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Category: employment – Page 48

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.

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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.

There’s an interesting, compelling and alternative explanation. According to a new academic research study, automation technology has been the primary driver in U.S. income inequality over the past 40 years. The report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, claims that 50% to 70% of changes in U.S. wages, since 1980, can be attributed to wage declines among blue-collar workers who were replaced or degraded by automation.

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.

Few will shed tears for Google, but it has found itself in a very difficult place as the sole company that dominates multiple industries: search, ads, and browsers. The more Google cuts off third-party tracking, the more it harms other advertising companies and potentially increases its own dominance in the ad space. The less Google cuts off tracking, the more likely it is to come under fire for not protecting user privacy. And no matter what it does, it will come under heavy fire from regulators, privacy advocates, advertisers, publishers, and anybody else with any kind of stake in the web.

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.

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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.

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In the concrete jungle of Singapore, some people are ditching the comforts of the air-conditioned offices and opting to get their hands dirty instead. CNBC’s Nessa Anwar meets some of the trailblazers marrying traditional jobs with technology.
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Continue reading “The urban farmers hoping to save our cities | CNBC Reports” | >

A study of gene activity in the brain’s hippocampus, led by UT Southwestern researchers, has identified marked differences between the region’s anterior and posterior portions. The findings, published today in Neuron, could shed light on a variety of brain disorders that involve the hippocampus and may eventually help lead to new, targeted treatments.

“These new data reveal molecular-level differences that allow us to view the anterior and posterior hippocampus in a whole new way,” says study leader Genevieve Konopka, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at UTSW.

She and study co-leader Bradley C. Lega, M.D., associate professor of neurological surgery, neurology, and psychiatry, explain that the human hippocampus is typically considered a uniform structure with key roles in memory, spatial navigation, and regulation of emotions. However, some research has suggested that the two ends of the hippocampus—the anterior, which points downward toward the face, and the posterior, which points upward toward the back of the head—take on different jobs.

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Weird now, but i do think most people will want humanoid robots faking emotions, to some degree, and on the far end people who will want them to try and mimic people exactly.

Columbia Engineering researchers use AI to teach robots to make appropriate reactive human facial expressions, an ability that could build trust between humans and their robotic co-workers and care-givers. (See video below.)

While our facial expressions play a huge role in building trust, most robots still sport the blank and static visage of a professional poker player.

Continue reading “The robot smiles back: Columbia scientists teach robot how to respond to human facial expressions” | >

“Clearly AI is going to win[against human intelligence]. It’s not even close,” Kahneman told the paper. “How people are going to adjust to this is a fascinating problem.”

Of course, and the reaction, right up to the last minute will be: “No way Man!!! there will be new jobs these crazy Ai’s cant do!”

Artificial intelligence will be beating humans — outworking if not entirely outmoding them — in plenty of functions as the future approaches. Here’s why.

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