Posted August 09, 2017 16:40:01

What does the worldwide head of research at Google tell his kids about how to prepare for the future of work with artificial intelligence?

"I tell them wherever they will be working in 20 years probably doesn't exist now," Peter Norvig says. "No sense training for it today."

Be flexible, he says, "and have an ability to learn new things".

Future of work experts (yes, it's a thing now) and AI scientists who spoke to Lateline variously described a future in which there were fewer full-time, traditional jobs requiring one skill set; fewer routine administrative tasks; fewer repetitive manual tasks; and more jobs working for and with "thinking" machines.

From chief executives to cleaners, "everyone will do their job differently working with machines over the next 20 years," Andrew Charlton, economist and director of AlphaBeta, says.

But experts are split on whether this technological transformation will create more jobs than it destroys, which has been the case historically.

"Copying [AI computer] code takes almost no time and cost. Anyone who says they know that more jobs will be created than destroyed is fooling themselves and fooling us. Nobody knows that," says University of New South Wales professor of AI Toby Walsh.

"The one thing we do know is the jobs that will be created will require different skills than the jobs that will be destroyed. And it will require us to constantly be educating ourselves to keep ahead of the machines."

Yes, says Hamilton Calder, acting chief executive of the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA). "Coding will need to be ubiquitous within the workforce and taught at all levels of the education system."

No, says Mr Charlton. "I think the big misconception here is that in order to be successful in the future economy you need to be competing with machines [and] become a coder, a software engineer. That's quite wrong."

Not everyone needs to code because ultimately AI programs will likely be better coders than humans, says Professor Walsh. But "if you're a geek like myself, there is a good future in inventing the future".

A "broad, basic education with a strong STEM focus (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) will provide the core skills and flexibility that people will need," says PWC chief economist Jeremy Thorpe, "given they will likely change jobs or careers much more than previously".

Seventeen jobs and five careers it is exhausting just thinking about it. But that is the prediction for school-leavers, according to research done for the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA).

"We should stop encouraging young people to think about a 'dream' job," Jan Owen, CEO of FYA, says.

"It's important not to focus on individual jobs rather they should aim to develop a skill set that is transferrable [including] financial and digital literacy, collaboration, project management and the ability to critically asses and analyse information."

Future work will fall into one of three categories, says Robert Hillard, managing partner, Deloitte Consulting.

"Firstly, people who work for machines such as drivers, online store pickers and some health professionals who are working to a schedule," Mr Hillard says.

"Secondly, people who work with machines such as surgeons using machines to help with diagnosis, and thirdly, people who work on the machines, such as programmers and designers."

Human-machine teams will combine the lightning-fast speed and accuracy of AI algorithms with instinctive human skills such as intuition, judgment and emotional intelligence, according to a report by the US based Institute for the Future.

Mr Hillard says AI's ability "is to answer a unique question by synthesizing the answers to thousands or millions of related but different questions".

"What AI can't do is design new questions and that's the skill that will make people most competitive: helping their customer or employer find the right question to ask."

While he expects the number of jobs to increase, the danger is they may not be better jobs. Those working for machines will experience the most disruption.

There is one skill we already have that can increasingly be leveraged for income: being human.

"We don't make computers that have a lot of emotional intelligence," Professor Walsh says. "[But] we like interacting with people.

"We are social people, so the jobs that require lots of emotional intelligence being a nurse, marketing jobs, being a psychologist, any job that involves interacting with people those will be the safe jobs. We want to interact with people, not robots."

Futurist Ross Dawson gives an example of how this could be turned into a new kind of job.

"Perhaps it is a productive role in society to interact, to have conversations [with other people] and then we can remunerate that and make it a part of people's lives," he says.

Mr Charlton says: "Most of the opportunities are to do things that machines can't do, things that humans do well in the caring economy to be empathetic, to work in a range of occupations which require interpersonal skills."

China's most successful tech venture capitalist and former Google and Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee recently wrote in The New York Times that traditionally unpaid volunteering roles could become future "service jobs of love".

"Examples include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, mentoring at an orphanage, serving as a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous or, potentially soon, Virtual Reality Anonymous."

Jobs growth is already strong in the caring economy with unmet demand in child care, aged care, health care and education although many of those jobs are poorly paid.

"The challenge is to recognize that those jobs should be paid well. It's a choice for us as a society, community and government to value those types of human jobs well," Mr Charlton says.

Computers are not imaginative or very creative.

"We have one of the most creative brains out there," Professor Walsh says.

So, ironically, "one of the oldest jobs on the planet, being a carpenter or an artisan, we will value most because we will like to see an object carved or touched by the human hand, not a machine".

But humans have always created imaginative new economic opportunities as well.

With current education and training currently struggling to meet some of the challenges for the future workforce, Mr Dawson says we should "plan for [ourselves], look at the change and create a path and see what skills need to be developed".

"This is about organisational, social and personal responsibility. For all ages and people, we can learn and develop ourselves."

UTS professor of social robotics Mary-Anne Williams says there is only one strategy.

"Embrace the technology and understand as far as possible what kind of impact it has on your job and goals," she says.

"You need to pay attention and look around and think about the impact."

Topics: robots-and-artificial-intelligence, science-and-technology, australia

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Artificial intelligence and automation are coming, so what will we all do for work? - ABC Online

We need to call automation what it is: a real threat, and a danger to critical human infrastructure. Illustration: Rosie Roberts

Weve heard a lot lately about how humans will suffer thanks to robots.

Recently, these dark premonitions have come from famed techno-positive-ists like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. These grandees have offered their own solutions, from a robot tax or universal basic income. But among the dire warnings and the downright sci-fi utopias (a robot for president, anyone?), the actual human pain resulting from future job loss tends to be forgotten.

Given that 38% of US jobs could be lost to automation in the next 15 years, this tendency to gloss over the enormity of this number is puzzling. And yet, most would argue that we cannot and should not slow down progress: that any attempt to stymy is is embarrassingly Luddite.

My question to them: why? So what if we decelerated, and established a Slow Tech movement to match our Slow Food and Slow Fashion trends? Or at the very least, what if we started to rethink who owns autonomous trucks? The effect of robotization would be profoundly different if, say, truckers possessed their own autonomous vehicles rather than a corporation controlling them all.

In the meantime, we need to call automation what it is: a real threat, and a danger to critical human infrastructure.

What is human infrastructure? Well, infrastructure usually means electricity grids, power plants, roads, fiber optic cables and so on. Human infrastructure, on the other hand, is a phrase that lets us see that people are also, in the words of the Department of Homeland Securitys website, essential services. These things underpin American society and serve as the backbone of our nations economy, security, and health.

Critical human infrastructure could describe the guys in trucker-author Finn Murphys new memoir The Long Haul. Murphy explains to me that if long hauls become autonomous, as has been threatened in the next 10 years, his driver friends will most likely have their trucks foreclosed. With a limited education and in latter middle age, theyll only be able work for places like Walmart at best.

Tellingly, though, Murphy adds: I am not going to take the Luddite perspective driverless vehicles are going to happen. The Luddites put their wrenches in the weaving machines and they still existed. And there will still be these trucks. (If Luddites were part of co-ops and had a stake in the automated looms that replaced them, would this have happened in the first place? Discuss.)

Murphy understands the sheer scale of what will happen to drivers like him. But the tech billionaires, cyborg jingoists, various political pundits dont have the same empathy. They may touch on workers potential distress, but then they tend to launch into strangely frisson-filled discussions of a future apocalypse.

Instead of working to give robots personhood status, we should concentrate on protecting our human workers. If that means developing a more cooperative approach to ownership of autonomous trucks so millions of drivers are not left out in the literal cold, so be it. For other job categories, from nurses and legal assistants to movie ushers and cashiers, perhaps we could concoct legislation to help all strata of workers who will be displaced by our mechanical friends.

One thing is for certain: this will inevitably mean we must reduce the speed at which automation is occurring.

Indeed, given how easy automated systems like driverless vehicles may be to hack they are quite the security challenge, as former Uber employee/hacker Charlie Miller has said slowing down the robots might also mean slowing down a serious global calamity. (Imagine that 1973 Stephen King short story Trucks about semi-trailers gone berserk now imagine it authored by international hackers who turned vehicles into murderers and jackknifing American security.)

There are some ideas out there that seek to slow down the march of the cyborgs. The not-for-profit organization New York Communities for Change has been agitating against automation in trucking and driving, for instance. In February, the group launched a campaign targeting Elaine Chao and the Department of Transportation, which has billions of dollars set aside to subsidize the development and spread of autonomous vehicles.

Many truckers are very fearful, says Zachary Lerner, the groups Senior Director of Labor Organizing, who has been organizing drivers against the driverless vehicles. Trucking is not the best job but it pays the most in lots of rural communities. They worry: are they going to support their families? And what will happen to all of the small towns built off the trucking economy?

Our demand is to freeze all the subsidies for the research on autonomous vehicle until there is a plan for workers who are going to lose their jobs, Lerner says.

As part of this effort, NYCC regularly puts together conference calls between dozens of taxi, Uber, and Lyft drivers. They discuss how theyve all gotten massive loans to get the cars for Uber and how they are still going to being paying off these loans when the robots come for their jobs the robot vehicles Uber has promised within the decade.

There has also been a smattering of other workers actions against automation: last year, 4,800 nurses at five Minnesota hospitals protested against a computer determining staffing choices as well as broader healthcare questions.

And then theres Bill Gatess fix: to have governments tax companies that use robots to raise alternative funds. These funds would in turn help displaced human workers train for irreplaceably human jobs and to perhaps lull the swift turn to automation. In early 2017, the business press attacked him, partly for hypocrisy. As DailyWire wrote, Bill Gates Proposes One Of The Dumbest Ideas Ever To Fix The Economy. But what is so wrong with Gates idea? He was at least trying to address the way that humans may be pushed out of the workforce by robots metal hands (and their owners hands within them).

His solution is echoed by thinkers like Martin Ford, the futurist author of 2015 book Rise of The Robots. Ford eschews the Luddite perspective, and sees his very own books title as a sign of progress. Nevertheless, he tells me that for our society to remain equitable; we must leverage that progress on behalf of everyone. That means, for Ford, that if businesses use automation and get higher profits as a result we then need do something about inequality, by taxing the capital and profits rather than labor. Which is a lot easier than taxing robots, explains Ford, because who is going to come in and figure out what to tax: is software a robot, for example?

In addition, there are those who see Universal Basic Income (UBI) as the panacea to the cyborg revolution. When I spoke with UBI advocate Scott Santens, he wasnt critical of automated trucking or robotic nurses. Rather, he believes that due to them, will all need to be subsidized by a monthly basic income guarantee if we are to survive with any standard of living intact.

I think we should go further. Why not stand up for the values of humanity more directly? Why not ask why anything that will eject millions more human beings from their work is indeed progress?

More than a century ago, the German Romantic writer ETA Hoffman wrote, in his story Automata: Yet the coldest and most unfeeling executant will always be far in advance of the most perfect machines.

This warmth and feeling must be honored, at the very least. If we dont at least try to make the future more equitable, most of us will left left with simply scraps.

Outclassed: The Secret Life of Inequality is our new column about class. Read all articles here.

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Automation is a real threat. How can we slow down the march of the cyborgs? - The Guardian

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

By WhatTheyThink Staff

Prepress automation can significantly accelerate job throughput and increase capacity. By investing in Esko Automation Engine, Promotional Screenprint (www.simply-reliable.com) has already helped to automatically send nesting layouts much faster to their Esko Kongsberg finishing tables, and has enhanced the preflight processand thats just a start.

Led by president and founder Robbie McDaniel, Decatur GA-based Promotional Screenprint (PSP) is known in the industry for its innovative approach, bringing better solutions to the retail graphics space. Their print production department, including a new HP10000and four HP7600 flatbed printers along with various other small presses, runs 24/6, and is utilized for both decor and promotional print applicationsand fast speed to market. PSP Fulfillment handles everything from concept and creation of the storefront site to putting the last box on the truck. PSP has been listed on the Inc. magazine 5000 listits annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in Americafour times since 2010.

Until recently, PSP was doing their prepress work manually. Everything, recalls Ronald Whitfield, Automated Systems Manager. We were doing layouts, imposition, and all other tasks manually in Adobe InDesign and Illustrator without any automation. We even converted colors ourselves. We didn't have an imposition application for nesting. It would take us a good ten to fifteen minutes for a layout, including nesting and shapes.

The industry is focusing on personalized materials and fast paced jobs, especially in digital. PSP had to keep up with its presses, which meant operating faster than they were manually. Our manual process went from receiving files and preflighting them, to delivering press-proofs for approvals, says Whitfield. Because of the variation of contentlike pricingthere are so many more files to create, all at the same time. We wanted to automate redundant and time-consuming tasks every day with every file. That would allow us to put more time into the more complex jobs.

PSP knew of Esko because they were already very happy with their two Esko Kongsberg XP finishing tables, and invested in Esko Automation Engine. It was quickly apparent that Automation Engine would allow PSP to add functionality and the possibility to automate the full department, from design to finishing. That included creating a workflow to prepare a filewith the cut pathto be sent to the Kongsberg finishing table.

PSP has been in production mode for six months. I was hired eight months ago to help make Automation Engine work in the prepress department. After 1 months, I visited Esko for Automation Engine training. When I returned to the office, we programmed i-cut Layout first because when the file arrives for nesting, it is complete and has been proofed outand approved. All the proof, cutting and print files go through the workflow without anything holding it back, explains Whitfield. Its a repetitive process. Now, about 95% of the layouts are driven by a customized workflow created for Automation Engine. It has been extremely productive. Before, if we received an order with 25 layouts that needed to be done at the end of the day, we would have left for the day and returned to the job in the morning. Now, by morning all layouts are automatically ready for the press. We have increased the workflow to the presses just by automating the layouts. Instead of taking 15 minutes to create a complex layout, it takes only 45 secondsand that doesn't include the time-savings well expect to see with preflights and proofs.

Before, PSP was not sending preflight reports in a timely manner. Now we conduct preflights very quickly, up front. The Automation Engine preflight report can tell us if there are errors or unreported sizes. It also allows us to send proofs within 24 hours, adds Whitfield.

PSP customer service project and account managers manually enter job data into PSPs MIS system, Retail Reliability Suite. While we are not utilizing web to print at the moment, we are working in that direction, explains Whitfield. However, Automation Engine already takes XML data from files to create jobs and their specs in the workflow. They also direct the workflow to do various tasks. It creates a folder hierarchy on the jobs server, which we had always done manually for new orders. Prepress no longer makes an error. And while they haven't done so yet, Promotional Screenprint plans to use Automation Engine Connect to pass job information from their external business systems to further drive automation and reduce human interaction.

I am excited about the potential to do more, exclaims Whitfield. Automation Engine can do so much more than what we are utilizing, at the moment. I would tell anyone who needs a workflow to invest in Automation Engineand don't even think of boundaries when you do.

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Promotional Screenprint adds Esko Automation Engine to pick up the speed - What They Think

Dozens of recent studies have stoked fears that robots and 'artificial intelligence' will displace millions of workers and lead to permanently high joblessness.

AlphaBeta's new report, The Automation Advantage, is an antidote to these fears. Commissioned by Google, this report is the most comprehensive study to date on how every Australian job is being changed by automation, analysing over 20 billion hours of work.

If Australia plays its cards right, automation doesn't have to be an economic risk. In fact, it could be one of the largest economic opportunities facing our nation -- delivering up to $2.2 trillion in economic benefits by 2030.

But aren't the benefits of automation, um, automatic?

No. Automation is the biggest opportunity to grow Australia's prosperity in decades. But, this prosperity wont fall in our lap.

To unlock the benefits of automation, Australian policy makers and companies must take action now. First, they have to embrace these technologies. This report shows that just nine percent of Australian companies are engaging in significant automation.

Second, the benefits of automation will be erased if we don't ensure that the gains are widely distributed. That means doing much more to help affected workers to re-skill and transition, and it means a robust framework involving employers, unions and government to ensure that the benefits of automation are widely shared.

Making work more human

While most of the media attention is focused on the potential to destroy jobs, the biggest impact of automation will be to change the way we do every job.

In every occupation, machines are gradually taking away tasks that were once done by humans. The first tasks to be replaced tend to be the 'dirty, dull and dangerous' tasks -- manual and routine tasks. This means that humans can focus on work that requires more creativity, personality and more EQ than IQ.

The report shows that rather than replacing the work, automation has the potential to make our work safer, more valuable and more meaningful... More human.

MORE ON THE BLOG:

Technology Is Speaking And We Really Like The Sound Of Its Voice.

But what about my job?

Which jobs are most at risk of automation?

The research for this report analysed every job in Australia -- breaking each job into up to 2,000 different tasks and looking at the rate at which those tasks have been replaced by machines.

We uploaded this data into interactive tool to show which jobs are most likely to be affected by automation. See how much of your job could be done by a machine.

Balanced debate

Our public debate on automation and the future of work needs balance. Yes, it's true that there will be challenges for many workers who will need to be supported to adjust and retrain. Those challenges are real and must be addressed.

But, the answer cannot be to eschew the benefits of automation or try to hold back the tide of technology. That would relegate Australian business to lack of competitiveness, and deprive millions of current (and future) workers of the tremendous economic opportunities these technologies could bring.

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Automation Is The Biggest Opportunity To Grow Australia's Prosperity In Decades - Huffington Post Australia

Andrew Charlton from AlphaBeta warns automation is a huge productivity shock but "productivity shocks are only valuable it the workers are successfully transitioned".

Automation could add $2.2 trillion to Australia's annual income by 2030, but we risk blowing it because companies invest less in robotics than their offshore competitors, a report commissioned by Google has found.

The AlphaBeta report released on Tuesday found only about 9 per cent of publicly listed companies were engaging in automation, compared to 14 per cent for leading nations and more than 20 per cent in the United States.

Andrew Charlton, co-founder of the economic consultancy firm and a former adviser to prime minister Kevin Rudd, said the low investment rate was acting as a "handbrake" on productivity and if Australian companies accelerated automation investments it could add $1 trillion to economic output over the next 15 years.

"It would be dire for Australia's competitiveness if companies continued with a business-as-usual approach," he said.

"Slowing down the pace of automation, rather than accelerating it may do more harm than good, depriving Australia of the resulting productivity benefits and potentially reducing the global competitiveness of local industries."

There is no official data on automation so AlphaBeta adopted a unique method by identifying firms that increased both capital expenditure and labour productivity by 5 per cent or more between 2010 and 2015.

The report found Australia's automation levels were similar to Sweden but three times lower than Switzerland, where more than 25 per cent of publicly listed firms appear heavily engaged in automation.

"How it shook out was a large part of Australia's automation is in the mining sector, but we actually lag in manufacturing, most parts of services, retail and wholesale trade," Mr Charlton told The Australian Financial Review.

Miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto were Australia's most automated listed companies by AlphaBeta measure, the latter's fleet of 69 fully automated trucks in the Pilbara making it the world's largest owner and operator of autonomous haulage systems.

Mr Charlton said Australia's overall low rate of automation could be explained by factors such as scale and direct competitive pressures.

"Embracing automation can require a large capex investment and a lot of firms in Australia seem to be a lot smaller than European and US firms," he said.

"So the ability to make a bit of up-front investment in artificial intelligence is potentially lower to the extent there are fixed costs in making that investment."

Applying working hours data to a US breakdown of occupations into tasks, the report found that over the past 15 years Australia had reduced the amount of time spent on physical and routine tasks by two hours a week.

"So, for example, retail workers have spent less time ringing up items and more time helping customers, bank employees less time counting banknotes and more time giving financial advice," it said.

However, if local companies were as committed to automation as their US peers, the report estimated they would save more than four hours a week, boost productivity by 50 per cent and add another $1 trillion to economic output.

Companies would also save money from fewer working days lost to injuries sustained from physical work, which on current automation trends could fall by 11 per cent in 2030.

While the report found automation would mostly involve changes in the way workers did their current jobs, 29 per cent of the change would involve workers changing jobs.

It warned that if companies merely allowed automation to displace workers or reduce work time, productivity would rise but GDP growth would be limited.

But in a scenario where workers "transitioned" to other jobs and reinvested time savings into "uniquely human tasks", the economy would be boosted by $1.2 trillion in value over 15 years.

"This is a huge productivity shock but productivity shocks are only valuable it the workers are successfully transitioned," Mr Charlton said.

He urged policymakers, companies, unions, education providers and workers to focus on teaching students critical future skills, support workers affected by the change and look overseas for international best practice.

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Automation could add $2.2 trillion to Australian economy by 2030 - The Australian Financial Review

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist Published 8:00 a.m. ET Aug. 7, 2017 | Updated 3:55 p.m. ET Aug. 7, 2017

A new report from Paysa suggests automation jobs will put 10,000 people to work, and big companies will spend $650 million on annual salaries to make it happen. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more. Buzz60

Computer code(Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images)

Heres the dirty little secret about automation: its easier to build a robot to replace a junior attorney than to replace a journeyman electrician.

Thats Mark Mills, notingthat its white-collar jobs that may be the next casualties of automation.Instead of creative destruction coming to factories and farms, its sweeping through city centers and taking white-collar jobs. White-collar workers used to think they were safe from automation while lesser breeds suffered unemployment. But now theyre on the front lines.

Thats certainly the case with lawyers, who are being replaced by software, by paraprofessionals, and sometimes even by outsourcing to third world nations. And thats bad news since lawyers income and employment prospects have been largelystagnant (or worse) for decades.But, as with automation in other areas, it may be good news for the consumers of legal services, even as it makes things worse for the producers.

More: A clinical trial saved my life. It could save yours, too.

More: Donald Trump has a sickening fetish for cruelty

Thats the central thesis ofRebooting Justice: More Technology, Fewer Lawyers, and the Future of Law,a book by my University of Tennessee colleague Benjamin Barton, together with the University of Pennsylvanias Stephanos Bibas. Their thesis: The very things that are making life worse for lawyers and law firms may pay off for lower- and middle-income Americans by finally making legal services affordable.

Both authors are distinguished professors with extensive experience in legal practice, and in particular in serving lower-income Americans. And if youre a lower-income American (and in this context, lower-income doesnt mean all that low) paying a lawyer to represent you in a criminal or civil matter, or even to fight a parking ticket or prepare a will, is a major and perhaps unaffordable burden.

Rebooting Justice tells the story of wildly overburdened public defenders and court-appointed attorneys who represent poor defendants in criminal cases (and even in death penalty cases), and who often do a substandard job of it. Meanwhile, in civil court, mothers and fathers fighting child custody orders, laid-off workers claiming unemployment, sick people claiming disability and even couples just wanting a low-cost divorce find getting legal representation prohibitively expensive.

In many states, were told, 75% or more of family law disputes involve at least one party trying to proceed pro se that is, without a lawyer. Unsurprisingly, these people usually do badly.

More: Forget Russia. I'd fire Jeff Sessions over civil forfeiture.

POLICING THE USA: A look atrace, justice, media

The authors quote Derek Bok, who said that in America, there is far too much law for those who can afford it, and far too little for those who cannot. But the good news is that law may be about to become a lot more affordable.

One example: A lawyerbot called Do Not Payhelps people contest parking tickets. In London and New York, it helped people overturn 160,000 ticketsin its first 21 months. Its creator, 19-year-old London-born Stanford student Joshua Browder observed: I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people arent looking to break the law. I think theyre being exploited as a revenue source by the local government.

Theres not much doubt about that. Local governments pretend its about safety, but use traffic fines for revenue. Those fines fall hardest onpoor people,for whom a $150 fine is a financial disaster and for whom an appearance in court is frightening and awkward. Often, a few citations, with interest and penalties accruing, can be the beginning of a downward spiral leading to bankruptcy or jail.

Browder is working on other applications, and with good reason: Theres a need.And as Barton and Bibas point out, lawyer-substitutes like software (or paralegals allowed to practice on their own) dont have to be better than the best lawyers. They only have to be better than what people who cant afford the best lawyers can get.

This has the potential for social revolution in many ways. Its bad for the lawyers who lose work to bots. Its bad for cities who rely on revenue extorted from motorists and other petty offenders to balance the books. (DoNotPays 160,000 overturned tickets represented over $4 million in revenue). And its bad for any part of the legal system that forces compliance from ordinary people who just dont want the hassle of going to court.

But its good for people who, up to now, havent had much leverage. If were lucky, well wind up, as Barton and Bibas suggest, with fewer lawyers, more justice. For people like me, who sell law degrees for a living, that may be bad news.For society as a whole, though, it may turn out pretty well.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author ofThe New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

You can read diverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers on theOpinion front page, on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

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Legal automation spells relief for lower-income Americans, hard times for lawyers - USA TODAY

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) IBM owes Indiana $78 million in damages stemming from the companys failed effort to automate much of the states welfare services, a judge has ruled in a long-running dispute.

Marion Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued the ruling dated Friday, nearly six months after she heard arguments from attorneys for the state and IBM Corp. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled last year that IBM had breached its contract and it directed the trial court to calculate the damages.

New York-based IBM said Monday it will appeal the decision.

Indiana and IBM sued each other in 2010 after then-Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, cancelled the $1.3 billion contract that his administration reached with the company to privatize and automate the processing of Indianas welfare applications.

Under the deal, an IBM-led team of vendors worked to process applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits. Residents could apply for the benefits through call centers, the internet and fax machines. The contract was pulled in late 2009, less than three years into the 10-year deal, following complaints about long wait times, lost documents and improper rejections.

The state sought more than $172 million from IBM, but the judge ruled IBM responsible for $128 million in damages. That amount was offset by about $50 million in state fees that the company was owed.

IBM said in an email statement that it believes the judges ruling is contradicted by the facts and the law.

IBM worked diligently and invested significant resources in its partnership with (the state) to help turn around a welfare system described at the time by Indianas governor as one of the worst in the nation, the company said.

A different judge ruled in IBMs favor in 2012 and awarded the company $12 million, mostly for equipment the state kept. An appeals court reversed that decision, finding that IBM had committed a material breach of its contract by failing to deliver improvements to Indianas welfare system.

Peter Rusthoven, one of the states private attorneys, said Monday that Welchs ruling would be carefully reviewed before deciding on any additional appeals.

Overall, we are extremely gratified by the result and thinks it really vindicates the position the state took throughout this really long battle, Rusthoven said.

The state argued that IBM owed Indiana for the cost of fixing the companys problematic automation efforts to make the system workable, paying overtime for state staffers to review and correct those problems, and hiring new staff to help oversee that process, among other expenses.

IBMs attorneys argued that the company had delivered substantial benefits to the state that undermined Indianas damages claims.

Welch heard arguments from both sides on Feb. 10. She was scheduled to rule by early May in the complicated case, but lawyers twice agreed to allow the court more time.

Indiana initially sued IBM for the $437 million it had paid the company by the time the contract was pulled a figure that was reduced before trial to about $170 million. IBM countersued for about $100 million that it said it was owed.

Welch wrote in her ruling that the bulk of what IBM owes the state stemmed from renegotiated deals with subcontractors to fixed payment amounts rather than the incentive-based payments they received from IBM. Welch said those new deals addressed shortcomings that led to the problems under IBM.

The State operating in the same role would be perpetuating an ineffective structure, Welch wrote.

Rusthoven said IBMs failures hurt needy Indiana families.

This has been a long, tough battle with a big corporation that refused all along to take responsibility for its poor performance, he said.

___

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Judge: IBM owes Indiana $78M for failed welfare automation - Seattle Times

From Donald Trump to Brexit, the world is becoming a more unstable place, and that's giving some of the world's wealthy apocalyptic visions.

Add Antonio Garcia Martinez to the list. The former Facebook executive and author has relocated to a five-acre wooded hideaway on a small island off the coast of Washington State, in preparation for potentially violent conflicts he sees ahead.

In an interview for BBC 2's "Secrets of Silicon Valley," Martinez predicted that rapidly evolving technologies will eliminate half of the world's jobs within 30 years, an upset that could lead to chaos and even armed revolution.

"I've seen what's coming," he told the BBC interviewer, as quoted at Mashable. "And it's a big self-driving truck that's about to run over this economy."

Dozens of companies, including Google and most major global automakers, are now at work developing driverless technology, which some predict could become commonplace on the streets in under a decade. A recent study predicted the technology could eliminate 4 million North American jobs in short order.

"Within 30 years, half of humanity won't have a job," Martinez told the BBC. "It could get ugly there could be a revolution."

He added: "Every time I meet someone from outside Silicon Valley a normy I can think of 10 companies that are working madly to put that person out of a job."

Story continues below

A veteran of investment bank Goldman Sachs, Martinez went to Silicon Valley to launch a digital ad company that he sold to Twitter. He then worked as an executive at Facebook, an experience he wrote about in his book "Chaos Monkeys."

Martinez's prediction that half of all jobs will be lost to automation in the coming years has support among academics. A 2013 report from the University of Oxford predicted that 45 per cent of U.S. jobs could be lost to machines within the next two decades.

A report prepared for Canada's federal government earlier this year warned that 40 per cent of Canadian jobs are at risk from automation in just the next decade.

It's one of the reason why some of the world's top scientists and tech entrepreneurs have been raising the alarm lately about automation and artificial intelligence and why some others have been preparing for catastrophe.

According to an article this year in The New Yorker, many of the U.S.'s wealthy elite are busy preparing for the breakdown of law and order. They are buying shelters and bunkers and preparing for their own transportation options for the day when they may need to flee the U.S., the article reported.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motor Co. and SpaceX, has been warning repeatedly artificial intelligence is the "biggest risk" humanity faces. He has been calling on governments to research the phenomenon.

But Musk's comments elicited a rebuke from Martinez's former boss, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who called Musk's comments on artificial intelligence "irresponsible."

"With A.I. especially, I'm really optimistic," Zuckerberg said last month in a Facebook Live broadcast. "I think that people who are naysayers and kind of try to drum up these doomsday scenarios I don't understand it. I think it's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible."

Related on HuffPost:

Surprising Jobs That Are Threatened By Automation

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Ex-Facebook Exec Warns Of 'Revolution' Caused By Job Automation - Huffington Post Canada

Android Central

Dive into home automation and save $120 on this Google Home and Philips Hue bundle Android Central Home automation is the future, and if you want to jump into it, this Google Home and Philips Hue bundle is a great first step at just $188.99 at Best Buy. This is around $120 less than if you were to buy both pieces separately, which is money you'll ...

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Dive into home automation and save $120 on this Google Home and Philips Hue bundle - Android Central

European industrial stocks were one of the weakest performers in the regions earnings rebound story this year, but a fund manager from Hermes believes that investors should not overlook the sector, thanks to the emergence of automation in factories.

European equities have enjoyed renewed investor enthusiasm this year. Following the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election in April and a 25% profit growth in European companies in the first three months of the year, the Euro Stoxx 600, a benchmark for European equities, gained 10% by the mid of May.

Despite a rising euro that has hurt the competitiveness of European exporters recently, earnings growth is up 12.6% year on year in July, according to a published note by Morgan Stanley.

The banking sector delivered another strong earnings season. However, the general industrials sector suffered a notable slowdown in output in July, according to data from IHS Markit.

Tim Crockford, who manages the Hermes Europe Ex-UK Equity fund, admitted that European industrials stocks have had a fairly poor second quarter earnings season; but this is not necessarily a bad thing for the sector. From a valuation perspective, the industrial sector looks cheap thanks to the weaker earning results, while from a structural growth point of view, the sector is undergoing a significant change because of automation.

KION Group AG (KGX), for example, is one of the unrecognised long term structural growth ideas. They are the worlds second largest forklift manufacturer, which does not sound very exciting. However, they are changing: they made an acquisition in last year with a US company called Dematic, which is one of the leading companies in automatic warehouse, said Crockford.

Denise Molina, equity analyst with Morningstar agreed, saying that with Dematic, KION is ideally positioned to benefit from a structural shift to greater warehouse automation, offering a mid-single-digit revenue growth rate opportunity for the next several years.

As KION is very much perceived as a forklift business, it has not got the recognition it deserves as one of the global automated warehouse system leaders, Crockford argued, which presents an opportunity to invest cheaply in a growth stock.

Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart are Dematics biggest customers. Instead of buying into the expensive popular global online retailing stock Amazon, KION is a cheaper alternative for investors ... in this automation theme, said Crockford.

According to Morningstar equity analysts, Amazon is rated as a four-star stock, meaning analysts believe the company is trading above its fair value estimate. KION, on the other hand, is trading as a three-star stock, meaning analysts believe the stock is trading at its fair value estimate.

We look for longer term structural growth ideas ... Typically those stocks look like value stocks, although we believe they are growth stocks ... these are unrecognised mid-cap growth stories rather than the popular high-quality growth names, Crockford added.

Don Jordison, managing director of property at Columbia Threadneedle, echoed Crockfords views on automation warehouses, saying that they are a fantastic investing opportunity.

Amazon created a world where people expected goods to be delivered to their front door within three to four days. In order to do that, you need industrial estates to store in different areas of the UK. They are not called industrial estates anymore, instead they are called urban logistics. You can tell they are popular when they are given a new name- its fantastic, said Jordison.

Amazon is looking for 1,300 warehouse units across Europe as consumers demand shorter delivery times, the Telegraph reported in April.

When investors look at the US, growth in typical FANG stocks comes at a high cost, said Crockford.

Everyone knows they are great companies and they kept on being great companies, and definitely larger companies in the future; but ... you have to pay double or even triple digit multiples for that, said Crockford.

However, in Europe, investors still have the opportunity to buy into these huge structural themes, which are going to grow further in the future, even though we don't know when this will happen.

But we do not bother about the short term timing, what we bother about is the end-point. Europe provides you the opportunity to buy into these great structural stories with a cheap valuation, Crockford added.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

See original here:

European Shares Offer Access to Automation Revolution - Morningstar

Too simplistic? Quite possibly, nevertheless the conclusions from some new research out of Oxford arefood for thought (my emphasis added):

A new research paper from the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment provides the first evidence that automation played a major role in voters concerns in the 2016 US Presidential Election.

The paper, Political Machinery: Automation Anxiety and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, authored by Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Dr Thor Berger and Dr Chinchih Chen, all of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, looked at whether groups in the labour market that have lost out to automation were more likely to opt for radical political change. Pitching automation against a host of alternative explanations including workers exposure to globalization, immigration and manufacturing decline the research shows that electoral districts with a greater exposure to automation were substantially more likely to support Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.

The authors found that a 5 percentage points increase in the share of jobs in which workers have lost to automation in the past is associated with an increase in the share voting for Donald Trump in 2016 by roughly 10 percentage points.

Dr Frey, Oxford Martin Citi Fellow and Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, said the data provided the first hard evidence of the impact of automation on political outcomes.

Our study suggests that automation has been the real cause of voters concern, he said. The prime victims of recent technological change want anything but the status quo. The populist rebellion in America, Europe, and elsewhere, has many causes, but workers losing out to technology is seemingly the main reason.

Its hardly the first time that I have asked this question, but what will be the political consequences as the process of technologically-driven job destruction moves further and further up the food chain, shattering the expectations of those who never thought they would be on the wrong side of creative destruction?

Speaking of which, theres this from The New Republic (again, my emphasis added):

The waning of the yuppies particular brand of ostentatious upward mobility, and the rise of its aesthetically scruffier hipster cousins, demonstrate the ongoing erosion of what Barbara and John Ehrenreich have called the professional-managerial class. The Ehrenreichs coined the term in 1977 to refer to the constellation of college-educated, white-collar, and creative workers (doctors, lawyers, journalists, artists, academics, and so forth) that hovered somewhere between the ruling class and the traditional working class. More than 30 years later, in their 2013 essay Death of a Yuppie Dream, the Ehrenreichs reported that the once-ascendant PMC was on its last legs, fractured by decades of technological advances, job outsourcing, and attacks on labor. Increasingly, its members have either peeled off to join a tier of exorbitantly compensated CEOs and supermanagers or suffered the collapse of their chosen professions, from the decline of newspaper journalism to the elimination of tenured academic jobs.

In this bleak new landscape, strivers havent disappearedthey have simply reoriented themselves around a new set of values that bolster their class position in less noticeable ways.

And they will probably continue to do, but whether they do so in a way that fits into Americas traditional free market(ish) model is an entirely different matter.

But its only 2017: Much of the article merely discusses changes in consumer choice:

This new elite is typified by the brownstone-dweller traipsing through Whole Foods with a yoga mat peeping from the top of her NPR tote.

But, it wont stop there, particularly as squeezed salaries and eroded job securitymake that trip to Whole Foods ever more daunting.

See the original post:

Automation and the Voters - National Review

As coal-fired electric power plants close across the U.S., they take with them coal mining jobs, to be sure. And while those job losses have generated considerable political heat, a no-less important employment shift is under way within power plants themselves.

Gone are many of the mechanics, millwrights, and welders who once held high paying jobs to keep coal-fired power plants operating.

As maintenance-intensive coal-fired power plantschock full of rotating equipment and leak-prone pipes and valves, not to mention conveyer belts and coal ash handling equipmentare retired they are being replaced to a large extent by gas-fired units that make full use of sensors, predictive maintenance software, and automated control systems.

As a result, the extensive use of analytics and automation within natural gas-fired power plants means that staffing levels can be cut to a fraction of what they were a decade ago.

Recent announcements confirm the trend.

On August 1, Michigan-based DTE Energy revealed plans to spend almost $1 billion to build a 1,100-megawatt gas-fired power plant. When the station enters service in 2022, it will replace three existing coal-fired units that currently employ more than 500 people. Job openings at the new gas-fired plant? Thirty-five full-time employees, says a DTE spokesperson.

In late June, Louisiana regulators approved a plan by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. to build a 994-MW gas-fired combined cycle power plant. The $872 million plant and associated transmission assets are slated to enter service in 2020. Job openings when it comes on line? No more than 31 people to manage, operate, and maintain the plant.

The lower headcount required at new gas-fired power plants like those in Michigan and Louisiana is the result of automation and advances in control system technology.

What changed is the evolution of technology, says W. Dale Claudel, vice president of power generation for Entergy.

Entergys plant in Lake Charles, La. will use two Mitsubishi 501G air-cooled gas turbines coupled with a Toshiba steam turbine. Claudel says that a single control room operator will be able to launch the plants entire startup procedure with the proverbial push of a button.

Once switched on, the plants automated systems are designed to synchronize generator functions, set ramp unit output, monitor firing temperatures, measure and adjust air emissions, all functions that previously required human oversight or intervention.

(Entergy Louisiana has a relatively small amount of coal-fired generation that will continue operating even after the Lake Charles unit is built.)

Whats more, in a conventional power plant outfitted with a boiler, multiple field operators would trek into the plant to visually inspect equipment and burners that were installed on multiple levels of the structure to ensure they were ready for firing. With the new plant, Claudel says that automation will monitor the combustion process, eliminating the need for many of the field operators required to walk the plant prior to startup.

A recent benchmarking effort by Black & Veatch used data from a commercial database of North American gas-fired power generating plants to offer insight into how gas-fired power plants are staffed.

Phillip L. Webster, P.E., associate vice president and project manager of Energy, Power Generation Services at B&V says that the firms research shows that a gas-fired combined-cycle power plant with a 565-MW generating capacity needs around 27 full-time personnel. A plant configured to yield nearly 300 MW more generating capacity requires only six additional people.

So even though the second gas-fired unit is more than 50 percent larger than the first in terms of generating capacity, the number of employees needed to run the plant is only around 25 percent more.

The roles just dont need to exist, he says.

One big reason is that new gas-fired power plants are equipped with sensors that provide constant data streams that are used to monitor turbine performance and feed predictive maintenance algorithms. Predictive maintenance means that maintenance outages can be scheduled well in advance of an equipment failure, and reduce almost to zero the need for in-house maintenance staff.

Software minimizes the effort of the operations and maintenance team, says Shin Gomi, a marketing vice president with Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas. The operational reliability of an advanced gas turbine may approach 99 percent, he says, and operating efficiencies are edging toward 65 percent, nearly double the efficiency of most coal-fired units that are being replaced. Expenses for operations and maintenance, fuel, and employees all can be cut with gas-fired power plant technology.

With gas price volatility greatly reduced and gas supply greatly enhanced through hydraulic fracturing technology, long-lived gas-fired technology can be planned for by cost-sensitive utilities that historically have limited options available to them to enhance shareholder value.

The extent of automation and digital equipment in new gas-fired power plants also means that operators need to have different sets of skills. Gone are the specialized millwrights and boiler operators.

They are being replaced, Entergys Claudel says, by people who understand operations as processes and who are able program, troubleshoot, and tune the ultra-efficient turbines.

IEEE Spectrums energy, power, and green tech blog, featuring news and analysis about the future of energy, climate, and the smart grid.

Sign up for the EnergyWise newsletter and get biweekly news on the power & energy industry, green technology, and conservation delivered directly to your inbox.

A Georgia Tech professor of robotics argues automation is still creating more jobs than it destroys 9Apr2013

Jobs site Indeed: Full stack developer is best career; machine learning engineers earn more 22Mar

Hot fields in the United States include embedded engineering, control engineering, and robotics 20Jul

In a corner of Nebraska, a power plant continues a 60-year history of innovation as it aims to burn hydrogen for electric power generation 11Jul

Clean coal technology suffered a setback when efforts to start up the gasification portion of an IGCC plant in Mississippi were halted 30Jun

Methane Monitor increases speed and cuts costs of detecting greenhouse gas leaks from the air 29May

Methane rules and the Paris Accord expose friction within the GOP and the Trump administration over climate and energy policy 15May

Enviro Powers small steam turbine could cut homeowners electricity bills by 30 percent 18Apr

A mathematical rethink suggests that carbon dioxide will warm Earth more in the future than it does today. But better satellitessuch as those Trump wants to scrapare needed to reduce climate uncertainty 17Apr

The sweeping attack on climate action that President Trump demanded in his executive order is likely to prove but short-lived relief for coal miners who cheered him at the EPA 29Mar

NASAs new geosensing satellites may be on the chopping block. The timing could hardly be worse 9Mar

Injection wells that dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling operations can trigger earthquakes. Stanford releases a free tool to predict the risk 7Mar

Over budget and behind schedule, a clean coal facility may be a relic before it can become fully operational 28Feb

As coal industry jobs are lost, likely not to return, some in coal country have turned to coding 15Feb

Deregulation actions by congressional Republicans may undercut innovative sensor technology by quashing methane detection at oil and gas sites 13Feb

DOE report says renewable power generation jobs surpassed those in fossil fuels, and are growing faster 26Jan

Petra Nova, the world's biggest CCS project, started up last week, and other sites show that it's not just for coal anymore 16Jan

Analytics from Berkeley-based WattTime precisely match new loads on a grid to the power plant that will serve them, providing estimates of carbon intensity that are up to 45 percent more accurate than regional averages. Such tools can guide cleaner charging by electric vehicles, and yield a bigger carbon reduction bang from energy efficiency measures and renewable power projects. 26Dec2016

Some of the work of the U.S. Department of Energy's advanced research wing fits fine with Trump's priorities, but analysts worry the next generation of solar tech could suffer 5Dec2016

Aluminum-based device produces industrially useful compounds 20Jul2016

See the original post:

Automation Is Engineering the Jobs Out of Power Plants - IEEE Spectrum

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally ran in the News and Tribune's "Progress" publication earlier in 2017.

SOUTHERN INDIANA Despite what you may have heard, manufacturing is doing just fine in Indiana and the United States as a whole in terms of output, anyway.

National manufacturing production was at one of its highest points ever in 2015 even when adjusted for inflation, according to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Similarly, Indianas manufacturing GDP was at it highest in 2015 since at least 1997 making up 30 percent of the states total GDP, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Despite this, the country has lost 7 million manufacturing jobs since employment peaked in 1979. Indiana also had fewer manufacturing jobs in 2014 with 349,425 workers than it had seen in the pre-recession years.

That, says Michael Hicks, is due to automation.

Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. His centers 2015 study, authored by him and Srikant Devaraj, estimates that 88 percent of the United States lost manufacturing jobs are due to the replacement of humans by technology.

That sounds quite accurate, actually, said Uric Dufrene, the Sanders Chair in Business at Indiana University Southeast.

Trade, another oft-cited reason for fewer manufacturing jobs, has resulted in the loss of many especially in the textiles industry but Hicks and other economists such as Dufrene say automation has overshadowed the effects of a more global economy.

Its not expected to get much better, either, with a 2015 study from the Boston Consulting Group predicting that 1.2 million advanced robots will be introduced to American industry by 2025 as prices for the technology lower. Of course, automation isnt just about robots. It presents itself in subtler ways, too. Radio frequency identification, for example, cuts down on the number of people needed to find parts in a warehouse, Hicks said.

Automation in Southern Indiana

So how is automation affecting manufacturers in Clark and Floyd counties, where 17 percent of all jobs in the area stem from their business?

Dufrenes answer to that question is that automation is probably not affecting a lot right now in terms of overall employment, that is.

The area is seeing a boom in manufacturing because of places like River Ridge Commerce Center, where theres 6,000 acres of land set aside just for industry. Dufrene thinks incoming manufacturers will make up for whatever jobs are lost to technology.

Hicks has a different point of view. While he said Southern Indiana is an attractive place to locate a factory, he believes that the area will eventually begin to follow the national employment trends.

At some point, even Dufrene says that's possible maybe when River Ridge is fully developed.

Its hard to go out that far, he said.

Automation has, however, affected the types of manufacturing jobs that are available in Southern Indiana.

A different kind of factory worker

Bob Owings is the owner of Owings Patterns in Sellersburg and the chairman of One Southern Indianas Metro Manufacturing Alliance.

When his father started the business over 40 years ago, pattern making was a much different industry than it is today. Much of the work was done by hand and took hours.

As technology evolved, so has Owings Patterns.

Now, the business employees design plastic molds on computer software, another worker programs a machine to create that mold, and even more employees, called CNC operators, control those machines with their own computer.

Robots might have replaced some manufacturing jobs, Owings admits, but not all of them.

Theres 15 people designing that robot, he said. Theres another guy programming that robot. Theres two or three guys maintaining that robot. And oh, theres still a guy operating that robot. So really automation may have created five to seven jobs. It creates a different type of job.

Hicks agrees that some jobs are being created by new manufacturing technology. Many of those jobs, however, require extra education. The days of low-skilled workers making a middle-class salary?

Theyre done with, he said.

That doesnt mean there are people lining up to take those jobs even though the average one in Clark, Crawford, Floyd, Harrison, Scott and Washington counties pays $65,398.

Manufacturers in the area have reported problems to 1si with finding the skilled employees they need to fill their jobs. There are several programs and groups in the area dedicated to filling this gap.

Region 10 WorkOne and Ivy Tech in Sellersburg work together on manufacturing education programs for adults. Prosser Career Education Center in New Albany also has manufacturing classes for both high school students and adults.

Finally, Greater Clark County Schools was recently designated a Ford Next Generation Learning community, meaning all students curriculums will eventually be designed around careers that might include manufacturing. The school system is also the fiscal agent for a $7.7 million grant from the DWD for Clark, Floyd and Harrison county high schools that involves preparing more students for manufacturing careers.

Tying everything together is 1si, which hired a director of talent and workforce development in January to be the employer voice for the areas initiatives.

Hicks is skeptical of most workforce development initiatives. Too often, he said, theyre focused on employers' immediate needs. The jobs that need filled now could be obsolete in a few years.

Its better to teach students how to be adaptable, Hicks said. Dufrene added to that argument, saying that investing in a strong K-12 system and a basic STEM education is important, too.

The shiny side of automation

Automation, for all its affect on the labor market, isnt necessarily a bad thing, Hicks said.

For one, it helps businesses like Owings Patterns thrive.

We have been required to embrace technology and automation to increase our efficiencies, Owings said. We expand our business and expand our opportunities by using technology and automation.

And in the case of Owings Patterns, that has meant hiring more people. Twenty-five years ago, the business had five employees. Now, it has 25.

No one should want factories to be the way they were in the old days, anyway, Hicks said. With higher skilled employees comes better pay and better working conditions.

We are not afraid of automation, Owings said.

Continue reading here:

Automation changing jobs nationwide and in Southern Indiana - Evening News and Tribune

Joe Fuller, VP & CIO, Dominion Enterprises, Joe Fuller is CIO at Dominion Enterprises (formerly Trader Publishing Company), the Norfolk, VA based media and marketing company which operates Homes...More>>

In an old parable a frog is placed in tepid water whose temperature is gradually and slowly raised to the boiling point. As the water gets warmer, instead of recognizing peril, the frog falls into a calm stupor and is boiled to death. If youre a CIO, the water youre getting comfortable in is called automation.

Elon Musk recently predicted that automation will eliminate so many jobs that governments will be forced to pay a universal basic income to each and every citizen, regardless of their work status. McDonalds stock just hit an all time high after announcing that it will replace human cashiers with kiosks in 2500 restaurants. Amazons Jeff Bezos has over a thousand people dedicated to their Alexa artificial intelligence platform. Mark Zuckerberg recently told graduating Harvard students that millions of jobs are about to be replaced by things like self-driving cars and trucks. The consensus is clear: automation is going to drastically reduce certain types of jobs. What does this mean for the CIO?

Lets look at where you are. I bet you jumped on the virtualization bandwagon as soon as you realized how much time and money could be saved compared to traditional rack-and-stack systems administration. You probably embraced agile development and you have at least experimented with DevOps. You may have deployed automated patch management. You might even be exploring ways to automate by pushing computing jobs to public cloud providers and beyond cloud providers. Your CEO and CFO partners have certainly encouraged you to automate, which has sped up IT delivery and reduced IT costs. With automation, youve probably improved your groups performance without cutting staff or spending more on IT. It seems everyone is winning with automation, so wheres the rub?

Were worshiping at the automation altar and unconsciously shunning the good IT people we have fostered our whole careers

As CIO, theres a big insidious problem warming up your kettle as you leverage automation. Youve encouraged your people to seek efficiency and automation and drive lower expenses. You and your team can point to hard dollars saved whenever one of these automation mini-projects goes live. Our company has seen its digital operations grow at about a 25 percent annual clip since 2009 at the expense of traditional operations. But weve actually reduced our operating expenses through automation and the normal influence of Moores law. During this time, weve reduced staff slightly through attrition. We havent been too worried about that because the automation really does seem to eliminate the need for bodies. But theres a big problem sneaking up on us: were losing our mojo.

What do I mean by losing our mojo? Were worshiping at the automation altar and unconsciously shunning the good IT people we have fostered our whole careers. These people are creative. They are brilliant. They love to solve problems. They love to build and re-build to make things better. They hate when things break but they love fixing things when they break. They prefer the command line to a GUI interface. And were losing them. They get that automation is a good thing and embrace eliminating mundane tasks. They know that reducing power consumption by 45% in the data center is good for everyone. They like being the Maytag repairman when its their turn to be on call. But they are bored. They are scared. They are confused about where the industry is going and concerned they too will be obsolete like loading an operating system on a stand-alone server. They have been looking for jobs that offer more challenge, but the reality is that your shop is pretty much the same as IT shops everywhere.

If youre like me, youve looked into the future and seen incomprehensibly massive Amazon, Microsoft and Google data centers in the deserts of the world manned by a handful of security guards who replace the cameras and the water hoses every now and then. You dont see the engineers who designed the systems or the R&D team working on the Gen 7 data center that doesnt even need those water hoses. They are barren, hot places that no humans daydream about working in.

Ive painted a bleak picture but take heart. As CIO, you have the power to place humans into this picture and have everything be OK. But you have to change. Your organization must keep chasing automation but you dont have to. You must delegate those tasks to either specific people or to specific times for you and your people. In other words, you have to stop spending all your time thinking tactically about automation and devote time to thinking strategically about innovation. You owe it to yourself and your IT team to check the box on automated operation but demand more of yourself and your team on the strategic front.

How do you do this? Talk to your team. Ask them about their fears. Ask them what they think you all can do to help move the business forward through innovation and not just automation. Go to summits and seminars and encourage your folks to do the same. Take time to allow show-and-tell when everyone gets back. Sponsor hackathons to develop on the latest AI technology. Buy the newest gadgets for your executives and help them actually use them. Solicit new product ideas from every corner of the business (not just IT) and have the ideas be submitted via short, entertaining videos. Identify IT trends and specifically give your IT teams projects related to those trends that are not specifically tied to cost reductions. Embrace the after-hours activities of your team and find ways to let them share the neat things they are doing outside work.

Automation has been a great boon to IT in the last 10 years and it has made us less expensive and more reliable. But we cant lose our greatest asset our smart people. You as CIO are responsible for shifting time and resources to nurture them so we continue to provide maximum value to the businesses we serve. Dont let us get comfortable in this automation pot and suffer the frogs fate.

Originally posted here:

You're the Frog and Automation is about to Boil You - CIOReview

In a few years, robotic farming equipment will be able to plow and prepare soil while human farmers sleep.

That is what Hokkaido University professor Noboru Noguchi and his team are aiming for as the nations farmers age, with no successors in place.

The improved use of robotics in agriculture will not only reduce manual labor but will enable aging farmers to continue working and focus their time and energy on areas that require their knowledge and experience.

The related technology has been advancing in recent years. Machinery that allows a driver to sit back while it plows the field in straight lines is already on the market.

But unmanned farm machinery would require accurate positioning systems. To date, such machinery has used a combination of GPS, supplied by U.S. satellites, supplemented with data sent from ground-based stations to improve accuracy.

Depending on the lay of the land, however, the machinery occasionally strays up to 10 meters from the plotted path due to GPS systems not always providing completely accurate data.

But on June 1, Japan put its second quasi-zenith satellite, Michibiki No. 2, into orbit to improve the accuracy of the countrys GPS. Two more navigation satellites are set to be launched by the end of 2017 to provide accurate and constant data.

The quasi-zenith system ensures one of the planned four satellites will be above Japan at any one time. When the four Japanese satellites are in operation, the margin of error is expected to be narrowed to a few centimeters.

The agricultural ministry, meanwhile, adopted guidelines in March for autonomous farming machinery. The rules ban self-driving units on regular roads and limit who can enter farmland where the machines are working.

The guidelines prompted leading farm equipment manufacturer Kubota Corp. to start selling advanced self-driving tractors on a trial basis on June 1.

For now, the guidelines cover the use of self-driving machinery under on-site human supervision. But a team of researchers at the Graduate School of Agriculture at Hokkaido University is developing a tractor that can be controlled remotely.

The team is working on a robotic system that automatically observes the surrounding environment, recognizes obstacles and avoids them or halts operation if necessary.

During a recent trial, a team member maneuvered a prototype tractor via a tablet computer. The tractor was equipped with GPS receiver as well as various sensors and other devices. A buzzer went off when it recognized an obstacle and it stopped automatically.

Team leader Noguchi said a planned tractor, capable of autonomously harvesting, leveling ground and flooding rice paddies at night will become available within a few years.

Beginning this autumn, the university team will conduct verification tests on a fully unmanned tractor in a 950-hectare area of land in Hokkaido, taking into consideration actual restrictions such as the use of radio waves and traffic laws.

To put agricultural robots to work, it is important for the people involved, including researchers, engineers and farmers, to allow a process of trial and error to play out, Noguchi said.

Noguchis team is going a step further in a project that will allow farm machines to analyze weather and soil data so they can predict disease and pest infestations. Further, the ability to predict crop yields would enable refined operations such as distributing more fertilizer where needed.

The use of such detailed data can help avoid the wasteful use of fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, improve the efficiency of operations, enhance the safety of agricultural products and contribute to the protection of the environment.

To be sure, automation cannot take over all farming operations.

Shigeru Someya, a large-scale rice grower in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, said that while advances in agricultural equipment have made farming more efficient, it has led to a situation where farmers no longer take good care of paddies by themselves.

Ive been taught that rice grows (best) when they hear the footsteps of human beings, Someya said. Looking over (rice paddies on foot) is indispensable.

The key to the future of Japans agriculture may be combining the knowledge of farmers like Someya and farming technology artificial intelligence that analyses and learns from a huge volume of data, and the introduction of robots.

More here:

Japan's farming industry poised for automation revolution - The Japan Times

In todays IT community, automation is quite a buzzword. We hear about it a lotfrom marketing and sales force automation to workload management automation and the automation of software related to business processes. But why is it so important?

Essentially, automation is about taking the traditional computing resources of the business to the next level. Its about taking manual and labor-intensive processes, and changing them so that they no longer require detailed human intervention. Using principles of technology advancement like machine learning and sophisticated algorithms, vendors can offer companies the ability to automate all sorts of key tasks and processes in all kinds of interesting and useful ways.

Who needs automated tasks?Just about any system administrator can benefit from the principle of automation. Automating tasks frees up time for key people to turn their attention to other important aspects of running a business.

For example, in a virtualized network environment, someone who was spending their time getting after every detail of virtual machine performance and workload management could instead be looking at the big picture and how to scale the system efficiently, while automation software takes care of those other little details in the background.

For a look at how diverse automation benefits can be, think of someone who is running software or even mechanical hardware processes in a manufacturing business. If theres a software process leading to production tagging, quality assurance or some other area of a business process, automation can again take that work out of the human managers hands and perform it automatically, so that the human worker can go do other things.

Automation tools.Some of the best automation tools have to do a managing applications in an enterprise environment. A tool called Zapier helps to integrate apps easily, and monitor automated data that flows between them. It helps to provide pre-built processes that can be repeated without reinventing the wheel.

Other tools like IFTTT help automate the process of using applets for Java-based web development. The scope of applications for these types of tools is profound by connecting this type of automation to Apple, Android or other platforms, human managers get the power of adaptive automation assistance in their back pockets.

Another tool called Stackify also helps human users in a variety of ways. Stackify can help solve application performance issues, find hidden exceptions, or help to synchronize business activities where data resolution is ultimately important.

For example, think about a reservation or booking system or a ticketing system that uses a variety of applications. Companies will be trying to assess how data flows between these applications when scaling. They want product support, and they want an engaged model for fixing bugs and glitches.

In these types of cases, using Stackify Retrace can help make problem-solving more proactive. Its not just a question of providing notifications when somethings wrong its an overall analysis of the applications as theyre developing, to catch any issues. A principle called DevOps combines the words development and operations it makes the development process more fluid and agile. It helps to automate some of the processes of bringing applications into full swing. These are the kinds of processes that Stackify supports to offer developers and others more automation assistance.

Companies that are not familiar with this kind of functionality should be thinking about how to integrate automation into business processes. Whether its a product or service business, and whether the process relates to manufacturing or customer connections, numerous types of automation can really improve business outcomes.

AJ has lead many automation projects and has consistently managed to provide value through removing manual work out of different processes. In his spare time, he likes to cover tech and automation related topics and share his know-how.

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The rise of automation: Why coding is becoming a job for everyone - SDTimes.com

ACME The people responsible for shaping the future of transportation have gathered this week at the annual Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.

The five-day conference attracts major players in the automotive industry from around the globe. Speakers include Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and the director of Ministry of the Economy of Mexicos Trade and NAFTA Office. But executives from BMW, Toyota, Tesla, General Motors, AM General, Bosch, Mazda, Volkswagen, IBM, Nissan, ExxonMobil and Lear Corporation took center stage, along with experts from dozens of development companies and suppliers.

Governors Hall at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa was filled with business people in dark blue jackets and black pantsuits, all of them focused on one thing the future of the automobile. Transportation is big business on a global stage, and the industry is in the midst of a technological upheaval.

Gasoline and diesel displaced horsepower a century ago. Electricity now is pushing fossil fuels off the worlds roads. At the same time, computers are in the early stages of removing humans from the drivers seat. Thats the gist of this weeks meeting in Acme electricity and automation.

As seen here today, highly automated driving is no longer a dream, but a reality, said Continental North America President Jeff Klei.

He spoke Monday afternoon outside the resort, where two cars a Cadillac ATS and a Chrysler 300 fitted with autonomous technology created by Continental and Magna International completed a 7-hour, 300-mile journey, 92 percent of it without any human driver input. The cars began in Detroit, drove through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel to Ontario, returned to the U.S. on the Bluewater Bridge, then cruised northwest to Acme.

Klei referred to the technology installed in the cars as a cruising chauffeur. Technically, that level of automation is called Level 3 or conditional automation. The designation means the vehicle can drive itself in certain environments, such as on a highway. Human control is required at toll booths and in complicated situations like busy city streets.

Levels 4 and 5 are designated as fully automated, technologies in which a human driver never is required. Level 4 is limited to a certain geographic area, such as on a proving ground or within a certain pre-mapped region. Level 5 would allow a vehicle to travel anywhere.

Current technology cant provide full automation, Ryan Eustace, vice president of autonomous driving for the Toyota Research Institute, told the crowd in Governors Hall.

Theres a lot of top-down human awareness that needs to be built in, he said.

He described the constant stream of unknowns on the road pedestrians, animals, broken water mains, traffic cops, accidents, poorly-marked detours as the social dance of driving.

It will be years, he said, before the eventual goal of an automated car that cant crash (because it warns the driver or automatically intervenes to prevent a crash) becomes reality.

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Experts talk automation in Acme - Traverse City Record Eagle

In 2012, two inspiring Ph.D.s, kos Tar and Jzsef Veres, were studying bionics and robotics in the same class in college. The two started a project to build a two-legged robot. During this research and development, one of the focus areas was to develop the senses of the robot to create its ability to touch and feel objects to measure forces on its leg along the X-Y-Z axes. This led them to the development of a layered structure in which silicone would actually change its form under a greater load and made measurement possible in all directions.

Since that time, OptoForce has become a market leader in helping to bring multi-axial force and torque control with optical technology to a wide range of businesses and industries relying on industrial automation and robotics for their operations.

Today, OptoForce equips industrial robots with a sense of touch so that more tasks can be automated, freeing production from redundant, tedious tasks that are needed, and helping businesses save significant time and money.

The company, based in Budapest, Hungary with customers and distributors located around the world, recently announced the opening of its U.S. office to help companies across the U.S. and Canada.

Here are some of the company capabilities.

Optical Force Sensing

Optical force sensing measures deformation and deducts the applied load. Strain gauge technology has been the most prominent on the market since its inception in 1938. The principles havent changed much since that time, and so the primary limitations such as brittle structure, expensive manufacturing and heavy weight, has been constraining widespread application. Optical, silicone-based-force sensors, which were first commercially available from OptoForce, are now opening up new possibilities in automation for companies around the world.

3-Axis Force Sensing: OptoForce sensors have only one structure for measuring deformation along the 3-axes (X, Y, Z). In optical force sensors, photodiode measures the amount of reflected light, originally emitted by the LED. By comparing the measured values on the photodiodes, the acting forces can be precisely reconstructed, not just by the magnitude but also the direction

6-Axis Force/Torque Sensing: Six-axis sensors can measure the lateral forces along with the torques around the X, Y and Z vectors. An array of the three-axis sensors can be used to construct a six-axis force/torque sensor as well.

The OptoForce six-axis Force/Torque Sensors provide six degrees of freedom force and torque measurement and are designed for industrial automation applications that require human hand dexterity. The sensors are made to fit most of the currently used industrial robot arms and were developed so that integration with various interfaces is simple.

Available Applications

Typical applications are force control devices and also include assembly; teach in activities; crash detection; hand guidance tasks; fix and rotate; connectors insertion; peg insertion or pin-in-the hole tasks; used next to end effectors in case of grinding, polishing, deburring, finishing; and arc welding. OptoForce sensors provide a cost-effective yet smart solution. High durability and an unlimited number of custom opportunities resemble all of OptoForces sensor types.

More specifically, the following applications are examples of where robotics can take advantage of OptoForces sensors:

Presence Detection: The OptoForce Force Torque Sensor, along with the OptoForce Move application, fine tunes a Universal Robots protective stop function, so that even the smallest counterforces that are smaller than 10 N - can be perceived.

Center Pointing: The Center Point solution provides for an easy-to-find center point, even if the object has moved away from the original position.

Hand Guiding:It is possible to move the robot by hand on all 6 axes or by locking the movement of any selected axes for precise positioning. This is an easy-to-use for guiding the robot in a fast and precise way.

Path Recording: Using the Path Recording function of the OptoForce Hand Guide Toolbar can create a program within minutes so that any complex path can be easily recorded.

Polishing (Plastic and Metal): With this solution, you can remove the parting lines of plastic objects fast and easy. OptoForces polishing application provides high quality polishing, even with forces under 10 Newtons.

Box Insertion:The Box Insertion solution helps to insert items; for example, inserting a battery inside an electronic device with speed, accuracy, and simplicity.

Pin in the Hole:With this solution, robots can precisely fit or insert mating parts with very high tolerances. This solution helps to find the hole and place any pin into it in a fast and precise manner.

Stacking/Destacking:A force controlled application enables the stacking and de-stacking of products without needing to know the exact thickness and the height of the stack.

Palletizing: The force controlled application also allows the robot to stack products onto pallets. This can be quite advantageous for items that are hard to work such as cardboard boxes.

Metal Part Sanding:Force controlled metal sanding gives the robot the ability to precisely remove excess material from the machined surface. In addition to saving time and cost, it also reduces the health impacts to machine operators.

OptoForce sensors are being used by various companies on numerous projects around the world. A few real-world examples of where the sensors are being used include: a plastic parting line removal; an obstacle detection for a major car manufacturing company; and a center point insertion application for a car part supplier, where the task of the robot is to insert a mirror, completely centered, onto a side mirror housing.

The 6-Axis Force/Torque Sensors are available in two models: Model HEX-E and Model HEX-H. The main difference between the two is that the HEX-E has higher precision, while the HEX-H has lower deformation.

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-E

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

1.7 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.3 mm

500%

Txy

10 Nm

( 2.5 )

500%

Tz

6.5 Nm

( 5 )

500%

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-H

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

0.6 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.25 mm

500%

Txy

20 Nm

( 2 )

300%

Tz

13 Nm

( 3.5 )

300%

The Advantages of OptoForce Force/Torque Sensors

OptoForces HEX-E and HEX-H are sold through a global network of distributors primarily to systems integrator companies. The HEX-E and HEX-H hardware and software helps to shorten the systems integration time, as users have less programming to do when using the sensors, as well as the significant time savings derived from automating precision-oriented tasks.

During the research and development of its sensors, OptoForce took great strides to advance the capability of its sensors in contrast to existing sensors on the market:

Robust and Durable: Businesses generally have found it quite frustrating in robotics that many sensors tend to be fragile, and easy-to-break. OptoForce sensors represent regardless of the application durability and robustness. On numerous occasions, customers have stated that they have broken multiple, highly valuable F/T sensors manufactured by others over the years because of overload and higher impact forces. However, OptoForce has developed a highly deformative property of silicone to ensure its sensors guarantee precise measurements all the way up to 200% overload. Even after total deformation during 600% overload, the silicone regains its original form and is able to measure forces with the same precision, without any hint of permanent damage. This is because these sensors were built to resist sudden shocks.

Resolution:OptoForces sensors possess much greater resolution than other competitive offerings with a 0.1N or 0.001Nm.

Pricing/Value: Leveraging modern technological advances, the company has built sensors and can offer businesses a strong price and value for money. Its low prices give access to highly precise force/torque sensors to the marketplace.

Compatibility: OptoForce sensors received Universal Robot + Certification to validate its suitability for a product environment. OptoForce hardware and software components allow users to extend their force/torque sensing capabilities for those using Universal Robots or KUKA robots.

A Variety of Solutions: Depending on the application, there is a wide range of uses for both the 3 and 6 axis OptoForce sensors.

About the Author

kos Dmtr is the CEO of OptoForce. kos leads all strategic initiatives at OptoForce in helping customers save production time and money by equipping their robots with a sense of touch to automate tasks. He can be reached at akos.domotor@optoforce.com.

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Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation - R & D Magazine

The Automation of Everything

To add to our apprehensions about the future, it seems were running out of letters with which to name successive generations: after Baby Boomers, came generation X, then Millennials (aka Gen-Y), who have now been succeeded by Generation Z.Whether or not one finds any symbolism, omen, or irony in this is beside the point. What is important to ask is: what kind of world will those born in the XXI century grow up in?

Will the automation of everythingleave many people behind, bringing despair and disappointment? Or will it urge humanity to redefine self-actualization? Will the realization of ones potential no longer be defined by career success or measured by net-worth? If and when it becomes unnecessary for a significant portion of the population to be working, will we be able to adapt our value system to allow for guilt-free leisure, encourage more creative exploration, and recognize the value of lifelong learning?

Just days after the e-commerce giant from Silicon Valley dazzled the world with the introduction of Amazon Go, it has made the first commercial delivery by drone. The fantasy world of tomorrow with flying cars and cashless stores seems to be turning into the mundane reality of today. This fantasy, though, is all too real for people whose livelihoods are threatened by it. Just imagining a scenario where the jobs of cashiers and retail salespersons in the U.S. are fully automated, we are looking at adding 7.5 million people to the ranks of the unemployed.

For comparison, since the beginning of XXI century, the American economy has been adding, on average, 0.8M jobs per year. Whether its Uber, Google, Apple, Tesla, or any other company that will bring a viable driverless technology to the market, it is not a matter of if but when. Here again, 3.5 million jobs in America could disappear in a heartbeat, should this technology become commonplace. Loss of just those two narrowly-defined professions could undo 14 years worth of job creation.

Beyond those vivid examples, a widely-shared blog on the World Economic Forums Agenda platform projects that roughly half of all jobs will be lost to automation in less than two decades. One could take solace looking at past experiences where some vocations fade away, but the new ones come in their stead. Many analysts argue, though, that this time will be different.If those predictions come true, and we are indeed heading for a workless future, now would be high time to kick off a policy discussion on how we must prepare for it.

Just as we intellectually recognize that the world of tomorrow will have much less employment, (or at least, much less of what we define as employment right now), the job-creation rhetoric continues to dominate our political discourse. This proverbial tomorrow may take a decade (or two, or five) to arrive. Undoubtedly, some version of it will and burying ones head in the sand is no solution. Focusing on the skills necessary to compete for the yet-to-be-invented jobs is only part of the puzzle. As the gap widens between population growth and automation on one side, and job creation to meet the needs of our machine-powered future on the other, we have to begin making serious adjustments to maintain social cohesion.

What if continued automation of work be it legal research, or medical diagnostics, or writing of newspaper articles delivers productivity gains that can be distributed among the population without the need for everyone to contribute in a traditional way? Should such future be imagined, it will require a major paradigm shift in how our society is organized, how we define contribution, where we find fulfillment, and how we draw meaning from our daily activities.

The first question, which is already being vigorously debated, is how can one support oneself when one is not expected to be working. Unconditional basic income, or digital dividend, is one concept thats gathering momentum. Some jurisdictions have either toyed with the idea or are piloting it. The political debate needs to engage the taboo topic of guaranteeing economic security to families through a universal basic income. writes David Ignatius for The Washington Post.

This novel policy proposal is often contrasted with welfare, with the resulting arguments being both for and against. The problem with that discourse is that its framed in terms of the current situation where policies are designed to discourage freeriding of some upon the efforts of others. What we should be considering instead is the circumstance where all humans are freeriding on the efforts of machines. The latter do not create demand, which in turn creates a serious conundrum for our economic system.

As radical as the universal basic income idea may sound, in strict terms, its a simple technical solution to a significant social problem. It would be far more difficult to imagine, let alone incorporate, a new value system where unemployment is not stigmatized. Adopting norms in a society where ones contribution is no longer defined by economic output, is a challenge of a different scale and complexity altogether. To address it before the societal tensions boil over, we will need a ton of courage, a lot of blue-sky thinking, and a great deal of policy experimentation.

We must begin by openly acknowledging and ultimately facing the reality. As political careers are made and broken on the promises of job-creation, it will require a great deal of courage for our leaders to take responsibility and initiate a frank debate on the possible workless future. To better cope with the uncertain future, well have to develop a new vocabulary to articulate the dilemmas we have yet to face.

It is also the intellectual framework within which we look at our economic systems that needs to change. Here we can start with redefining GDP to better account for non-compensated contribution (such as childcare and housekeeping) or better yet, move towards a wider matrix such as Social Progress Index or any other methodology that recognizes human contribution and progress in new ways. Perhaps we should also retire terms like labor productivity and, instead, refocus on measuring self-actualization.

One of the simplest, and yet also more complicated, questions to ponder in a world free of traditional employment, is what will we do with our free time? It would be good to ease our way into it by looking at the 6 Hour Workdaypolicies that Sweden is introducing to increase productivity and make people happier. Shorter work days will help prevent burnout and allow people a space to find other activities from which they can derive meaning. For those who are employed, a job isnt just a vehicle to earn ones living, it is a means to address the basic human need for belonging. Exploring how this need could be met outside of the workplace would be a worthy undertaking.

Given that the ambition of an individual today is often conflated with professional aspirations and then measured by ones career success, ambition of the future could potentially be viewed through the prism of building ones capacity for imagination and aspiration to learn, generate, and exchange ideas. Popularizing the idea of a sabbatical breaks in professional fields beyond academia (where it is already fairly commonplace), would help us in making this a smoother transition.

All of those efforts will have to go hand-in-hand with addressing the rising inequality and recognizing the Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Economy, where failure [to find a job after losing one] is a source of deep shame and a reason for self-blame.

The imagined future where humans may not have to work as machines will be taking care of ever-widening range of our needs and wants is not assured, but it is highly probable. We can debate the timeline and keep stuffing this difficult conversation into a can, so that we could kick it down the road. What would be more constructive, though, is delving into this debate headfirst, trying out new policies, learning from one another, and shaping our workless future to minimize its discontents. Our kids (the Gen-Zs) will thank us for it!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Futurism or its affiliates.

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Automation May Lead to a Workless Future for Humans. Here's How We Can Cope. - Futurism

Advice

Husband needs flashing arrow to keep towel off bed

My otherwise wonderful husband always leaves his wet towel on the bed (on my side!). Ive asked him to stop doing this countless times, but I dont think hes being passive-aggressive or anything. I think he just spaces out after showering. How can I get him to remember?

Soggy

Its good for a man to have goals, though ideally not one that involves growing a fern out of your comforter.

As you appear to understand, the problem isnt ill will; its I, Robot. The first time your husband wondered Where do I put this wet towel? perhaps at age 10 his brain said, Easy peasy just drop it right there on the bed. Sadly, it seems his superhero bedspread didnt pipe up: Supermans got a ton to do today, and flying your wet towel over to the hamper is not on his agenda.

Our brain is an efficiency expert. Figuring things out the first time around (a la what should I do with this towel?) takes a bunch of energy. But, as neuroscientist Donald Hebb pointed out (in somewhat more neuroscientific terms), as you do an action over and over, your brain goes, Oh, that again. The trigger for the action in this case, approaching the bed (while in a towel, ready to get dressed) becomes automatic. Automatic means theres no stopping to muse, Wait! I have a wife now, and shes threatening to Saran Wrap the bed. Theres only the old familiar launch code: Bed! cueing Drop wet towel here!

This automation thing with thinking removed from the equation is the reason nagging or even asking nicely before or after the fact is so often useless in changing behavior. You need to break in to the automatic sequenceas its in progress when he gets to the bed kind of like an air traffic controller coming in over the planes intercom: Attention Southwest two-two-niner

Interrupting the trigger sequence allows you to send a yoo-hoo to areas of his prefrontal cortex, the brains department of rational thought asking them to kindly wake the hell up and take over from the basal ganglia and other parts of the brains department of automation.

No, Im not suggesting you stand guard by the bed like one of those decorative architectural lions, waiting for wet towel time. And hiring one of those street-corner sign spinners would probably be both impractical and a little creepy.

To grab your husbands attention in a positive way, I suggest collecting cartoons (like one of my faves, Bizarro, by Dan Piraro) and leaving one marked Towel alert! xo on the area of the bed he turns into terrycloth swampland. (Pair it with a battery-operated flashing light if he ends up dropping his towel on top of it.) The cartoon should break him out of his auto-daze, reminding him to return the wet towel to its ancestral home, Ye Olde Towel Rack. (If there is something missing for the two of you in bed, it probably isnt mildew.)

Fame Fatale

Im a novelist whos suddenly getting successful (after 20 years of crappy jobs and rejected manuscripts). Every day, several people make this annoying and rather insulting comment to me: Dont forget about me when youre famous! This got me wondering: What keeps some people grounded while others let success go to their head?

Published

Of course youll stay in touch with your old friends. Youll have your assistant call them to see whether theyd like to come over and clean out your rain gutters.

The quality that keeps success from turning you into, well, Kanye East, is humility. People confuse humility being humble with being humiliated. However, humility is basically a healthy awareness of your limitations what social psychologist and humility researcher Pelin Kesebir describes as a down-to-earth perspective of yourself in relation to all other beings.

Thats something youre more likely to have when you make it at 40 after 20 years of working crappy jobs, driving a car held together with duct tape and hope, and selling your blood to buy a tuna melt. Contrast that with hitting it big at 17: Bro, I was just on my hoverboard at the mall, and some dude handed me a recording contract!

The cool thing is, social psychologist Elliott Kruse and his colleagues find that you can bolster humility by expressing gratitude appreciation for how another person has helped you. Expressing gratitude both inhibits internal focus and promotes external focus focus on others. This sort of wider view may help you keep any fame you get in perspective. After all, theres a way to live on in the hearts and minds of many, even after you die, and its by creating brilliant, spirit-moving art or by being a chinchilla videotaped while eating a Dorito.

(c)2017, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol.com (advicegoddess.com). Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon. Order Amy Alkons book, Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say The F-Word (St. Martins Press, June 3, 2014) at amazon.com.

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Automation To Blame - The Free Weekly