SOCIETY & JOBLESSNESS: ARCHIVE

Toyota’s automation ratio today is no higher than it was 15 years ago, based on the premise that only people can improve their own efficiency or the quality of their work. Toyota consistently generates industry best profit margins, often 8% or more, by focusing on their New Global Architecture in which material usage is improved making the cars lighter and more fuel-efficient, while the manufacturing process is improved.

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The 2017 Randstad Employer Brand Research shows that 76% of US workers do not fear that their job will be replaced by a machine. 51% would be willing to retrain or upskill, in order to work with automation or AI—if their pay isn’t cut. Only 6% of top business leaders say they see automation majorly shifting talent needs at their workplace.

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Why the electric engine (18 parts) will replace the Internal Combustion Engine (2,000+ parts), and the implications for the automobile industry (ICE manufacturers and car dealerships, auto parts, car maintenance, gas stations) and related industries (insurance, highway motels and restaurants), and for society in general, and peak oil demand.

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A new report from The Sutton Trust said that, in addition to replacing 15 million jobs, robotics will widen the gap between the rich and poor in the UK. By hollowing out the middle class, it will be more difficult for individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to move up the social ladder. Other reports argue the validity of automation fully replacing jobs, but fears remain among 74% of business professionals that their job is at risk.

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The CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas argues that globalization is being blamed wrongly for job loss, where the culprit is actually technology-enabled disruption. This error will cause trade negotiations to focus on the wrong set of issues.

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Erik Brynjolfsson is an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of The Second Machine Age, a book that asks what jobs will be left once the software has perfected the art of driving cars, translating speech and other tasks once considered the domain of humans. He believes that, as in the past, new jobs will replace those lost.

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Frey and Osborne’s study estimated that about 47% of U.S. employment is in the high-risk category of being replaced by automation. Gallup analyzed their data, concluding that Millennials are the generation most vulnerable to the threat of AI and automation, as they are disproportionately more likely to hold positions in the high-risk category.

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From Silicon Valley to Davos, pundits have been warning that millions of individuals will be thrown out of work by the rapid advance of automation and artificial intelligence. As economic forecasts go, this idea of a robot apocalypse is certainly chilling. It’s also baffling and misguided. (Need Subscription for details)

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Today’s office workers are confident that they will not be replaced by robots, according to Adobe’s The Future of Work report. In a survey of more than 4,000 office workers from the US, the UK, and Germany, two-thirds of professionals said they think that their job requires human abilities that technologies such as AI will never be able to replace.

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Devin Fidler of the Institute for the Future predicts that as basic automation and machine learning move toward commodities, it’s the uniquely human skills that become valuable. Now developers work on goals farther down the roadmap — they reach milestones faster. They must continue learning new development skills.

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In a CNBC interview, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma shared his thoughts on AI’s risks and opportunities, including 4-hour workdays in a 4-day workweek, and the possibility of World War 3 if the government does not intervene.

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A report from the Indeed Hiring Lab indicates that 51% of millennials looking for work are interested in jobs that carry a risk of automation. The findings indicate the youngest and most educated generation in the American workforce isn’t necessarily more robot-proof than older workers, who tend to be portrayed as the primary victims of automation. The top 5 occupations millennials favored are non-routine jobs, including health-care support roles at hospitals and nursing homes, which are projected to grow 23 percent from 2014 to 2024.

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Bob Reselman researches the impact of automation on jobs. His concern is not that lots of people will be out of work, but how will people spend their time.

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The question of the proper work-life balance has puzzled thinkers from Moses and Marx to Ford and Friedman. How much work is enough? How much is excessive? Who should do it? Can we work on the Sabbath? It is this question of work-life balance that The Greens Party of Australia seeks to answer, with its recent discussion as to the feasibility of a four-day work week or a six-hour day.

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A 2017 White House report concluded that 83% of jobs paying <$20/hour will be lost; 9-47% of jobs are in danger of being lost, especially for the less educated; 2.2-3.1 million driving jobs will be eliminated by self-driving vehicles. Automation has eliminated 4 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, resulting in the U.S. labor force reducing by 10 million, with a labor participation rate now at only 62.7%. There are 95 million American of working age not in the workforce. We will have to rethink the relationship between work and being able to feed ourselves.

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The idea that many of humanity’s greatest achievements were produced by people who worked no more than four hours a day seems counterintuitive but is supported by a towering body of evidence in support of much shorter workdays that produce greater productivity with significant health benefits.

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Technology in transportation, warehousing, and retail may soon cause the loss of many of 27 million US jobs. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and the author provide warnings and possible solutions. Prompt action is essential.

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At the beginning of a 4th Industrial Revolution, developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and biotechnology, etc. are all building on and amplifying one another, laying the foundation for a revolution more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen. Smart systems—homes, factories, farms, grids or cities—will help tackle problems ranging from supply chain management to climate change. The rise of the sharing economy will allow people to monetize everything from their empty production and employment pose major challenges to corporations, governments, and individuals. Concurrent to the technological revolution is a set of broader socio-economic, geopolitical and demographic drivers of change, each interacting in multiple directions and intensifying one another. As entire industries adjust, most occupations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. While some jobs are threatened by redundancy and others grow rapidly, existing jobs are also going through a change in the skill sets required to do them.

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By 2035, we will have almost unlimited energy, food, and clean water; advances in medicine will allow us to live longer and healthier lives; robots will drive our cars, manufacture our goods, and do our chores. But there won’t be much work for human beings. This is a future we need to be aware of – and prepare for.

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