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Geek Plus sells 10,000 warehouse robots – Robotics and Automation News

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Warehouse automation companyGeek+ Robotics says it has sold more than 10,000 units of its autonomous mobile robots.

The company has seen a dramatic increase in demand for warehouse robots from sectors such as e-commerce and automotive supply chains.

Geek+ revealed the new sales figure in an update about its activity during Singles Day in China, occurring annually on November 11th, traditionally one of the busiest in the e-commerce calendar.

Other Singles Day milestones Geek+ listed include:

The company also highlighted that 4,000 robotic units were used for large-scale cluster scheduling.

And the largest-scale robotics warehouse application during the peak order volumes and delivery period of Singles Day.

Geek Plus was established in 2014 with fewer than 10 people, and now employs more than 700.

It raised more than $150 million in funding last year and is looking to expand beyond its Asian market into Europe and America.

Moreover, it has been adding more products to its range, which now includes a driverless forklift.

Engineers and nurses team up to build inflatable robots – Penn: Office of University Communications

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

In recent years, there have been massive advances in the world of hard roboticsrobots that are made from hard plastics and metals. These robots are excellent for industrial jobs because they are precise, strong, and well-equipped for strenuous labor. Its a smart solution for factories and warehouses, but what about jobs where humans are more integral to the work itself, such as nursing or healthcare? If researchers could develop robots that interact with humans as carefully as humans interact with one another, they could be used in a variety of fields to improve daily life in radical new ways. This is where soft robotics comes in.

James Pikul, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, studies soft robotics, an emerging field that seeks to build robots that can safely handle more delicate and fragile objects. These robots must incorporate materials that deform under pressure, reducing the chances of crushing, pinching or otherwise hurting the equally soft things they interact with, such as human bodies.

In2019, Pikul and his team received a$2 million grant from the National Science Foundationto explore a new type of soft robotics that dont conform to the common conception of robots at all. These soft robots start as flat sheets, then transform into precise shapes to perform tasks. Their goal: to create an inflatable robotic mat to be placed on top of hospital beds and used to move patients. This application has the potential to increase patient comfort and decrease injuries to nurses and healthcare workers that can be caused by patient handling.

Ambarella shows off new robotics platform and AWS AI programming deal – VentureBeat

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Chip designer Ambarella has announced a new robotics platform based on its CVflow architecture for artificial intelligence processing, and it has also signed a deal with Amazon Web Services to make it easier to design products with its chips.

Santa Clara, California-based company will demo the robotics platform and the Amazon SageMaker Neo technology for training machine-learning models at CES 2020, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas next week.

Ambarella, which went public in 2011, started out as a maker of low-power chips for video cameras. But it parlayed that capability into computer vision expertise, and it launched its CVflow architecture to create low-power artificial intelligence chips.

Based on CVflow architecture, the new robotics platform targets automated guided vehicles (AGV), consumer robots, industrial robots, and emerging industry 4.0 applications.

The robotics platform provides a unified software infrastructure for robotics perception across Ambarellas CVflow SoC family, including the CV2, CV22, CV25, and S6LM. And it provides access and acceleration for the most common robotics functions, including stereo processing, key points extraction, neural network processing, and Open Source Computer Vision Library (OpenCV) functions.

Ambarella will demonstrate the highest-end version of the platform during CES 2020 in the form of a single CV2 chip, which will perform stereo processing (up to 4Kp30 or multiple 1080p30 pairs), object detection, key points tracking, occupancy grid, and visual odometry. This high level of computer vision performance combined with Ambarellas advanced image processing including native support for up to 6 direct camera inputs on CV2 and 3 on CV25 enables robotics designs that are both simpler and more powerful than traditional robotics architectures, the company said.

Jerome Gigot, senior director of marketing at Ambarella, said the technology combines the companys advanced imaging capabilities with its high-performance CVflow architecture for computer vision, leading to smarter and more efficient consumer and industrial robots.

The platform supports the Linux operating system, as well as the ThreadX real-time operating system for products that require functional safety, and it comes with a complete toolkit for image tuning, neural network porting, and computer vision algorithm development. It also supports the Robotics Operating System (ROS) for easier development and visualization.

The new robotics platform and its related development kits are available today and can be paired with various mono and stereo configurations, as well as rolling shutter, global shutter, and IR sensor options.

Above: Attendees at Amazons annual cloud computing conference walk past the AWS logo in Las Vegas, November 30, 2017.

Image Credit: Reuters / Salvador Rodriguez/File Photo

Meanwhile, Ambarella and Amazon Web Services said customers can now use Amazon SageMaker Neo to train machine learning models once and run them on any device equipped with an Ambarella CVflow-powered AI vision system on chip (SoC).

Until now, developers had to manually optimize ML models for devices based on Ambarella AI vision SoCs. This step added considerable delays and errors to the application development process.

Ambarella and AWS collaborated to simplify the process by integrating the Ambarella toolchain with the Amazon SageMaker Neo cloud service. Now, developers can simply bring their trained models to Amazon SageMaker Neo and automatically optimize the model for Ambarella CVflow-powered chips.

Customers can build an ML model using MXNet, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or XGBoost and train the model using Amazon SageMaker in the cloud or on their local machine. Then they upload the model to their AWS account and use Amazon SageMaker Neo to optimize the model for Ambarella SoCs. They can choose CV25, CV22, or CV2 as the compilation target. Amazon SageMaker Neo compiles the trained model into an executable that is optimized for Ambarellas CVflow neural network accelerator.

The compiler applies a series of optimizations that can make the model run up to 2 times faster on the Ambarella SoC. Customers can download the compiled model and deploy it to their fleet of Ambarella-equipped devices. The optimized model runs in the Amazon SageMaker Neo runtime purpose-built for Ambarella SoCs and available for the Ambarella SDK. The Amazon SageMaker Neo runtime occupies less than 10% of the disk and memory footprint of TensorFlow, MXNet, or PyTorch, making it much more efficient to deploy ML models on connected cameras.

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Ambarella shows off new robotics platform and AWS AI programming deal - VentureBeat

Japan Loves Robots, but Getting Them to Do Human Work Isnt Easy – The New York Times

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

ASAHIKAWA, Japan Removing the tiny eyes that pockmark potatoes is dull, repetitive and time-consuming work perfect, it would seem, for robots in a country where the population is declining and workers are increasingly in short supply.

But its not so simple.

When a food processing plant that makes potato salad and stews in Hokkaido, Japans northernmost island, tried out a robot prototype designed to remove the potatoes eyes, the machine was not up to the task.

The robots camera sensors were not sensitive enough to identify every eye. While human hands can roll a potato in every direction, the robot could rotate the vegetables on only one axis, and so failed to dig out many of the blemishes that are toxic to humans. Other perfectly good pieces were carved away.

Fundamentally, it could not do the work to the standard of humans, said Akihito Shibayama, a factory manager at Yamazaki Group, which operates the plant in Asahikawa, a midsize city in the middle of Hokkaido where 30 workers process about 15 tons of potatoes a day.

Japan, the worlds third largest economy, hopes that robots and other types of automation will help solve its demographic problems and impending labor shortage. That priority is reflected in a government blueprint, dubbed Society 5.0 and repeatedly emphasized by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But businesses are struggling as some jobs that seem ripe for a robotic takeover prove remarkably difficult to outsource to a machine.

Robots can perform simple tasks but not tasks that require judgment or the ability to evaluate a change in a situation, said Toshiya Okuma, associate director of global strategy in the robot business division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a leading Japanese developer of robotics that has long helped automate car factory assembly lines.

Looking to robots allows Japan to avoid hard choices about immigration, a delicate topic in a country reluctant to let in many outsiders. But its also a good cultural fit.

Japan was an early adopter of robots, installing them in car factories starting in the 1970s. And some of the most beloved Japanese touchstones are robots.

Doraemon, a cuddly blue robot cat, stars in a comic book series and one of the countrys longest-running television shows. Astro Boy or Tetsuwan Atomu in Japan is a superhero in comics, television shows and movies, a kind of android equivalent of Pinocchio who fights for peace between robots and humans.

Still, however hospitable Japanese businesses have been to robots, they have learned that robots able to perform somewhat sophisticated tasks cost much more than human workers.

So at the factory in Asahikawa, where about 60 percent of the work is automated, many tasks still require the human touch. Workers peel pumpkins, for example, because some skin enhances the flavor of stew. A robot cant determine just how much skin to shuck off.

Other efforts to use robots or automation have hit snags, in programs ranging from self-driving buses to package-delivering drones or robots that comfort nursing home residents.

A hotel staffed by androids in southern Japan ended up laying off some of its robots after customers complained that they were not as good at hospitality as people.

During a trial of self-driving buses in Oita City, also in southern Japan, one bus crashed into a curb, and officials realized that autonomous vehicles were not quite ready to cope with situations like traffic jams, jaywalkers or cars running red lights.

For decades, Japan has been a leader in the use of robots. It is the worlds largest maker of industrial robots, and once led the globe in the number of robots per employee, said Gee Hee Hong, an economist specializing in Japan at the International Monetary Fund.

More recently, according to the International Federation of Robots, Singapore, South Korea and Germany have overtaken Japan in robots per worker.

Unlike in the West, where employees often view automation as an existential threat, robots in Japan are generally portrayed as friendly forces.

Real world robots are regarded for the most part as benevolent and as a kind of symbol of an advanced, technologically savvy society, said Jennifer Robertson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and author of Robo Sapiens Japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family and the Japanese Nation.

I think the Japanese have been more innovative in thinking about applications of robotics in everyday life, Ms. Robertson added. But the hype got in the way of reality.

Helping drive the interest in robots are concerns about the declining population in Japan, where births are at their lowest level since 1874. Already industries like manufacturing, caregiving, construction and agriculture are starting to run low of workers.

In Japan, instead of displacing workers, you are simply replacing workers, said Todd Schneider, deputy division chief for the Japan division of the International Monetary Fund.

In Hokkaido, for example, where there are 1.2 job openings for every working-age resident, recent tests of autonomous driving trucks have not been perceived as a way to get rid of workers since they are already in short supply, prefectural officials say.

Hokuren, a food company that processes beet sugar in northeastern Hokkaido, needs about 250 drivers during the peak fall season to transport 6,000 tons of beets a day from farms and storage facilities to its processing plant.

Because of intense labor shortages this year, Hokuren tested autonomous vehicles manufactured by UD Trucks, a Volvo subsidiary based in Japan. But Hokuren officials say more tests are needed to ensure that vehicles can handle impediments like snowy or icy roads or changes in traffic lights.

Genyou Imai, 48, the owner of a trucking company that regularly supplies drivers to Hokuren, acknowledged that he could not hire enough to meet his clients needs and that the autonomous vehicles might free his company up for other kinds of work.

Although Parliament passed a bill last year to grant new visas to foreign workers to help cope with shortages, the government has consistently emphasized robots as more likely saviors.

So where you would potentially have immigrants doing the jobs, you say, Go make robots, said Selma Sabanovic, a professor of cognitive science at Indiana University who was a visiting scholar at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan.

Business leaders have expressed doubts that foreigners could quickly solve Japans need for workers, in part because of societal resistance.

Japan has kind of a very pure-blood race, said Noritsugu Uemura, an executive in charge of government and external relations for Mitsubishi Electric, a leading electronics manufacturer. I think not only could it take 20 or 30 years, but it will take more like 40 or 50 years to integrate immigrants into Japan.

We cant wait such a long time, he added.

Robots have helped the Kalm dairy outside Sapporo, Hokkaidos capital, trim from 15 workers to five. Now eight robots milk more than 400 cows three times a day as jazz piano music plays over loudspeakers in the barn.

Each cow wears a sensor on its collar to signal the robots when it is time for milking. Automated gates corral the animals into stalls where the robots attach suction cups to the cows teats. Computers track the volume of milk streaming into tanks.

Jin Kawaguchiya, chief executive of Kalm and a former banker who took over his wifes familys dairy business, said that to survive, it had to merge with several other local dairies that were also short of workers.

The best thing we could do, Mr. Kawaguchiya said, was make it into a humanless process.

Eimi Yamamitsu contributed reporting.

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Japan Loves Robots, but Getting Them to Do Human Work Isnt Easy - The New York Times

Edtech 2020: personalised learning, robotics and teacher wellbeing – Education Technology

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Last year saw a number of significant changes take place in the edtech sector, and it looks like this innovation is going to continue into 2020 and beyond. For example, we have seen the rise of personalised learning a system which tests a students current level before using that information to guide them through the curriculum at an appropriate, personalised pace. Innovations in personalised learning mean that more and more students are able to enjoy and benefit from a learning experience that has been adapted to their ability.

In 2019, we have also seen a welcome discussion on the importance of bridging the gender gap in STEM subjects something I anticipate will continue to emerge as 2020 progresses. But what else can we expect 2020 to bring?

Edtech to support teacher wellbeing

In July 2019, Ofsted published a report which focused on teacher wellbeing and their research found that, despite most teachers enjoying teaching and maintaining good relationships with both colleagues and pupils, certain elements of the job led to poor occupational wellbeing for many teachers.

Although the reasons for this are complex, it is certain that technology will play a part in improving this wellbeing, especially as schools move to evidence how they are supporting teachers as part of the new Ofsted Inspection Framework. Whether this technology takes the shape of teacher-tailored wellbeing apps, or AI-software that allows for more streamlined administrative procedures, edtech will certainly be looking for ways to mitigate the undue stress on teachers and in doing so, will improve teachers wellbeing and cultivate better working environments.

Renewed emphasis on cross-curricular learning

One of the most important challenges when teaching is student engagement. Cross-curricular learning allows a child to be creative, think critically and approach a subject or discipline from a new perspective all of which help to boost engagement. But how can effective cross-curricular learning be facilitated?

Thanks to an increasingly digitised and automated workforce, the rise of robotics will continue in edtech. Robotics provides an umbrella offering of engineering, AI and technology as well as integrating subjects such as science and design into technology. Creating these cross-curricular learning opportunities through edtech will help schools and teachers streamline resource commitments but also deepen students knowledge through cross-curricular and practical applications. For example, with a little creativity, programming and coding resources can be used to measure soil pH and plant health an activity that has the power to connect the dots between coding, biology and chemistry.

Whats more, this active approach to learning reinforces the idea that science is not something that is isolated to textbooks and classrooms.

Bridging the gender gap in STEM subjects

Cross-curricular learning is about accessibility. However, the gender gap continues to be a problem in STEM subjects, with far too few girls pursuing STEM subjects as they progress through school.

Of course, a large part of the problem is rooted in societal expectations. One solution however, is to ensure that students irrespective of gender feel equipped and motivated to engage in the study of the STEM. I believe that technology has a huge role to play in this process and introducing engaging learning resources at an early age is vital in nurturing a life-long interest in these subjects.

If students are given the chance to enjoy a hands-on experience in STEM-related fields, then it is much more likely they will pursue these subjects later in their learning careers. Technology can help collapse gender expectations and ensure that all children receive a fun, inspiring and motivating introduction to the world of science, engineering and mechanics.

Coding for all

Coding has fast become an in-demand skill, particularly as we become ever more reliant on technology. Although it is clear that coding is taking centre-stage in education, few question the accessibility in this field.

To combat this, I anticipate a multi-disciplinary and creative approach that combines play principles with a personalised learning experience, building an engaging and motivating environment for students who want to involve themselves in this demanding field.

More holistic personalised learning

Personalised learning stood at the forefront of the edtech sector in 2019 and is showing very few signs of slowing down! As we enter 2020, I expect to see this trend continue but in a more holistic way. For example, I anticipate personalised learning to reach beyond meeting pupils individual needs and integrating personalised homework and revision, and assessment to ensure that pupils receive as close to a 1:1 learning experience as possible.

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Edtech 2020: personalised learning, robotics and teacher wellbeing - Education Technology

Powell robotics team heading to national competition – Wyoming Tribune

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

POWELL Students in the Robotics Club at Powell Middle School are blazing past the competition this year, and one team has been selected to represent the whole state in a global competition.

The middle school robotics team, Black and Orange Storm, took the Champions Award on Dec. 7, at the FIRST Lego League Wyoming State Championship in Casper. That drew an invite to represent Wyoming at the World Festival in April in Houston.

The team estimates the trip will cost about $10,000 for all nine members, so the team members are busy coming up with fundraising ideas including asking local businesses to sponsor their trip.

The stormers also took first place in the Robot Performance Award while Power House, another PMS team, took first place for the Innovation Solution Award.

The club is sponsored by Zac Opps, computer science instructor at PMS, and is comprised of a number of teams.

The Lego League has different themes every year, and this year the theme was City Shaper. The projects sought innovative and creative approaches to addressing various problems within a city, such as transportation, environment and accessibility.

The students were presented with the challenge of identifying a problem within their own communities, researching the problem and developing and refining a solution.

They also designed, built and programmed a robot to execute tasks on a board that simulated engineering challenges in an urban environment. The tasks involved picking up, transporting and delivering objects in various missions, with teams awarded points based on how well they carried out a mission. It was in this competition that Black and Orange Storm took the first place Robotics Performance Award.

For the innovation project, the stormers looked at ways to reuse the sand the city spreads on roadways when theres snow and ice.

It was raining and snowing at the time (they brainstormed ideas), so it was something we were thinking about, said Black and Orange Storm team member Kenan Lind.

What they discovered through their research is that cities often use salt and chemicals, which arent always great for the environment. After talking to Powell Streets Superintendent Gary Butts, however, they learned Powell crews use mostly sand, and it doesnt get reused. Instead, the city sweeps it up and uses it for landfill cover.

It gets ground down and they cant use it again, said Luke Legler, who is also a stormer.

For their innovative solution, the kids are considering how the used sand can be filtered and applied for traction on hiking trails.

Power Houses innovation project, for which they won a first place award, addressed the problem of lead poisoning with a project called Put Lead to Bed, inspired by the problems Flint, Michigan, had in 2014 with the citys water system. Through their research the team discovered lead leaches through corrosive water pipes, and small towns cant raise the revenue to replace all their old lead pipes.

The students got in touch with Powells water superintendent, Ty McConnell, and after talking to him, they developed an idea for a sealant that could be sprayed inside the pipe with a robot. The non-toxic sealant will create a barrier between the corrosive water and the lead pipes.

Hopefully, science will soon catch up with the revolutionary idea and the Power House can find a new way to help small towns with the lethal lead pipes, said Power House team member Emma Johnson.

Last year, the stormers were called the Pink and Fluffy Unicorns. It was a name team member Salem Brown wanted to stick with this year. However, the other students wanted a name thats a bit more stormy, so the unicorns became the Black and Orange Storm.

The team did win the inspiration award last year, but that success pales in comparison to what they achieved this year.

We won a real award this time, said Brown, who did a lot of research into this years innovation project.

Brown didnt have a driving passion for robotics when she first got into the club several years ago, but her interest has held ever since.

I sat down at the table and they let me in, she said of how it all began.

Most of the members have been in the club and known each other for a long time.

The stormers didnt go to the Casper competition expecting to do so well; they were just having fun at the projects. When the announcement came that the Powell students had taken the Champions Award, they were floored.

I really wasnt expecting it. When they called us onto the stage, I was completely shocked, said stormer Alan Crawford.

There are other teams in the club, including the Rovengers and Chicken Nugget Tribe, and while they didnt win any awards at the competition in Casper, the students are still getting a lot out of their experience.

I chose to join the robots team because I did robotics in elementary school and I thought I could learn a lot from the experience, said Isabelle Lobingier, whos on the Rovenger team.

The seventh-grader said her continued participation has allowed her to improve her skills and make new friends.

For Johnson, an eighth-grader with the Power House team, the best part of the experience is the sense of accomplishment.

The thing that I like most about robotics is that seeing how far youve come, she said before they went to the state competition. The team itself has gone through so many changes and I really have enjoyed watching it develop.

Any individuals or businesses who would like to sponsor the Black and Orange Storms trip to Houston for the global robotics competition can contact Opps at PMS.

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Powell robotics team heading to national competition - Wyoming Tribune

Robotics expert says automation will provide ‘more interesting’ jobs – Metro.co.uk

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Robotic systems work on the chassis of a car during an automated stage of production at the Jaguar Land Rover factory (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Automation is constantly being heralded as the reason for job losses in various industries but one expert believes there is a silver lining.

Rich Walker, the company director of robotics firm Shadow Robot Company, has gone on the record to say the introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace will free up workers to take on more interesting jobs.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, Mr Walker explained that current working practices are not as efficient as they could be. In some areas specifically manufacturing adding in smart robots would allow humans to take on more complex tasks.

Most people in manufacturing industries spend most of their time picking things up and putting them down again, he told the site.

They do this over and over again all day every day. Even in an automated production line, there will be lots of people giving it parts.

This isnt a very efficient way for people to work, he said.

Most of the companies we talk to that do that say we have lots of people, all those people know how we work as an organisation and we have much better jobs for them to do.

But we cant get them to do those better jobs because we actually have to have people standing here all day picking things up and giving them to machines or picking them up and putting them down.

So if we can just make that next bit something that machines can do then that frees up people to do far more interesting jobs.

However, other thinkers dont necessarily share the same viewpoint.

A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research reckons that without policy intervention, automation is likely to exacerbate existing inequality rather than improve it.

And the GMB union said old jobs are being subsumed to automation faster than new jobs and are being created after reporting 600,000 job losses in manufacturing in the last decade.

But last year the World Economic Forum (WEF) seemed to agree with Walkers viewpoint.

Despite bringing widespread disruption, the advent of machine, robots and algorithm could actually have a positive impact on human employment, it stated.

However, if automation is going to free up workers from menial tasks then there will be a challenge for employers to reskill and redeploy their workers elsewhere.

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Robotics expert says automation will provide 'more interesting' jobs - Metro.co.uk

the marscat home bot is the world’s first bionic robotic cat – Designboom

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

aibos rival is here! chinese tech firm elephant robotics has launched the bionic marscat on kickstarter. the robotic cat autonomously moves using its 16 motorized joints and recognizes 20 keywords including come here.

images courtesy of elephant robotics

marscat is available in white, gray, ginger, and black, and is outfitted with six capacitive touch sensors. its other electronics include a depth-sensing laser, a microphone, a speaker and a raspberry pi microprocessor. a 5mp camera in the nose allows it to see and interact with the user and its surroundings.

the home bot can reportedly recognize objects such as three included toys, plus its able to avoid obstacles and respond to several voice. marscats personality is said to develop over time, with the ability to randomly perform activities such as playing, sleeping, and even burying imaginary waste in a litter box.

determining factors include the users tone of voice, and the number of times that they handle the marscat. the more often that the user talks to the robot, the more frequently it will meow at them.

the battery life last between two and three hours and up to five hours for low usage via USB charging. the marscat is currently the subject of a kickstarter campaign where a pledge of us$649 will get you one, when and if they reach production. the planned retail price is $1,299.

you will never know what marscat will do next because it is like a real cat, fully autonomous, the company explains. marscat acts independently without any instructions. marscat walks, runs, sleeps, sits, stretches, bites nails, kneads and even buries litter although she wont produce any waste. it may express different emotions by different meows or gestures. sometimes it may do some amazing things that surprise you and make your day!

project info

company: elephant roboticsproduct: marscattype: robotic catstatus: kickstarter

kieron marchese I designboom

jan 03, 2020

Jonathan Waldmans SAM documents the quest to invent a robotic bricklayer – The Boston Globe

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Close to 60 years later a start-up operation called Construction Robotics, based near Rochester, New York, came up with a software-programmed device that could build an entire brick wall. CR branded their creation SAM (for semi-automated mason), and in SAM: One Robot, a Dozen Engineers, and the Race to Revolutionize the Way We Build, Waldman chronicles the long hours, endless frustrations and arduous struggles it took to come up with a version of SAM that was viable. That meant a machine that was easy for contractors to operate and could function effectively in an outdoor environment (construction sites were terrible places for robots).

As he tells the story of SAM, Waldman supplies brief histories of the construction industry and robotic arms. He also highlights the almost primal connection we have with brick that we dont quite have with steel and glass.

Clay resonates, Waldman says. Around the world, across religions, mythology has it that God fashioned mankind out of clay. Like us, bricks are of the earth; like us, bricks breathe; and like us, each brick is imperfect but also good enough. Even in the 21st century, he adds, [b]ricks strike a sociological nerve, presenting a familiar, comforting fabric in our lives. Bricks make schools feel school-like and churches church-like.

The economics of construction with brick, however, are under pressure. Starting in the 1890s, with the introduction of steel as a construction material, [m]asonry went from fundamental from essential to just a veneer, Waldman writes. One result was an 80-percent reduction in the use of brick in buildings. Another was that masonry became more of a specialized trade.

While masonry accounts for only four cents of every construction dollar, building in brick is still a big business. Ten billion dollars worth of bricks are installed annually in the United States, Waldman informs us. Of all the surface area on the exteriors of all the non-residential buildings in the country, a quarter is covered in brick.

Although bricklaying remains a significantly unionized industry with many masonry firms clinging to their traditional way of working and union-negotiated level of pay, some union leaders have pushed for technical innovation as a way to save costs and bring some relief to an aging work force (the average mason is 55 years old).

This was where Scott Peters, the head of Construction Robotics, sought his opportunity.

Scott wasnt trying to replace humans, Waldman writes. [H]is aim was to combine forces, and save men their jobs by marrying man and machine. By creating a bricklaying robot, he aimed to eliminate lifting and bending and repetitive-motion injuries in humans; to improve the quality of walls; to finish jobs faster and safer and cheaper. SAM, it should be said, still needed close human supervision even when working well. It also needed to be manually supplied with bricks and mortar.

Waldman immerses you eyeball-deep in the technological and logistical challenges Scott and his team faced, while also taking the marketing side of things into account. Peters initially embraced a corporate theory of minimal viable product, which meant he booked construction gigs before SAM was completely ready. The idea was that customer feedback would suggest improvements to SAM.

Scotts gamble, Waldman writes, was certainly bold. It was also somewhere between ridiculous and insane.

Waldman is clearly exhilarated by the story hes telling, and his zest comes through in the books best turns of phrase, whether hes critiquing the appearance of an early iteration of SAM (It looked, frankly, like a hot dog cart) or noting the way that in the choreography that is construction [o]ne changed note altered the whole tune.

That said, SAM poses some stumbling blocks for the lay reader. An index and glossary would have come in handy to help keep track of all the acronyms and specialized vocabulary Waldman uses. You can, perhaps, intuit the meaning of a sentence like Kerry turned an electric drill into a slump meter with a digital readout, and made a viscometer from a Sawzall and a spade bit. But to fully understand the books details requires constant Googling. Elsewhere, Waldmans word choice can seem off for instance, when he talks about an early version of SAM being disfigured and overhauled. Might he mean dismantled or disassembled?

The books incidental pleasures include Waldmans visit to the annual World of Concrete trade show where Construction Robotics introduced SAM. Details on the U.S. Brick Olympics and International Brick Collectors Association offer quirky surprises, too.

All in all, SAM reveals a world that surrounds us but mostly eludes our notice and thats quite a feat.

SAM: ONE ROBOT, A DOZEN ENGINEERS, AND THE RACE TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY WE BUILD

By Jonathan Waldman

Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 267 pp., $28

Michael Upchurch is the former Seattle Times book critic.

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Jonathan Waldmans SAM documents the quest to invent a robotic bricklayer - The Boston Globe

Even With Industry 4.0, Sometimes The Best Level Of Automation Is None – Forbes

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Getty

This waning year of 2019 featured a constant flurry of commentary about how the business world is being transformed by advanced manufacturing. IIoT, 5G, 3-D printing, AI, VR, revolutionary robots and cobots theyve all had gallons of real and virtual ink spilled about how theyre fundamentally changing the production and supply chain picture.

That commentary is perfectly true. Those giant leaps in technology make it one of the most exciting times ever to work in manufacturing. For big companies with plants like those included in the World Economic Forums Global Lighthouse Network of model Industry 4.0 facilities, its a brave new world in the very best of ways.

But when I talk to the small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) that dominate the U.S. producer base, theres often a disconnect between their core concerns and all that glitz and glamor surrounding advanced manufacturing. Particularly in the SMM world, there are many central production jobs that just dont lend themselves to automation. Even with individual jobs that do, though, the mix of work can still make automation a non-starter. And even with work that can be automated, the reality is often that the financial justification simply isnt there to support spending on high-tech solutions.

Bob Jacquart, CEO and owner of Jacquart Fabric Products in Ironwood, Michigan, knows firsthand the barriers to automation for some producers. His firm employs 180 people and does both mass production and custom work, including playground canopies, pet beds, cooling vests, and winter apparel, along with rink pads for the 2009 U.S. Olympic Trials and custom acoustic panels for the Smithsonian American Art Museum. While custom jobs obviously dont warrant automation, surely the firms Stormy Kromer subsidiary, making the iconic felt winter hat, could benefit from it?

I sit on the Board of Directors at Michigan Technological University, and I asked the former Dean of Technology there to see if he could have a team come up with a way to make it robotically, Jacquart said. Their study concluded that it couldnt be done economically.

For other companies, the combination of work precludes the high-tech approach. At HM Manufacturing in Wauconda, Illinois, a machine parts maker of power transmission components, its the changeovers any adjustment in the size, style, material, or design of whats being produced that requires a reset of the production equipment that preclude automation. For HM, automation is difficult, said Nicole Wolter, the companys President and CEO. We do 11 to 12 changeovers a day it just doesnt work for that.

But even if the work fully lends itself to improvement with the application of advanced manufacturing technologies, money can stand in the way. It may be that the firm simply doesnt have the capital available to invest the sums it takes to install new systems. Or it could be an opportunity cost problem; for smaller firms, investing in the basics for growing the business usually makes a lot more sense than spending on high-tech equipment. Finally, it might simply be that labor is so cheap, automation simply isnt economically attractive. In rural areas of the country, where labor costs are lowest, that can be a very good thing, since the jobs are needed there.

A worker checks an industrial robot in a high-tech company.

For SMM executives who express concern about being left behind when they read about our burgeoning advanced manufacturing world, then, my first word of advice is to look frankly at the financials and the business fundamentals, and not to be afraid to conclude that Industry 4.0 simply isnt their answer right now.

But what can SMMs do to ensure their businesses arent left behind in the competitive environment, if automation isnt going to help?

The first is to invest in other ways. Jacquart, finding that he couldnt automate his way to higher productivity, instead improved the plant floor environment for his employees. We installed Vita-Lite full-spectrum lighting, and invested in premium chairs for our workers, he said.

Another option is to invest in smaller machine improvements. Legacy equipment can be vastly improved by upgrading subsystems to newer versions, or by updating control systems to more modern equivalents. One of the most under-reported advantages of the IIoT is the many solutions that are now on offer to improve the performance of existing equipment and manufacturing systems. That was the case for Wolters. There are lots of smaller manufacturers where high-tech isnt a fit just yet so in the meantime Ive invested in IIoT for the factory floor, she said. I believe its important to continue to update with technology as its evolving.

Providing ways for workers to improve their skills is equally important, and that applies to both current employees and potential future ones. Our new employees get the new technology and programming we do have, she said. But they may not get the basic operations. If older workers cant understand the newer technology, then pairing and cross training their jobs with the younger workers sets them up to learn from one another. She also works to educate the local community about manufacturing career opportunities. I feel like I genuinely have an advantage as a small, family-owned business, she mentioned. I can lead efforts at local high schools, offer shop tours, and bring on interns were currently offering four to six-week paid internships.

Collaborative robot technology.

A final focus should be on continuing to look at what technology has to offer. Todays industrial robots cost a fraction of what the early versions did, and modern computerized control systems are cheaper, more robust, and easier to program and maintain than ever. The kinds of jobs that robots can take on have increased dramatically, and with cobots and industrial exoskeletons entering the workplace, what used to be impossible or economically non-viable may soon be practical. Its important that SMM executives continue to stay abreast of what the high-tech world can do for their businesses.

What we can do to make sure automation doesn’t negatively affect the work force – TNW

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Artificial intelligence and automation are continuing to drill deeper into our society.

Yet, there seems to be a disconnect between the people designing and implementing these systems, and those who will be most affected by the outcome.

The reported median annual salary for an AI programmer in the UK in 2019 is currently around 60,000. Meanwhile, the reported median annual salary for all workers in the UK is reportedly around 36,611.

Automating routine operations presents a lot of benefits. It presents the opportunity for people to move on from repetitive tasks to more rewarding, challenging work that allows them to engage their emotional intelligence.

But currently, this is far from the case. Instead, low skilled workers are finding themselves being continually downgraded into increasingly insecure, low-paid roles. For some people, their jobs have been completely replaced.

In 2013, researchers at Oxford University studied 702 occupational groupings. They discovered that 47% of US workers have a high probability of seeing their jobs automated over the next 20 years. More recently in 2017, a McKinsey report predicted that 30% of work activities would be automated by 2030 a change that is set to affect up to 375 million workers worldwide. Thats a significant number of people.

Throughout history, new waves of technological innovation have always led to a spike in public debates regarding automation. The movement is comparable to the shift away from agricultural societies throughout the Industrial Revolution. Evidence from this can give us some insights to inform policy debates today.

People have been worrying that automation would leave humans without work as far back as the 20th century. In 1950, John F.Kennedy described automation as a problem that would result in hardship for humans.

15 years later in 1965, an IBM economist saidautomation would result in a 20-hour workweek. Considering the average American still works an average of 34.4 hours per week, this prediction was clearly quite a way off.

But it took decades to tackle the injustices of the Industrial Revolution. This time, we cant afford to wait that long.

If employment levels fall significantly enough, there is a fear that Western democracies could resort to authoritarianism, which spread in some countries back in the 1930s following the Great Depression, and as is the case in many countries today that have experienced high levels of income inequality.

Western politics is already becoming increasingly turbulent. Income inequality is slowly beginning to grow even further, contributing to the already shaky political instability. A large proportion of the population will need to retrain for new careers, and they wont be young theyll be middle-aged professionals. Developed economies are likely to be hit hardest by the transition, as increased wage averages increase the incentivization for automation even further.

Automation will vary widely, depending on the industry sector. Jobs in industries such as health care are set to increase to cope with an aging population, while jobs involving manual labor and data processing are set to decline.

Its impossible to know exactly how many jobs will be affected by AI, as studies give wildly different estimates, depending on the treatment of the input data.

A report by PwC suggests there will be three major waves of automation.

Wave 1 will occur in the early 2020s and is expected to displace a very low proportion of jobs around 3%.

Wave 2 is expected to arrive in the late 2020s and is expected to displace many jobs in the clerical and administrative sector.

Wave 3 is expected to arrive in the mid-2030s and could result in the automation of up to 30% of todays jobs particularly those that involve automotive equipment and machines.

Workers with lower education levels are likely to be much more vulnerable to being replaced by machines:

The McKinsey report used Americas transition away from agriculture during the Industrial Revolution as an example. With the decrease in farming jobs came a significant increase in spending on secondary education and new laws that made attendance compulsory.

In 1910, 18 percent of children between 14 and 17 years of age went to high school. By 1940, 73 percent of children between 14 and 17 years of age went to high school. This increase in education helped to create a booming manufacturing industry.

If we want the future of automation to be successful, it is clear that a similar push is needed today. Its becoming increasingly clear that AI will not result in the end of work. It could create as many jobs as it gets rid of. Instead, the jobs of the future will merely require a different skillset.

Government advice networks need to support more businesses to use machine learning. We need to build skills at all levels from schools to industry professionals, to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Unfortunately, this doesnt seem to be the case. In fact, in the last few decades, spending on training and supporting the labor force has been in decline. In addition, many schools are still failing to teach the key concepts of technology to their students.

If we want technology to benefit everyone instead of further widening inequality, we need to start training our workforce for the future immediately. Inaction will result in even greater division and polarization between communities.

Politicians, trade unions and business leaders need to act now if they want to make sure the result of technological change is good.

This article was originally published on Towards Data Science byAimee Pearcy, a computer scientist, writer, and campaigner. Her work focuses on human rights issues in the tech industry.

Read next: How to turn your social media savviness into a lucrative career

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What we can do to make sure automation doesn't negatively affect the work force - TNW

Automation and Public Policy – State of the Planet

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

It is clear that the brain-based economy has supplanted the brawn-based economy as manual labor is replaced by automation and as the service economy replaces manufacturing. About 80 percent of the U.S. economy is in the service sector and the skills required to participate in that economy evolve rapidly. Lower skilled employment remains in the service sector, but its clear that wherever possible, machine labor will continue to replace human labor. The logic of capitalism drives organizational efficiency and that efficiency enables the production of greater wealth. We want all of that to continue but while the logic works for the organization, it can leave people behind without marketable skills and often without hope.

Those with economic and political power should not think for a second that leaving people behind is possible without political blowback. Hillary Clinton learned that in 2016 in Michigan and Wisconsin. The engine behind the nearly daily protests in Hong Kong is not only fear of political repression but an educated mass of young people with little economic opportunity in a crowded and overpriced island city-state. Transportation, communication and information technology have built a global economy that makes businesses more mobile than ever. Companies use that mobility and both the threat of departure and the promise of arrival to extract tribute from state and local governments. These forces of the modern economy need to be better understood and better managed to ensure political stability and economic well-being.

In the United States, corporate giants like Amazon demand public subsidies for the jobs they bring, but the benefit of hosting these businesses is not always obvious. Last week, in a terrific piece of journalism New York Times reporter David Streitfeld charted the 20-year history of one of Amazons early fulfillment warehouses in Campbellville Kentucky. According to Streitfeld:

Campbellsvilles warehouse was among the first of what are now an estimated 477 Amazon Fulfillment centers, delivery stations and other outposts around the country. That makes Campbellsville, with 11,415 inhabitants, a case study for what may happen elsewhere as Amazon continues expanding. Brenda Allen, Campbellsvilles mayor, said: Amazon has had a really good business here for 20 years. They havent been disappointed at all. And were glad theyre here. But, she added, I really would feel better if they would contribute to our needs. In central Kentucky, Amazon has reaped benefits, including a type of tax break that critics label Paying Taxes to the Boss. In the arrangement, 5 percent of Amazon workers paychecks, which would ordinarily be destined for the county and the state, go to Amazon itself. The company netted millions of dollars from this incentive over a decade.

A political reaction against these types of business siting incentives is starting to set in. In New York City, activists made so much political noise that Amazon became unwilling to accept a multi-billion-dollar subsidy. I expect we will see more of an effort to reset the power relationship between companies and communities. The theme of government and communities as supplicants to giant corporations, coupled with growing automation and public discontent is a prescription for economic misery and political upheaval. The 20th-century ideological battle between the left and the right is ill-suited to address the public policy needs of the rapidly evolving, global and technology-based economy we have created. We need new thinking about how to effectively influence these global, high tech corporate giants.

The benefits of the market and its logic are irrefutable. But the absence of a role for government to assist the victims of the market is a prescription for political instability and ultimately economic disaster as well. Government and public policy must be used to encourage better corporate citizenship than companies like Amazon seem to practice. Minimum wage requirements, support for public institutions and infrastructure, and support for life-long learning for workers must become the rule rather than the exception. This will require national public policy in the United States of the type we are unlikely to see from todays federal government. While companies are highly mobile globally and we cant control a company willing to relocate to another nation, we could try to set ground rules for state and local competition for business siting within the United States. We could also devote far more resources to retraining workers to develop and redevelop marketable skills.

A pervasive feeling of economic insecurity and fear of downward mobility is a growing phenomenon in large areas of the United States. The stock market may be rising, but the publics faith in the future is falling. The transition to a more automated, specialized, creative and brain-based economy is unstoppable. This is not the first time Ive quoted these lyrics, but remarkably its now three and a half decades since Bruce Springsteen wrote in My Hometown:

Theyre closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks. Foreman says These jobs are going boys and they aint coming back to your hometown.

Its long past due to recognize that these transitions are now a part of economic life. The feeling of stability and security we once knew has been replaced by an economy of constant change based on new technologies and new opportunities. The force of these changes cant be stopped by a president nostalgic for a muscular coal and steel-based manufacturing economy. The jobs arent stolen by immigrants and in a few decades wont be moved overseas due to lower-priced labor, as the economic logic of automation replaces that of poorly-paid workers.

What will people do? The answers are seen in the changing nature of the modern workforce. The number of jobs we have invented for services we didnt even know we needed. Think of the Best Buy Geek Squad or the folks working at Apple Stores Genius Bar and similar jobs. How many people were employed installing home entertainment and internet systems in the 1980s? How many worked in a store to help you learn how to retrieve your photos from the cloud? How about all the people developing those applications everyone is running on their smartphones as they ride the subway? Did anyone know in 1990 that everyone would be carrying a miniature computer in their pocket? Smartphone hardware is a smaller and smaller part of our GDP as the real money moves to the software. Think about some of the people who work in the food service business: Restaurants are not simply places that provide food and drink anymore but are places we go to enjoy experiences. This form of dining is, in part, entertainment designed by people who are experts in producing the food, dcor and the overall ambiance that generates the restaurant experience.

To remain employed and employable in the modern economy, change has replaced constancy. There are some basics of organizational, family, social and personal life that do not change. The need for love and social interaction and personal fulfillment remains, but the world we meet those needs in is constantly changing. Many families are separated by thousands of miles and see each other on screens more often than over a dinner table. I sometimes think about how much I wish Id had the patience to teach my late mother how to use FaceTime. She refused to ever use the internet. That unwillingness to learn carried a cost for her and our family. Thought of more broadly, we must institutionalize life-long learning in the new technologies and new professions that are now emerging daily. And people must somehow learn to accept and even embrace constant change. Automation will continue to replace human labor with machine labor. The economic history of this change has been to reduce the drudgery of work, but those routine tasks must be replaced by something else.

We need government and public policy to get in the middle of this mess. Heres one idea for starters: Young people are gravitating toward new business start-ups and seeking to avoid established bureaucracies. Lets use tax policy to encourage investments in these new businesses and both public policy and direct subsidies to encourage start-ups to train and hire people whose jobs have been replaced by machines. Lets marshal the energy of the market to mitigate its harshest impacts. But to do that we need to develop public policies designed to deal with the impact of automation on people.

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Automation and Public Policy - State of the Planet

In 2020, AI to enable acceleration from automation to autonomy, say experts – Robot Report

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

In 2020, AI could empower robotics with tools such as this Brain Bulder workspace. Source: Neurala

For the past decade, robotics has been one of the most interesting areas for developers, industry analysts, and startups to focus on. From emerging technologies and new applications to ongoing challenges, both innovators and entrepreneurs will have a lot to watch in 2020.

The Robot Report spoke with the following executives at robotics and artificial intelligence companies about their observations of 2019s trends, as well as their expectations for the new year:

Which technologies do you expect to mature the most in 2020, such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), edge computing, 5G wireless networks, or autonomous vehicles?

Visti: In 2020, Industry 4.0 will become more of a reality than a vision. Smart machines keep getting smarter as they get access to more data, and they keep getting better at connecting to other machines and systems, and therefore they become truly useful for manufacturers.

Thomas Visti, Mobile Industrial Robots

While many companies have been hesitant and seen Industry 4.0 as merely a buzzword, were starting to see connected supply chains where MES [manufacturing execution systems], robots, and picking systems are connected.

We also see the connectivity between robots and ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems within production environments.

The entire process from ordering to producing and then transporting goods can now be fully automated. Industry 4.0 is still evolving, and it will not reach its full potential in 2020, but we will see more companies adopting the enabling technologies. This will also influence the workforce, as we will see the same companies wanting to upskill their current workforce and recruit new employees with Industry 4.0 skills.

Versace: Well see more demand for AI that can be trained, deployed, and refined at the edge. 2019 has shown us that many organizations, robotics companies included, are saying No to giving up their data and having to ping the cloud.

I believe that in 2020, AI will need to live and learn at the edge, so that processing occurs where the data is being generated. As a result, robotics companies will see reduced latency problems while mitigating privacy issues and massive cloud fees for manufacturers.

Sudhir Jha, Brighterion

Jha:Enterprises will transition into deploying complex AI models in production at scale. So far, most AI applications are experiments but not in production, simple recommendation/prediction/regression models, or applied to smaller problems.

In 2020, we will see more enterprises getting bolder with their AI ambitions and requiring their vendors to support large deployments.

There will be be an acceleration from automation to autonomy, and AI will play the most crucial role in this. Also, robotics will move further from industrial arena to consumer arena, where they will act as personal coaches, instructors for children, conversational buddies for elders, and guides for the disabled.

Which market or application represents the biggest area of growth potential in 2020?

Visti: We expect to see an increase in the use of robotics in all our existing markets such as automotive, electronics, FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods], pharmaceuticals, and more.

There is still a huge focus on optimization, and with the lack of qualified workers, the need for automation across industries has never been higher.

We expect big growth in the use of AMRs by the 3PL [third-party logistics] segment, which has not been an early adopter of AMRs. In fact, our recent survey showed that only around 50% of 3PLs are currently considering automating internal logistics with AMRs. We expect to see this figure increase significantly in 2020 and the years ahead.

The hospital sector is also looking to automate internal transportation worldwide. For MiR, we have many customers within this segment in Scandinavia and China, but we expect it to grow even more.

Jha: Verticals like healthcare will see expanded AI-based applications, not only in the areas of diagnosis and personalized medicine, but also on the operational side like customer service, payment processing, and FWA (fraud, waste, and abuse).

How will trade conflicts or the slowdown in automotive manufacturing affect robotics in 2020?

Visti: While the automotive manufacturing market may have slowed, the latest statistics from the Robotic Industries Association actually shows what looks like an uptick in ordering of industrial robots by automotive OEMs, up 47% for 2019 over 2018.

Were also experiencing increased growth in that market and overall, with companies like Toyota and Ford purchasing fleets of our AMRs.

We expect this is due to these manufacturers realizing how automation can help fill difficult-to-fill jobs; increase overall productivity; and enable humans to focus on higher-skilled, higher-quality, and higher-paid tasks. These are all benefits that can lead to growth and new job opportunities, which could help turn the automotive industry back around.

Versace: We will always be faced with some degree of socioeconomic uncertainty around the world. In terms of manufacturing, possible decoupling of Chinese and Western economies may actually bolster manufacturing in the U.S. and make it less reliant on overseas production in the long run. This may indirectly boost robotic deployments in the U.S. and Europe.

But at Neurala, were focused on what we can control, which is first and foremost to provide robotics and other companies with an AI platform that they can apply to solve real-world challenges. Our Brain Builder platform is helping organizations accelerate the process of building, deploying, and analyzing AI so they can focus on improving visual inspections.

Related content: Industry experts provide more robotics predictions for 2020

What challenges and opportunities do you expect for AI in 2020?

Jha: As AI-based solutions become more mainstream across industries, we need to carve out a handful domain where our technology provides sustainable differentiation and allows us to be a leader.

We have focused on risk and compliance areas in financial services and are looking to diversify in other verticals. Also our strength in building mission-critical applications in highly regulated industries will serve us well to ensure data privacy and ethical use of AI which is a growing trend globally.

Max Versace, Neurala

Versace: Im thinking of 2020 as the Year of Productization and the Customer.

At Neurala, well continue to work with customers so that they can independently build and deploy custom AI applications for the real world.

Furthermore, AI products such as Brain Builder will enable customers with little or no expertise in AI to build an end-to-end application from scratch, on their proprietary data. This means that enterprises will no longer be restricted by their size or resources when it comes to implementing AI as a part of their business strategies.

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In 2020, AI to enable acceleration from automation to autonomy, say experts - Robot Report

Improving Your Manufacturing Productivity and Quality with CMM Networking and Automation – Quality Magazine

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Improving Your Manufacturing Productivity and Quality with CMM Networking and Automation | 2020-01-01 | Quality Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

How the most vulnerable workers to job automation can adapt – Yahoo Money

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

In recent decades, women have made huge gains in employment. But the rise in job automation is threatening to undo that.

Jobs held by women are more likely to be displaced by automation, according to The World Economic Forums2020 report on the global gender gap, while men are more likely to be employed in less vulnerable roles.

To avoid job irrelevance, female workers must approach education and their careers in new ways, finding opportunities in areas that predominantly employ men.

The jobs that are emerging are not very gender-equal, said Vesselina Ratcheva, the data lead at the World Economic Forum. If we think about shifting workers from declining to emerging roles, what we are also likely to see is that the environment for women in those roles is not necessarily going to be one of parity.

Graphic Credit: David Foster/Yahoo Finance

Of the eight employment areas with increasing prospects across 20 leading economies, six of those sectors are dominated by men. The emerging sectors with the smallest share of women are cloud computing, engineering, and data and artificial intelligence.

On the other end, jobs that are being displaced by automation are routine, white-collar roles, like secretarial work, Ratcheva said. The vast majority 94% of secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. are women.

In the automation age, all workers need to be skilled, mobile, and tech-savvy to keep their job or successfully transition into a different field. They also have to think about education and employment in a different way.

Here are four ways women and men can prepare and adjust to the changes automation brings.

To avoid job irrelevance, female workers and male ones, too must approach college and their careers in new ways. (Photo: Adrian Greeman/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images)

Dont think of employment as a series of full-time jobs or lifetime employment, but rather as a range of workplace arrangements, including self-employment, freelancing, and salaried roles, saidApril Rinne, an independent advisor focusing on the future of work.

Moving forward, professional paths will not be linear. We will not study for a profession and do that profession for life, Rinne said. Rather, we will have many roles, many positions, many professional chapters. Like an artist or an investor, we will curate portfolios of our work.

To be well-positioned for this journey, learn how to handle your own taxes; be ready to start your own business; develop a wide professional network; and find the best practices for working remotely.

With the rapid automation of technical skills, human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, ethics, curiosity, creativity, and coordination will become more valuable, Rinne said.

The really distinguishing factor for success of tomorrow's leaders lies not in programming apps and algorithms, but rather upon a solid foundation in the humanities, she said. How we develop and use technology is equally, if not more important, than the technology itself.

Story continues

Investing in and developing those human skills can make you almost 'unautomatable.' Building curiosity can help you adapt for the jobs of the future. One way to do this is to spend more time with children or with your own five-year-old brain, which is inherently curious, Rinne said.

Human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, ethics, curiosity, creativity, and coordination will become more valuable in the future. (Photo: Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The idea that higher education is something you only do early in your life wont help you in the world of automation.

Today's education system was designed for the First Industrial Revolution to train factory workers and soldiers and is woefully outdated for the 21st century, Rinne said. As automation changes and eradicates certain skills, roles and even entire vocations, individuals will need to keep learning, not only to work, but to better understand the world.

If you can continue to learn beyond the traditional means such as college, maintain insatiable curiosity at any age, and embrace the future's uncertainties, youll have an advantage. Study abroad, do cultural exchanges, or any experience that expands your perspective and takes you out of your comfort zone, Rinne said.

Even when entering sectors more immune to automation, women often take marketing, people, or culture roles, rather than the technical ones. Their employer might encourage them to focus more on their soft or coordination skills rather than technical ones, Ratcheva said.

What female workers should do is look for companies that are actively working to diversify their workforce through inclusion initiatives, especially for more technical roles dominated by men. Workers should also ask about a potential employer's support to help workers re-skill or up-skill to stay relevant.

That might be quite effective at increasing the take-up of that [job] offer by female workers or those whove become inactive in the labor market, Ratcheva said.

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter@denitsa_tsekova.

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How the most vulnerable workers to job automation can adapt - Yahoo Money

Listen to top VCs discuss the next generation of automation startups at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI – TechCrunch

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Robotics, AI and automation have long been one of the hottest categories for tech investments. After years and decades of talk, however, those big payouts are starting to pay off. Robotics are beginning to dominate nearly every aspect of work, from warehouse fulfillment to agriculture to retail and construction.

Our annual TC Sessions: Robotics+AI event on March 3 affords us the ability to bring together some of the top investors in the category to discuss the hottest startups, best bets and opine on where the industry is going. And this years VC panel is arguably our strongest yet:

TC Sessions: Robotics+AI returns to Berkeley on March 3. Make sure to grab your early-bird tickets today for $275 before prices go up by $100. Startups, book a demo table right here and get in front of 1,000+ of Robotics/AIs best and brightest each table comes with four attendee tickets.

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Listen to top VCs discuss the next generation of automation startups at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI - TechCrunch

DevOps The Troubles Of Automating All The Things – JAXenter

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Watch J. Paul Reed's DevOps Conference session

A culture of automation is such a cornerstone of DevOps, one of its oldest, most famous tropes is automate ALL the things. But are there things we maybe shouldnt automate? What if how we go about automating things is actively causing us pain in the form of incidents? Watch this DevOpsCon talk by Netflixs J. Paul Reed to find out more.

In this DevOps Conference session, J. Paul Reed takes a look at some of the impacts and challenges pervasive automation has presented for engineers and operations, along with some important considerations when automating Netflixs complex, living socio-technical systems, as well as some strategies to cope with these ironies of automation.

J. Paul Reed has over 15 years of experience in the trenches as a build/release and tools engineer, working with such organizations as VMware, Mozilla, Postbox, Symantec, and Salesforce. In 2012, he founded Release Engineering Approaches, a consultancy incorporating a host of tools and techniques to help organizations realize how they can Simply Ship. Every time. Hes worked across a number of industries, from financial services to cloud-based infrastructure to healthcare, with teams ranging from 2 to 2,500 on everything from tooling, operational analysis and improvement, team culture transformation, and business value optimization. He regularly speaks internationally on release engineering, DevOps, IT operations complexity, and human factors. Paul is also the founding host of The Ship Show, a twice-monthly podcast tackling topics related to build engineering, DevOps, and release management.

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DevOps The Troubles Of Automating All The Things - JAXenter

The unsettling grip of the automated gods | News, Sports, Jobs – Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

So the perfectly enjoyable dinner with friends was over and it was time to get the bill.

The waitress informed us they were in front of us. And there were the machines, ready to be poked and prodded with enter this and enter that and computerized math full of tip percentages.

Followed by the electronic signature which might as well have read Lee Harvey Oswald, given my cursive challenges with a pen.

So how long will it be before there is no waiter or waitress and we are just ordering off that dadgummed computer at every restaurant?

Not very, apparently.

Over the holidays, I heard an estimate that one third of the jobs in America will become automated in the next decade.

In the electronically dominated age we live, this is considered progress. And some automation is needed progress. But a lot of it is a nuclear threat to our lives.

Full disclosure. I have never used an ATM machine. I dont do my banking online and am not interested in learning how to do it. I like getting the bank statement in the mail and checking to make sure the books are correctly balanced. I pay the bills by check. Through the mail. I have never used the self-checkout line at a grocery store. If I had my way, I would carry enough cash in my pocket to pay for gas, restaurant meals, groceries and incidentals every month instead of using a charge card.

One of my friends says I am swimming upstream at about a 45-degree angle. Hes correct.

Another friend says he always uses a teller when he goes to the bank to preserve their job. And hes correct.

If you want an indication of where we are headed, consider what seems like daily announcements locally of retail outlets closing, their market share eaten up by online shopping. Thats a lot of jobs lost for retail clerks, jobs that go to people trying to make ends meet and improve their economic standing with hard work.

Consider, beyond the economic struggle, the loss of self-worth that comes with not having a job. For a significant portion of the population, employment is the primary source of pride. A lot of that population is part of the third that will lose jobs to automation in the coming decade.

What will be the social impact of that job loss should it become long-term, a distinct possibility?

From a practical standpoint, there is a portion of the consumer product market that works for online shopping. But I cant buy a shirt online with confidence it will fit when it magically shows up at the door. My wife cant buy any clothes online.

What she can do is order a double-waffle iron online and experience that sinking feeling that comes with electronic messages seconds later that make us suspicious our charge card has been compromised. Not exactly what the doctor ordered for that Christmas morning feeling.

We recently made reservations online for a one-night motel stay at a price, according to the online language, of $98. When we checked out, the bill was $239. There was no one online to tell us of all the extras and fine-print conditions that would more than double the price. Good thing this wasnt two decades ago. Would have fractured the family budget.

So this is where we are at the start of the third decade of the 21st Century.

When we sit down at dinner, the cell phone has priority space over the knives and forks. That rectangular gadget has replaced over-the-picket-fence conversation with our neighbors. One survey says 70 percent of us dont have any significant friends among our neighbors.

When its time to buy that special gift for someone, we scroll our computers rather than stroll the mall. We dont ask a clerk to compare two like items. We fill in the boxes on the screen and wait for the delivery, all the while giving up parts of our identity to the online god rather than Maggie in Aisle 4.

Some of this is convenience and fits our brisk lifestyles in 2020. I get it. But a lot of it is not progress when you consider the dangerous economic and social overhaul it is creating.

Tease me all you want about being old fashioned. I will own that. And I will not go quietly into that automated night.

I like talking with the waiter and the waitress, the folks in the checkout line at the grocery store and the tellers at the bank.

I just hope I still have the opportunity to do it a decade from now.

David F. Troisi is retired as editor of the Sun-Gazette.

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The unsettling grip of the automated gods | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Automation and AI will launch a golden age of marketing – The Drum

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

Marketers are constantly on the lookout for the next big thing, both when it comes to user demands and the future of the marketing industry. At the moment, many of these conversations focus on automation and AI. While theyve become the buzzwords of the year, their introduction to the marketing sphere has the potential to dramatically change how we work and raise important questions about the future of marketing. How will the future marketer work with AI? Will it be a battle between humans and machines?

I doubt it. AI will not threaten marketers jobs, but it will take the drudgery out of them. Today, marketing still involves a lot of manual tasks. Moving forward, automation can liberate us from the tedious and time-consuming tasks that we dont want to do. Freedom from this routine gives us back the time to focus on creative and strategic thinking that can move the needle on campaigns.

I worked in the media industry before launching Adjust, and I know the pain marketers experienced 20 years ago and still do today. Back then, I wasted so much time thinking and planning for digital campaigns, how to set them up, how to structure them, how to g ain more users for our clients. We relied on hunches, not hypotheses. Even when I later moved to work at MTV, a pioneering company that understood the power of digital, it was near-impossible to figure out ROI and how to attribute conversions for our campaigns. I was always looking for a better way to paint a fuller picture of our users, and that sparked the idea that eventually became Adjust.

New technology means the daily drudgery has drastically improved since then, but it still doesnt run like clockwork. Today, we work with so much data that its beyond the human capacity to distill it. And more data means more complexity. When we talk to our clients, we know that they spend much of their day handling very repetitive, manual, data-related tasks.

These are tasks that also require a lot of heavy lifting. Marketers have to acquire, clean and organize data; manually create campaigns for every channel; constantly check in on various dashboards to make sure campaigns are performing well. The list goes on. So, how can AI help ease the burden and promote growth, and shape the future of marketing?

The future marketer wont feel the need to compete with AI, they will co-create with it.

It will largely be driven by demand humans simply dont want to deal with the very simple, frequent tasks at scale, but they are better at the strategic or creative decisions. The future marketer will be liberated from a life sentence of reading and sifting through spreadsheets because AI can do it faster.

Essentially, we want to shape a golden age of marketing where technology and humans work seamlessly to create growth and the most effective advertising ever seen. Were on the right path, but currently falling short. This argument is echoed in an interesting book, Lemon: How the Advertising Brain Turned Sour by Orlando Wood.

To reach this golden age of advertising, we need to offload routine tasks to machine learning so we can focus on being creative and pushing the boundaries of what marketing can achieve. At the moment, too much focus on technology and mindless tasks means advertising styles have changed to become less effective. The outcome is fact-driven and product-focused ads that move metrics over the short-term, rather than creative and emotional ads that move audiences and have lasting impact.

This is largely due to shifts in industry trends. As Wood observes: Procurement is making creativity more difficult. Holding companies want to encourage greater profitability by cutting staff and increasing workloads. Specialists are prioritized over generalists. Standardization is valued more than individualization. Reason is more important than emotion.

Of course, taking an analytical approach to advertising is important. Marketing decisions will absolutely still be based on data, although not on data alone.

AI will unlock what is really needed to compete and win in marketing: human creativity. Its the ultimate irony to be more effective, we need to automate so we can focus on bringing humanity to our work. Data fuels marketing, but we need AI to sift through the data that powers those results. By liberating the Excel marketer, they can focus on the decisions that require creativity and spirit.

Ultimately, its the marketers with the best tools and the most creative mindsets who will succeed and become the growth architects for their brands of tomorrow.

To hear more predictions for 2020, attend our Predictions breakfast event on 21 Jan, register here.

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Automation and AI will launch a golden age of marketing - The Drum

Hashtag Trending Automation predictions for 2020 – ITBusiness.ca

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Danzig

The ever closening presence of automation has a vast majority of the world at least a little bit worried. And every year we see more and more advancements in this field, bringing us closer to a potential world in which much of everyday life and our work lives is automated. So with that yin and yang of utopian and dystopian future possibilities in mind, for this special holiday episode of Hashtag Trending we look at our predictions for automation in 2020.

When many people think of automation, their minds wander to a world in which robots do everything, completely autonomous of any human control. And we dont think such a future is that far fetched and may actually be closer than many would think. We have already seen a rise in the use of industrial robots, as stats from Statista show that 2019 saw the installation of 413,000 industrial robots, with those numbers only expected to rise in the future. But now a new wave of robots in coming, the rise of service robots. Projections from Deloitte show that the market for such robots has been steadily gaining on the industrial robot market, and should actually pass it in the next year or two.

Our next prediction is related to the brain that makes robots like that possible: artificial intelligence. We believe that the world will begin to see AI operating in places that has not been seen before. For example, AI could be set to make a major move into the edge. For those who are not aware, edge computing is bringing the computing power, like AI for example, right onto devices, allowing them to perform complicated procedures entirely independently, even if they lose connection with their network. And AI should make big headway in this space in 2020. In fact, according to statistics from Market Watch, the market for edge AI software is expected to more than triple in size from $355 million USD in 2018 to a staggering $1,152 million USD in 2023.

And finally, we believe the rise of AI and automation will be a major reason why we see the downfall of support centres for devices. Much of the duties that would fall into the hands of such support centres will now begin to shift into the hands of the users, with the aid of AI built into the devices designed to solve those problems. According to stats presented by Nextiva, by 2020, 85 per cent of all customer service interactions will be automated, while over 60 per cent of Americans say that they prefer a self-service system to actual human interaction.

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