Driverless cars, pilotless planes … will there be jobs left for a human being? | Technology | The Observer. Suddenly a robotised, automated economic reality is moving off the science fiction pages and into daily life. The growing use of unmanned battlefield drones is encouraging the growth of pilotless commercial aircraft – the first ever flew in British airspace last month. Google's driverless car is completing ever more trials ever more successfully: the world's major car companies are all hot in pursuit, working on their own prototypes of their own versions.
The automated checkouts at supermarkets are becoming as familiar as bank cash machines. From staff-free ticket offices to students who can learn online, it seems there is no corner of economic life in which people are not being replaced by machines. This is the "Great Reset" – a cull of broadly middle-class jobs with middle-class incomes that is apparent across the west, but with little current sign of what industries and activities will replace them.
The omens are all around. Think through the implications of the driverless car. Jobs Are Not the Answer | Allan Sheahen. The current unemployment rate of 7.5 percent means close to 20 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed. Nobody states the obvious truth: that the marketplace has changed and there will never again be enough jobs for everyone who wants one -- no matter who is in the White House or in Congress. Fifty years ago, economists predicted that automation and technology would displace thousands of workers a year. Now we even have robots doing human work. Job losses will only get worse as the 21st century progresses. Global capital will continue to move jobs to places on the planet that have the lowest labor costs. There is no evidence to back up the claim that we can create jobs for everyone who wants one.
"Work" and jobs are not the answer to ending poverty. Job creation is a completely wrong approach because the world doesn't need everyone to have a job in order to produce what is needed for us to live a decent, comfortable life. We need to re-think the whole concept of having a job. The World Is Automating Itself Out of Jobs. What's the Latest Development? A pair of MIT authors scheduled to publish a book extolling the virtues of technological progress have gone back to the drawing board.
Presently, they are concerned that technological innovation is displacing the global labor market. "Unlike with previous technological revolutions, today, it is no longer primarily poorly trained and educated workers in less challenging jobs who are threatened, but also the broad middle range of the workforce, consisting of service providers and white-collar workers. Call-center staff are being replaced by telephone robots, paralegals by computer programs that can more quickly and effectively comb through documents, and tax advisers by more cost-effective software. " What's the Big Idea? The 2000s were the first decade since the Great Depression to end with a net loss in jobs despite the fact that economic prosperity is one-third higher than it was 20 years ago.
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com Read it at Spiegel. Oxford Professors: Robots And Computers Could Take Half Our Jobs Within The Next 20 Years. The Economic Collapse Blog by Michael Snyder What are human workers going to do when super-intelligent robots and computers are better than us at doing everything? That is one of the questions that a new study by Dr. Carl Frey and Dr. Michael Osborne of Oxford University sought to address, and what they concluded was that 47 percent of all U.S. jobs could be automated within the next 20 years. Considering the fact that the percentage of the U.S. population that is employed is already far lower than it was a decade ago, it is frightening to think that tens of millions more jobs could disappear due to technological advances over the next couple of decades.
I have written extensively about how we are already losing millions of jobs to super cheap labor on the other side of the globe. For employers, there are a whole host of advantages that come with replacing human workers with technology. We are already starting to see this happen on a mass scale, and according to Dr. Brace yourself. Nearly Half of U.S. Jobs Could Be Done by Computers, Study Says. Nearly Half of U.S. Jobs Could Be Done by Computers, Study Says If computers become as smart as humans, will they do our jobs better than we can? A recent study [pdf] out of Oxford University found that almost half of U.S. jobs are vulnerable to being taken over by computers as artificial intelligence continues to improve.
The study, based on 702 detailed job listings, found that computers could already replace many workers in transportation and logistics, production labor and administrative support. But computers, armed with the ability to find patterns in big data sets, are also increasingly qualified to perform "non-routine cognitive tasks. " "While computerization has been historically confined to routine tasks involving explicit rule-based activities, algorithms for big data are now rapidly entering domains reliant upon pattern recognition and can readily substitute for labor in a wide range of non-routine cognitive tasks," write study authors Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne. HUMAN ROBOT GETTING CLOSER. A robot that feels, sees and, in particular, thinks and learns like us. It still seems like science fiction, but if it's up to UT researcher Frank van der Velde, it won't be. In his work he wants to implement the cognitive process of the human brain in robots.
The research should lead to the arrival of the latest version of the iCub robot in Twente. This human robot (humanoid) blurs the boundaries between robot and human. Der Velde’s research goes even further. A simple example: a robot that spills too much when pouring a cup of coffee can then learn how it should be done.” Possible first iCub in the Netherlands The arrival of the iCub robot at the University of Twente should signify the next step in this research. The Netherlands is still missing from the list. Robot guide dog “The possibilities are endless, realises Van der Velde. Nano-neural circuits Frank van der Velde. Why robots could soon replace fast food workers demanding higher minimum wage - Blog. A robotic chef from Japan's Motoman prepares a dish. Robots have become increasingly popular replacements for human workers across Asia. (AP image) BY Josh Kerns on July 11, 2013 @ 2:40 pm (Updated: 8:34 am - 7/12/13 ) Listen: Why robots will replace low wage workers If Seattle fast workers demanding a big raise in the minimum wage get their way, they'll soon be replaced by robots says KIRO Radio's John Curley, who points to growing automation as a warning to those who want $15 an hour or more to flip burgers.
A group of local fast food workers recently staged a one-day walkout and are calling on the Seattle City Council to increase the minimum wage from $9.19 per hour - the highest in the country - to $15 an hour. "We're asking for $15 because in order to support one person in a one bedroom apartment you need to make $14.88. But restaurant owners argue they simply can't afford it. A noted Japanese sushi-chain has robots making food while customers order on a touch screen. Tune in. Nearly half of US jobs could be at risk of computerization, Oxford Martin School study shows. Nearly half of U.S. jobs could be susceptible to computerization over the next two decades, a study from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology suggests.
The study, a collaboration between Dr. Carl Benedikt Frey (Oxford Martin School) and Dr. Michael A. Osborne (Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford), found that jobs in transportation, logistics, and office/administrative support are at “high risk” of automation. More surprisingly, occupations within the service industry are also highly susceptible, despite recent job growth in this sector, they say. “We identified several key bottlenecks currently preventing occupations being automated,” says Osborne.
The study examined more than 700 detailed occupation types, noting the types of tasks workers perform and the skills required. “For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.” Low-risk occupations.