. And at this point it seems almost inevitable that virtually all jobs are going to be automated in the future. So my question is this: When and if machines replace our jobs, what should we spend our lives accomplishing instead? Is there some greater goal that we should aim toward? Thank you so much.

Bill Nye: Machines are going to replace every job? What about this job right here man?! What about that, I’m thinking! What about that man?

So I think there will still be a great many jobs that require human involvement. After all, why have humans build machines if there isn’t something humans want to do? Like play baseball or argue about what machines are going to do.

So I claim that there’s a lot of jobs that we would all prefer machines do. I don’t know if you’ve ever made pancake batter mixing it by hand; It’s okay. Cake batter, mixing it by hand; It’s okay. But it’s easier to do it with an electric mixer.

I don’t know if you’ve gotten up every morning and adjusted the thermostat in your apartment or house, and then when you leave for work or school you turn it back down. And then when you come home you turn it back up, and then right before you go to bed you turn it back down. I don’t know if you’ve done all that, but automating that seems to me cool and nice.

I don’t know how much welding you’ve done of auto bodies. It’s a cool skill to develop but it’s not one that really we all are going to need in the future.

My grandfather went into World War I on a horse. He was apparently a skilled enough horseback rider to live through it. It’s not a skill that most – I grew up driving a stick shift in a car. I can drive a stick shift. It’s not a skill you need anymore. I mean very seldom.

So it’s okay man! As jobs become automated humans will go do what humans want to do: Come up with new machines, come up with new ideas, new techniques in mathematics that will simplify things even more. Make discoveries of life on another world.

And what I still love about movies and television and computer videos: it’s still handmade. I so love that. The lights are put in by hand. We make these decisions about what questions to take from you by hand (or by brain). And I still love that.

So yes, we want to automate the world to the extent that is comfortable, but no more. We can do this man! It’s going to be great.

You go to the airport. You get on the train between terminals you trust that it’s going to drive you from one place to another without crashing because engineers have been very diligent setting it up. The train figures how much people weigh and their luggage, provides the right amount of electricity to accelerate and decelerate the train and we trust that. That’s good. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to want to travel. It’s good.

That’s a good question though. Carry on man.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/MMIsbl3DIL8

The future of your job in the age of AI

Published on May 22, 2017


Robot co-workers and artificial intelligence assistants are becoming more common in the workplace. Could they edge human employees out? What then?

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/8yWLDLG_xW8

Using AI to create new jobs - Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media, Inc.)

Published on May 26, 2017


The history of technology shows that while new technology has always destroyed jobs, it has also created new ones, in part because it makes things that were previously too expensive cheap enough to expand demand. AI will make currently unthinkable things possible. If we put it to work properly, it can lead to prosperity; if we put it to work destroying jobs, that is our failure of imagination. Tim O’Reilly delves into the history of some past technological transitions, speculates on the future possibilities of this one, and shares some thoughts about what is keeping us from making the right choices to govern our creations.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/S3Wg413uMi4

One type of job that AI, robots, and machines can't actually automate | Andrew McAfee

Published on Aug 28, 2017


Artificial intelligence is coming. And it's coming for our jobs (really). Truck drivers. Construction workers. Doctors. Even 39% of the legal aid workforce is set to be AI by 2020, according to Forbes. But there's a certain sector... and more importantly a certain skill... that robots and AI can never learn: how to inspire. Andrew McAfee uses the example of a girl's soccer team, positing that it will take robots a truly staggering amount of computing power for AI to even understand what rivalry is, let alone the intricacies of interpersonal communication required to lead a team to do their best work. It's a great watch, so click play and sit back.

Andrew McAfee's latest book is Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future.

Transcript: My coauthor Erik Brynjolfsson and I are both at MIT, and we have a colleague at MIT who said something that really helps me understand some of the last human work that I think is ever going to be automated by even really sophisticated technology.
Our colleagues name is Deb Roy. He's at the media lab. And he points out that we humans are incredibly deeply social creatures, we're just a social species. And you say okay so what? So are ants, so are honeybees, so are chimpanzees.

Deb's point is that the nature of human social interaction involves some really deeply rooted social drives that don't appear to be present in any other animal. We came across a great quote when we were writing Machine Platform Crowd from a sociologist or a primatologist who said, “Look, you will never, ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log." That notion of cooperation is absent from even our closest nonhuman relatives.

So that gives me a whole new way to think about the kind of work that's most innately deeply human, it's the work that taps into our social drives. And those drives are both positive—there’s solidarity and pride and compassion for other human beings—and they're negative—they can be envy, they can be shame, they can be jealousy, they can be antipathy towards some kind of other group out there—but we have these drives they are very, very deep, they're very strong and they're kind of hard to fool with technology.

So there are a lot of jobs out there that tap into, that makes use of, that try to harness those social drives. And one of my favorite examples of a job that we don't think of as this incredibly elite job or this incredibly prestigious job but a job that is very unlikely, I believe, to be replaced by technology anytime soon is just a girl's soccer coach.

And that girl's soccer coach may or may not be a strategic genius about the game of soccer, but what that person can do, if they're any good at their job, they can motivate a group of girls to come together to overcome rivalries and jealousies and different kinds of pettiness and play together as a team. They can teach the value of some of those social drives like solidarity. They can help some girls who are natural leaders but might be going through a difficult period in their lives get past that and assume the roles that they're going to be good at. They can just deal in this incredibly rich mix of social things that are going on.

Let's say we could build a computer that could figure out all the different social things that are happening among a group of twenty-five 12-year-old girls. I think that computer is actually a long way off, but let's say we can even build that computer. Would that computer, would that robot be able to motivate those girls, draw them together, tease out what each is really good at, get them to overcome fatigue and self-doubt and all these things, realize if they were having problems in the rest of their lives and how to help them through that? Again, one thing I've learned with technology is “Never say never.” That automatic soccer coach feels like it's a long, long, long way away from me.

So if I take that example and I project it out there are a lot of people who do some work that feels a lot like that and those are teachers, those are managers, those are folk who might be taking care of our more vulnerable populations and I think about the very young, the sick, the elderly, the infirm.

There are a lot of those vulnerable people out there, and because of the richness of our social lives and our social drives I just don't see anyone, even really great innovators, coming up with technologies that could just substitute for the people who are currently doing those very, very social jobs.

[Airicist]

Article "Robots won’t steal our jobs if we put workers at center of AI revolution (https://theconversation.com/robots-wont-steal-our-jobs-if-we-put-workers-at-center-of-ai-revolution-82474)"

by Thomas Kochan, Lee Dyer
August 30, 2017

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/4T2zY4S9-PQ

Will AI result in mass unemployment or a new middle class?

Published on Sep 10, 2017


We've heard it before: Artificial Intelligence is coming to take our jobs. But is it really their fault, or the company that can't figure out how to create new ones?

Luis Perez-Breva: A lot of people are scared about AI. And the reason is I think we’ve seen too many Terminator movies. So we’re mixing many things up. So it is true Terminator is not the scenario we are planning for. But when it comes to artificial intelligence people get all these things confused. It’s robots, it’s awareness, it’s people smarter than us to some degree. So we’re effectively afraid of robots that will move and are stronger and smarter than we are, like Terminator. So that’s not our aspiration. That’s not what I do when I’m thinking about artificial intelligence. When I’m thinking about artificial intelligence I’m thinking about it in the same way that mass manufacturing has brought by forth created a whole new economy. So mass manufacturing allowed people to get new jobs that were unthinkable before. And those new jobs actually created the middle class. To me artificial intelligence is about developing... making computers better partners, effectively. And you’re already seeing that today. You’re already doing it except that it’s not really artificial intelligence. Today whenever you want to engage in a project you go to Google. Google uses advanced machine learning, really advanced.

And you engage in a very narrow conversation with Google except that your conversation is just key words. So a lot of your time is spent trying to come up with the actual key word that you need to find the information and Google gives you the information. And then you go out and try to make sense of it on your own and come back to Google for more. And then go back out and that’s the way it works. So imagine that instead of being a narrow conversations with key words you could actually engage for more and actual information meaning to have the computer reason with you about stuff that you may not know about. It’s not so much about the computer being aware. It’s the computer being a better tool to partner with you. Then you would be able to go much further. The same way that Google allows you to go much further already today because before through the exact same process you would have had to go to a library every time you wanted to search for information. So what I’m looking for when I do AI is I want the machine that partners with me to help me set up or solve real world problems thinking about them in ways we have never thought about before. But it’s a partnership. And you can take this partnership in so many different directions through additions to your brain like Elon Musk proposes or through better search engines or through a robotic machine that helps you out. But it’s not so much they’re going to replace you for that purpose. That is not the real purpose of AI. The real purpose is for us to reach further the same way that we were able to reach further when Ford invented automation or when Ford brought automation to mass market.

People fear that automation might actually remove jobs. And what I want to stress is that that’s not artificial intelligence. Automation is something we’ve been doing for ages, all of us. You do it at your home. You do it with the way you set up your own schedules. You do it for many, many things. In some cases it involves computers, in some cases it doesn’t. Now the purpose of automation is to free time so that we can reach further. So when a company starts using automation and it erases certain jobs but doesn’t figure out how to create new ones then they’re mostly just looking at cost savings. They’re not looking really at expanding their own market. And that turns out to be a lack of imagination. So with the free time and the expertise that was left free now because of the automation they should be able to build and reach further. If they don’t it has little to do with the actual machine which is somewhat dumb. It has more to do with lack of imagination on the part of whomever. But certainly not the worker, right.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/fIt-t2YHuL4

Why is the Artificial Intelligence revolution happening now?

Published on Nov 7, 2017


Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Kai-Fu Lee, Chairman and CEO, Sinovation Ventures, and President, Sinovation Ventures Artificial Intelligence Institute

James Manyika, Chairman and Director, McKinsey Global Institute, and Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company

Mona Vernon, CTO, Thomson Reuters Labs

Recorded: November 1st, 2017

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/roemLDPy_Ww

Mind vs Machine: Implications for productivity, wages and employment from AI

Published on Nov 20, 2017


Moderator: Daron Acemoglu, Professor, MIT Department of Economics

Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Robert Gordon, Professor of Social Sciences, Northwestern University

Joel Mokyr, Professor, Northwestern University

Recorded: Nov 2nd, 2017.

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/MtfIU6lpmUg

Bill Gates thinks robots taking human's jobs is great

Published on Feb 3, 2018


Billionaire Bill Gates doesn't think AI taking people's jobs is a bad thing. Kim & John Iadarola break it down. Give us your thoughts in the comments below!

"Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, thinks that artificial intelligence will take over a lot of jobs and ultimately will be a good thing.
In an interview with Fox Business, Gates said that robots taking over our jobs will make us more efficient, and lead to more free time.
“Well, certainly we can look forward to the idea that vacations will be longer at some point," Gates told Fox Business. "If we can actually produce twice as much as we make today with less labor, the purpose of humanity is not just to sit behind a counter and sell things, you know?"

Gates is arguing that AI, the technology that some fear is already stripping jobs from primarily low-wage workers, is just allowing us to better manage our time. In a way, he's right. If artificial intelligence allows us to get in our cars and reply to emails on our way to work, it would definitely save time."

[Airicist]

Article "Life in 2028: how advances in AI could change our lives for the better - and worse (https://www.thenational.ae/uae/life-in-2028-how-advances-in-ai-could-change-our-lives-for-the-better-and-worse-1.719380)"
The National's Jonathan Gornall looks at how life as we know it could be dramatically different in just a few years

by Jonathan Gornall
April 7, 2018

[Airicist]

https://youtu.be/Jx2pabnXoZg

Prof. Aaron Benanav on Automation, Technological Unemployment and UBI (https://www.singularityweblog.com/aaron-benanav)

May 31, 2020


Prof. Aaron Benanav (https://www.aaronbenanav.com) has devoted his life to studying unemployment. Given that automation, technological unemployment, and universal basic income have become hot political and economic issues across the world, it was about time to have a podcast episode exclusively on those topics. I hope you enjoy it and learn as much from Aaron as I did.

During this near 2-hour-long interview with Aaron Benanav, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he is a historian of unemployment; the biggest issues humanity is facing today; why we should all care about unemployment and the problems of defining and measuring it; the relationship between automation, jobs, productivity, and output; why the term technological unemployment is inaccurate and misleading; productivity growth, job churning, labor demand and economic growth; the capitalist incentive to replace rather than to enhance and empower; technological unemployment and universal basic income [UBI] from the left and the right; oversupply of capital, undersupply of investment opportunities and secular stagnation; John Maynard Keynes and the Economic Possibilities of Our Grand Children; modern monetary policy, post-scarcity, and capitalism.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Aaron Benanav is:

Don’t fear technological unemployment but long term tendency for stagnation.

[Airicist2]

Article "AI Will Destroy Jobs. So What Are We Going to Do About It? (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-will-destroy-jobs-so-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it)"
We need a contingency plan for how to handle this societal change—now.

by Ben Parr (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?t=24714)
May 16, 2023

[Airicist2]

Article "ChatGPT provided better customer service than his staff. He fired them. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/03/ai-customer-service-jobs)"
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the world of customer service and call centers. Developing economies worry they’ll face the brunt.

by Pranshu Verma (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranshuverma)
October 3, 2023

[Airicist2]

"Gen-AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work (https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2024/01/14/Gen-AI-Artificial-Intelligence-and-the-Future-of-Work-542379?cid=bl-com-SDNEA2024001)"

by Mauro Cazzaniga ; Florence Jaumotte ; Longji Li ; Giovanni Melina ; Augustus J Panton ; Carlo Pizzinelli ; Emma J Rockall ; Marina Mendes Tavares
January 14, 2024

[Airicist2]

Article "DeepMind's cofounder Mustafa Suleyman warns that AI is a 'fundamentally labor-replacing' tool (https://www.businessinsider.com/deepmind-mustafa-suleyman-warns-ai-is-a-labor-replacing-tool-2024-1)"

by Sawdah Bhaimiya (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawdah-bhaimiya-)
January 18, 2024

[Airicist2]

Article "Will AI Take Your Job? Maybe Not Just Yet, One Study Says (https://time.com/6565026/ai-job-replacement-mit-study)"

by Billy Perrigo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-perrigo-8962a96b)
January 22, 2024