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Category: employment – Page 86

Google’s AI is Learning to Make Other AI

In Brief:

  • Even though AI systems creating AI systems seems like the recipe for a Sci-Fi nightmare, experts agree that it could create a future with a less expensive and more efficient workforce
  • The benefits of an AI-powered future might be outweighed by the jobs that the technology makes obsolete

Imagine the conflicted feelings of the machine learning expert who is creating artificial intelligence (AI) that they know will one day, possibly very soon, be able to create better AI than them. It’s the new age’s way of holding on to the time-honored tradition of having to train your own replacement. Machine learning experts are currently being paid a premium wage due to their limited numbers and the high demand for their valuable skills. However, with the dawn of software that is “learning to learn,” those days may be numbered.

Men, work-related stress may cause cancer

Dear men, beware! Prolonged exposure to work-related stress may increase likelihood of cancer. The findings indicate that the link was observed in men, who had been exposed to 15 to 30 years of work-related stress and in some cases, more than 30 years. According to the study published in journal of Preventive Medicine, prolonged exposure of men to work-related stress has been linked to an increased likelihood of lung, colon, rectal and stomach cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Researchers at INRS and Université de Montréal in Canada conducted the study to assess the link between cancer and work-related stress perceived by men throughout their working life. On average, the study participants had held four jobs, with some holding up to a dozen or more during their working lifetime. A link between work-related stress and cancer was not found in participants who had held stressful jobs for less than 15 years. Significant links to five of the eleven cancers considered in the study were revealed.

The most stressful jobs included firefighter, industrial engineer, aerospace engineer, mechanic foreman, and vehicle and railway-equipment repair worker and for the same individual, stress varied depending on the job held. The study also shows that perceived stress is not limited to high work load and time constraints. ‘One of the biggest flaws in previous cancer studies is that none of them assessed work-related stress over a full working lifetime, making it impossible to determine how the duration of exposure to work-related stress affects cancer development,’ the authors explained. ‘Our study shows the importance of measuring stress at different points in an individual’s working life,’ the authors noted.

America’s refusal to embrace gene editing could start the next Cold War

New version of this out: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/01/02/americas-r…-cold-war/ #transhumanism #biohacking

Unlike other epic scientific advances…the immediate effect of genetic editing technology is not dangerous. Yet, it stands to be just as divisive to humans as the 70-year proliferation of nuclear weaponry.

The playing field of geopolitics is pretty simple: If China or another country vows to increase its children’s intelligence via genetic editing, and America chooses to remain “au naturel” because they insist that’s how God made them, a conflict species-deep will quickly arise.

This type of idea takes racism and immigration to a whole new level. Will America close off its borders, its jobs, its schools, and its general openness to the world to stay pure, old-fashioned human?

In short, will genetic editing start a new cold war? One that bears much finger pointing and verbal reprimands, including the use of derogatory terms like mutants, cyborgs, and transhumanists.

Electron-photon small-talk could have big impact on quantum computing

In a step that brings silicon-based quantum computers closer to reality, researchers at Princeton University have built a device in which a single electron can pass its quantum information to a particle of light. The particle of light, or photon, can then act as a messenger to carry the information to other electrons, creating connections that form the circuits of a quantum computer.

The research, published in the journal Science and conducted at Princeton and HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, represents a more than five-year effort to build a robust capability for an electron to talk to a , said Jason Petta, a Princeton professor of physics.

“Just like in human interactions, to have good communication a number of things need to work out—it helps to speak the same language and so forth,” Petta said. “We are able to bring the energy of the electronic state into resonance with the light particle, so that the two can talk to each other.”

The White House’s Fix for Robots Stealing Jobs? Education

UM NOVO RELATÓRIO da Casa Branca alerta que milhões de postos de trabalho podem ser automatizado e deixar de existir nos próximos anos.

O relatório, publicado esta semana pelo Conselho de Assessores Econômicos do presidente, se junta a um crescente corpo de trabalho prevendo enormes perdas de empregos devido à automação e inteligência artificial.

AI could boost productivity but increase wealth inequality, White House says

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has the potential to boost productivity but increase wealth inequality and wipe out millions of jobs, a research report by the White House claimed on Tuesday. With an increasing number of industries set to be affected by automation technology in the coming years, jobs could be displaced — a fear that has been voiced by academics and business leaders. Auto companies are developing driverless cars, and factories are seeing an increased use of robotics.

Because AI is not a single technology, but rather a collection of technologies that are applied to specific tasks, the effects of AI will be felt unevenly through the economy. Some tasks will be more easily automated than others, and some jobs will be affected more than others — both negatively and positively.

Researchers around the world have given varying estimates about the size of potential job losses. One recent estimate by Forrester suggests 6 percent of jobs in the next five years could be wiped out thanks to AI. The White House report cites a 2013 study from Oxford University suggesting that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk because of AI. The report suggests that lower-skilled and less-educated workers could feel the heat the most. Overall, the White House report advocates a three-pronged approach to preparing for a future remade by AI that includes investing in AI for its benefits, training Americans for the jobs of the future and helping workers make the transition to new positions.