Automation Is Threatening Jobs, Wages
Automation - using machines to replace human workers - could be used to provide everyone with better living standards and more free time, but as implemented today it means people are thrown out of jobs or are pressured to work for less pay / benefits. There are different predictions of how serious the impact will be in the next 20 or so years, but none are really good. Below is a link to an article about the more optimistic view given by the OECD:
AI and robots will destroy fewer jobs than previously feared,
says new OECD report
Synopsis: The new study offers a counterpoint to an influential 2013 paper by Oxford University academics Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, who warned that around 47 percent of jobs in the US were at high risk of being automated. The OECD report says that only 14 percent of jobs in OECD countries — which includes the US, UK, Canada, and Japan — are “highly automatable,” meaning their probability of automation is 70 percent or higher. That is still significant, equating to around 66 million job losses.
Synopsis: The new study offers a counterpoint to an influential 2013 paper by Oxford University academics Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, who warned that around 47 percent of jobs in the US were at high risk of being automated. The OECD report says that only 14 percent of jobs in OECD countries — which includes the US, UK, Canada, and Japan — are “highly automatable,” meaning their probability of automation is 70 percent or higher. That is still significant, equating to around 66 million job losses.
That's the optimistic view presented by a group of the most affluent nations which have a vested interest in claiming the best possible outcome.
Below are links to more articles.
Robot workers will lead to surge in slavery in south-east Asia,
report finds
Annie Kelly - The Guardian - July 12, 2018
In a report launched on Thursday, supply-chain analyst firm predicts that the rise in robot manufacturing will have a knock-on effect that results not only in lost livelihoods but in a spike in slavery and labour abuses in brand supply chains.
Annie Kelly - The Guardian - July 12, 2018
In a report launched on Thursday, supply-chain analyst firm predicts that the rise in robot manufacturing will have a knock-on effect that results not only in lost livelihoods but in a spike in slavery and labour abuses in brand supply chains.
Bank of America’s Workers Prepare for the Bots
Rachel Louise Ensign - The Wall Street Journal - June 19, 2018
Bank of America doesn’t want employees to worry that its new virtual assistant, Erica, will change or eliminate their jobs. It wants them to prepare for that to happen. Erica made its debut this year as one of Bank of America’s highest-profile efforts to use artificial intelligence. Responding either to speech or text commands, Erica helps customers perform basic banking tasks, like locking a missing debit card or finding routing numbers.
Rachel Louise Ensign - The Wall Street Journal - June 19, 2018
Bank of America doesn’t want employees to worry that its new virtual assistant, Erica, will change or eliminate their jobs. It wants them to prepare for that to happen. Erica made its debut this year as one of Bank of America’s highest-profile efforts to use artificial intelligence. Responding either to speech or text commands, Erica helps customers perform basic banking tasks, like locking a missing debit card or finding routing numbers.
Amazon’s Clever Machines Are Moving From the Warehouse to
Headquarters
Spencer Soper - Bloomberg - June 13, 2018
Amazon.com Inc. has long used robots to help humans move merchandise around its warehouses. Now automation is transforming Amazon’s white-collar workforce, too. The people who command six-figure salaries to negotiate multimillion-dollar deals with major brands are being replaced by software that predicts what shoppers want and how much to charge for it. Machines are beating people at the critical inventory decisions that separate the winners and losers in retail. For the staffers deciding how many books, games or plastic pool toys to peddle, the tradeoff can be stark: Order too little and you miss out. Order too much and you’re forced into costly clearance sales. Amazon’s algorithms, refined through years of monitoring customer behavior, are getting the Seattle-based company out of the guessing game.
Spencer Soper - Bloomberg - June 13, 2018
Amazon.com Inc. has long used robots to help humans move merchandise around its warehouses. Now automation is transforming Amazon’s white-collar workforce, too. The people who command six-figure salaries to negotiate multimillion-dollar deals with major brands are being replaced by software that predicts what shoppers want and how much to charge for it. Machines are beating people at the critical inventory decisions that separate the winners and losers in retail. For the staffers deciding how many books, games or plastic pool toys to peddle, the tradeoff can be stark: Order too little and you miss out. Order too much and you’re forced into costly clearance sales. Amazon’s algorithms, refined through years of monitoring customer behavior, are getting the Seattle-based company out of the guessing game.
America is unprepared for the "jobs apocalypse"
automation will bring
MONEYWATCH - June 8, 2018
In coming years, U.S. workers -- especially low skilled, low wage workers -- are set to face a major economic disruption as automation and the robotic revolution are expected to replace millions of jobs once held by humans. But policymakers and businesses are ill-prepared to help workers navigate the transition and adapt the skills needed to survive the "economic tsunami," Axios Editor Steve LeVine reports. "The biggest takeaway is that the future is now," LeVine told CBSN in an interview on Friday. "We're not prepared at all," he said, for the "jobs apocalypse" resulting from automation. Part of the problem is that policymakers are not moving quickly enough to update the education system and provide workers with the skills that will be needed when these bottom-tier jobs are replaced by automation.
MONEYWATCH - June 8, 2018
In coming years, U.S. workers -- especially low skilled, low wage workers -- are set to face a major economic disruption as automation and the robotic revolution are expected to replace millions of jobs once held by humans. But policymakers and businesses are ill-prepared to help workers navigate the transition and adapt the skills needed to survive the "economic tsunami," Axios Editor Steve LeVine reports. "The biggest takeaway is that the future is now," LeVine told CBSN in an interview on Friday. "We're not prepared at all," he said, for the "jobs apocalypse" resulting from automation. Part of the problem is that policymakers are not moving quickly enough to update the education system and provide workers with the skills that will be needed when these bottom-tier jobs are replaced by automation.
A study finds nearly half of jobs are vulnerable to automation
The Economist - April 24, 2018
A wave of automation anxiety has hit the West. Just try typing “Will machines…” into Google. An algorithm offers to complete the sentence with differing degrees of disquiet: “...take my job?”; “...take all jobs?”; “...replace humans?”; “...take over the world?” Job-grabbing robots are no longer science fiction. In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University used—what else?—a machine-learning algorithm to assess how easily 702 different kinds of job in America could be automated. They concluded that fully 47% could be done by machines “over the next decade or two”.
The Economist - April 24, 2018
A wave of automation anxiety has hit the West. Just try typing “Will machines…” into Google. An algorithm offers to complete the sentence with differing degrees of disquiet: “...take my job?”; “...take all jobs?”; “...replace humans?”; “...take over the world?” Job-grabbing robots are no longer science fiction. In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University used—what else?—a machine-learning algorithm to assess how easily 702 different kinds of job in America could be automated. They concluded that fully 47% could be done by machines “over the next decade or two”.
Levi Strauss to replace workers with lasers
Shawn Donnan - Financial Times - February 27, 2018
Levi Strauss is turning to laser-wielding robots to get the worn look and strategic rips that consumers demand in their denim in a move to replace its global army of “finishers” who beat, sand and even bake its jeans into different styles. In what it is billing as the biggest change in more than a decade to a supply chain that turns out 150m pairs of jeans each year, the apparel company has begun deploying a legion of lasers that by 2020 it hopes will replace almost all the humans doing the labour-intensive, and sometimes toxic, finishing work.
Shawn Donnan - Financial Times - February 27, 2018
Levi Strauss is turning to laser-wielding robots to get the worn look and strategic rips that consumers demand in their denim in a move to replace its global army of “finishers” who beat, sand and even bake its jeans into different styles. In what it is billing as the biggest change in more than a decade to a supply chain that turns out 150m pairs of jeans each year, the apparel company has begun deploying a legion of lasers that by 2020 it hopes will replace almost all the humans doing the labour-intensive, and sometimes toxic, finishing work.
The Real Future of Work
Danny Vinik - Politico - January/February 2018
Over the past two decades, the U.S. labor market has undergone a quiet transformation, as companies increasingly forgo full-time employees and fill positions with independent contractors, on-call workers or temps—what economists have called “alternative work arrangements” or the “contingent workforce.” Most Americans still work in traditional jobs, but these new arrangements are growing—and the pace appears to be picking up. From 2005 to 2015, according to the best available estimate, the number of people in alternative work arrangements grew by 9 million and now represents roughly 16 percent of all U.S. workers, while the number of traditional employees declined by 400,000. A perhaps more striking way to put it is that during those 10 years, all net job growth in the American economy has been in contingent jobs.
Danny Vinik - Politico - January/February 2018
Over the past two decades, the U.S. labor market has undergone a quiet transformation, as companies increasingly forgo full-time employees and fill positions with independent contractors, on-call workers or temps—what economists have called “alternative work arrangements” or the “contingent workforce.” Most Americans still work in traditional jobs, but these new arrangements are growing—and the pace appears to be picking up. From 2005 to 2015, according to the best available estimate, the number of people in alternative work arrangements grew by 9 million and now represents roughly 16 percent of all U.S. workers, while the number of traditional employees declined by 400,000. A perhaps more striking way to put it is that during those 10 years, all net job growth in the American economy has been in contingent jobs.
Tech giant is rolling out new robots to replace workers in hotels,
airports and supermarkets
Saheli Roy Choudhury - CNBC.com - January 3, 2018
A Korean tech giant on Thursday announced new robots that take aim squarely at the jobs of many services industry workers around the globe. There have long been predictions that advances in artificial intelligence and automation could end up eliminating millions of jobs over time, and tech companies have been testing robots to carry out a variety of tasks — from working in a pizza parlor to making deliveries that could greatly affect the services industry in the future. For its part, South Korean giant LG Electronics is the latest company that is planning to sell robots to solve tasks currently completed by humans.
Saheli Roy Choudhury - CNBC.com - January 3, 2018
A Korean tech giant on Thursday announced new robots that take aim squarely at the jobs of many services industry workers around the globe. There have long been predictions that advances in artificial intelligence and automation could end up eliminating millions of jobs over time, and tech companies have been testing robots to carry out a variety of tasks — from working in a pizza parlor to making deliveries that could greatly affect the services industry in the future. For its part, South Korean giant LG Electronics is the latest company that is planning to sell robots to solve tasks currently completed by humans.
CEO: Robots won't destroy all the jobs because someone has to
service the robots
Annie Lin - CNBC - November 6, 2017
Each new robot in the workplace can replace roughly six human workers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. And not only is that a possibility, but it's a certainty for some professions. "No doubt that some aspects of automation are going to eliminate certain jobs," said Andrew Anagnost, the CEO of software firm Autodesk. "What we have to focus on is what jobs are going to be created." While automation may not destroy every opportunity for human employment, Anagnost said, the new jobs created are mostly going to be related to building, programming, deploying and maintaining robots.
Annie Lin - CNBC - November 6, 2017
Each new robot in the workplace can replace roughly six human workers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. And not only is that a possibility, but it's a certainty for some professions. "No doubt that some aspects of automation are going to eliminate certain jobs," said Andrew Anagnost, the CEO of software firm Autodesk. "What we have to focus on is what jobs are going to be created." While automation may not destroy every opportunity for human employment, Anagnost said, the new jobs created are mostly going to be related to building, programming, deploying and maintaining robots.
I don't expect automation to eliminate 100% of human jobs. But let's remember: a "Great Depression" can mean 25% unemployment - it doesn't have to be 100%. Also, keep in mind: if there are millions of job openings for brain surgeons, nuclear physicists, computer programmers and rocket scientists, that doesn't mean everyone will be able to have a job.
The definition of a world that can afford to leave people without jobs because machines are doing the necessary work is a world that can afford to provide all people with a comfortable and healthy living. If the machines can't provide that, then employ people to make up the difference. There's no excuse to take away people's jobs and leave them in poverty.
The majority should be able to make this decision.
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