Lifeboat Foundation

SoftBank’s humanoid robot had big career plans, including a job at a bank and dancing with the elderly. Ask about Pepper these days, though, and the conversation gets awkward.

Circa 2019

Imagine we go through the disruptive transition between an economy where we need to work to make a living, to one where we don’t. It is hard to imagine because in North America; we haven’t been in this situation since the colonial era. Back in the colonial era, most people were farmers and families had to build their own homes. Neighbors traded with each other and with the closest town with what they had to get what else they needed. Those were difficult days with minimal supply chains established in North America. It is not a period we want to go back to, but we may learn from our forebears to prepare us for what is to come.

It is no surprise, in this age where automation is threatening to replace all employees, that we have concerns about how we can still function as a society when automation will take over most jobs. Fortunately, the same systems that threaten our livelihoods can bring us to a Golden Age of civilization where people live free, happy lives, without the concern for survival. I talk about the future of work in an article I published earlier this year. In a nutshell, and for the purpose of this article, I’ll jump to the conclusion: there won’t be enough demand for humans to have jobs within the next 20 years to sustain an employment-taxation type of economy.

Continue reading “A Fully Automated Economy–How Can It Work?” »

Such changes, multiplied across thousands of businesses in dozens of industries, could significantly change workers’ prospects. Professor Warman, the Canadian economist, said technologies developed for one purpose tend to spread to similar tasks, which could make it hard for workers harmed by automation to shift to another occupation or industry.

The need for social distancing led restaurants and grocery stores to seek technological help. That may improve productivity, but could also cost jobs.

Fortunately, automakers, suppliers and government leaders are examining things like electric vehicles and where batteries and other parts come from as they push for North American production. The Department of Energy has released a National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries, and a plan to support the domestic battery production to meet growing needs as people go back to work and school in the fall.

It is tempting to see the chip storage problem as just a technology story. But it also has real-world implications for our national security as so much of defense relies on computers and communications in the era of modern warfare.

As Americans celebrate our independence, we have to re-commit to being independent when it comes to reliance on others for goods and services that fuel our lives. We can’t make everything at home, but we can make more and ensure that disruptions abroad don’t reverberate, negatively, at home. As Congress continues to debate infrastructure and other major legislation, and the COVID-19 pandemic retreats, we will need to work together to ensure that we are prepared for whatever 2022 might bring.

Ut ohh.

The middle and working classes have seen a steady decline in their fortunes. Sending jobs to foreign countries, the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, pivoting toward a service economy and the weakening of unions have been blamed for the challenges faced by a majority of Americans.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Has Caused A 50% To 70% Decrease In Wages—Creating Income Inequality And Threatening Millions Of Jobs” »

Third-party cookie trackers live to fight for another year.

Google is announcing today that it is delaying its plans to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome browser until 2023, a year or so later than originally planned. Other browsers like Safari and Firefox have already implemented some blocking against third-party tracking cookies, but Chrome is the most-used desktop browser, and so its shift will be more consequential for the ad industry. That’s why the term “cookiepocalypse” has taken hold.

In the blog post announcing the delay, Google says that decision to phase out cookies over a “three month period” in mid-2023 is “subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).” In other words, it is pinning part of the delay on its need to work more closely with regulators to come up with new technologies to replace third-party cookies for use in advertising.

Continue reading “Google delays blocking third-party cookies in Chrome until 2023” »

Those are the names of the new robots Amazon is testing with the goal of reducing strenuous movements for workers.

While the introduction of robots to the workplace often raises questions about whether human jobs will be replaced, Amazon argues they simply allow workers to focus on tasks that most need their attention while minimizing their potential for injury. Amazon said it’s added over a million jobs around the world since it began using robotics in its facilities in 2012.

In May, Amazon announced a goal of reducing recordable incident rates by 50% by 2025. It plans to invest over $300 million into safety projects this year.

But what struck me about his essay is that last clause: “if we as a society manage it responsibly.” Because, as Altman also admits, if he is right then A.I. will generate phenomenal wealth largely by destroying countless jobs — that’s a big part of how everything gets cheaper — and shifting huge amounts of wealth from labor to capital. And whether that world becomes a post-scarcity utopia or a feudal dystopia hinges on how wealth, power and dignity are then distributed — it hinges, in other words, on politics.

Will A.I. give us the lives of leisure we long for — or usher in a feudal dystopia? It depends.

Circa 2016

From driverless buses to an AI council worker called Amelia, municipal services are becoming increasingly automated. But what does that mean for the future of our cities – and the jobs market?