Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
It would be optimal, if AIs/robots first took the worst jobs that are out there, and then proceeded to take jobs in a sequence: from the worst out there, trough the mid-level ones, to the best out there at the very end in the distant future (if ever).
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
technological unemployment viewed from 1982
1982 documentary about work and industry in Japan, they show rising automation and how worrying is that for near future unemployment:
Turned out, nowadays there is more worry about aging society, childlessness, loneliness, ill mental health and not enough and not good enough automation to fill all needs (which are growing). Worrying about the future is mostly useless and pointless. It doesn't go as planned, prophesied or predicted anyway.
Turned out, nowadays there is more worry about aging society, childlessness, loneliness, ill mental health and not enough and not good enough automation to fill all needs (which are growing). Worrying about the future is mostly useless and pointless. It doesn't go as planned, prophesied or predicted anyway.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
The Self-Checkout Nightmare May Finally Be Ending
By Thomas Germain
Published Yesterday
Don’t ring the funeral bells just yet, but the self-checkout kiosk horror show could be nearing its end. So far, the grand experiment in robot cashiers is an abject failure. Stores across the country are reversing course on the machines, and consensus is growing among analysts and insiders that self-checkout has been a disaster for consumers and retailers alike, according to a new report in the BBC. The machines aren’t disappearing anytime soon, but if nothing else, you can expect fewer stores to force them on you in the near future.
In 2023, Target restricted self-checkout kiosks in some stores to ten items or less. Walmart pulled the machines out of a number of locations altogether. Booths, a British grocery chain, abandoned self-checkout entirely. Dollar General made enormous bets on self checkout tech in 2022, but it recently announced the project flopped. On a December earnings call, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said the retailer is planning to increase the number of employees in stores, particularly in the checkout area, in a major reversal of its checkout strategy.
[...]
The biggest problem is theft. Not only is it easy to steal from self-checkout machines, it can be hard not to steal from them. Shoppers are reportedly 21 times more likely to sneak items past machines than human cashiers, but consumers also constantly steal unintentionally because the self-checkout process can be so cumbersome. One in five shoppers reported that they’ve accidentally stolen items during self-checkout in a survey from Lending Tree. One in seven said they’ve stolen from self-checkout on purpose.
Not only do self-checkout machines double theft rates, they actually increase labor costs thanks to employees who get taken away from their other duties to help customers deal with the confusing and error prone kiosks. Overall, some analysts say the machines increase costs overall, which is especially painful news for the industry because they’re so expensive to install. A system of four machines can cost upwards of six figures.
Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021, presumably because they’ve never seen Terminator (wake up sheeple). That’s true even though 67% said they’ve had self-checkout machines fail. But a growing number of consumers are souring on self-checkout, thanks to endless frustrations, accusations of theft, and wasted time.
https://gizmodo.com/the-self-checkout-n ... 1851169879
By Thomas Germain
Published Yesterday
Don’t ring the funeral bells just yet, but the self-checkout kiosk horror show could be nearing its end. So far, the grand experiment in robot cashiers is an abject failure. Stores across the country are reversing course on the machines, and consensus is growing among analysts and insiders that self-checkout has been a disaster for consumers and retailers alike, according to a new report in the BBC. The machines aren’t disappearing anytime soon, but if nothing else, you can expect fewer stores to force them on you in the near future.
In 2023, Target restricted self-checkout kiosks in some stores to ten items or less. Walmart pulled the machines out of a number of locations altogether. Booths, a British grocery chain, abandoned self-checkout entirely. Dollar General made enormous bets on self checkout tech in 2022, but it recently announced the project flopped. On a December earnings call, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said the retailer is planning to increase the number of employees in stores, particularly in the checkout area, in a major reversal of its checkout strategy.
[...]
The biggest problem is theft. Not only is it easy to steal from self-checkout machines, it can be hard not to steal from them. Shoppers are reportedly 21 times more likely to sneak items past machines than human cashiers, but consumers also constantly steal unintentionally because the self-checkout process can be so cumbersome. One in five shoppers reported that they’ve accidentally stolen items during self-checkout in a survey from Lending Tree. One in seven said they’ve stolen from self-checkout on purpose.
Not only do self-checkout machines double theft rates, they actually increase labor costs thanks to employees who get taken away from their other duties to help customers deal with the confusing and error prone kiosks. Overall, some analysts say the machines increase costs overall, which is especially painful news for the industry because they’re so expensive to install. A system of four machines can cost upwards of six figures.
Still, 60% of consumers said they prefer self-checkout as of 2021, presumably because they’ve never seen Terminator (wake up sheeple). That’s true even though 67% said they’ve had self-checkout machines fail. But a growing number of consumers are souring on self-checkout, thanks to endless frustrations, accusations of theft, and wasted time.
https://gizmodo.com/the-self-checkout-n ... 1851169879
Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman warns AI is a ‘fundamentally labor replacing’ tool over the long term
January 17, 2024 at 10:27 PM GMT
DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is a heavyweight in the AI space. The Oxford dropout worked as a negotiator for the United Nations and the Dutch government early in his career, but then pivoted to AI and founded DeepMind in 2010 alongside Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg.
The machine learning lab grew like a weed under Suleyman, with the backing of Peter Thiel’s Founders’ Fund, before selling to Google parent company Alphabet for £400 million in 2014. Suleyman then took on several roles at DeepMind before stepping down five years later.
Now, the veteran AI founder is working on a new company called Inflection AI, which offers personalized AI assistants. And while Suleyman remains an avid supporter of AI, he expressed concerns about the industry’s possible negative effects—in particular on workers.
“In the long term…we have to think very hard about how we integrate these tools, because left completely to the market and to their own devices, these are fundamentally labor replacing tools,” Suleyman told CNBC on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
[...]
“Everything that is of value in our world has been created by our intelligence, our ability to reason over information and make predictions. These tools do exactly that, so it’s going to be very fundamental,” he explained Wednesday.
https://fortune.com/2024/01/17/mustafa- ... long-term/
January 17, 2024 at 10:27 PM GMT
DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is a heavyweight in the AI space. The Oxford dropout worked as a negotiator for the United Nations and the Dutch government early in his career, but then pivoted to AI and founded DeepMind in 2010 alongside Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg.
The machine learning lab grew like a weed under Suleyman, with the backing of Peter Thiel’s Founders’ Fund, before selling to Google parent company Alphabet for £400 million in 2014. Suleyman then took on several roles at DeepMind before stepping down five years later.
Now, the veteran AI founder is working on a new company called Inflection AI, which offers personalized AI assistants. And while Suleyman remains an avid supporter of AI, he expressed concerns about the industry’s possible negative effects—in particular on workers.
“In the long term…we have to think very hard about how we integrate these tools, because left completely to the market and to their own devices, these are fundamentally labor replacing tools,” Suleyman told CNBC on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
[...]
“Everything that is of value in our world has been created by our intelligence, our ability to reason over information and make predictions. These tools do exactly that, so it’s going to be very fundamental,” he explained Wednesday.
https://fortune.com/2024/01/17/mustafa- ... long-term/
Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
How AI Could Help Curb Global Labor Shortages
by Neil Irwin
January 29, 2024
Introduction:
by Neil Irwin
January 29, 2024
Introduction:
Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2024/01/29/ai-jo ... -shortage(Axios) In conversations with a slew of business leaders this month about the economic implications of generative AI, a recurring theme cropped up: that AI-driven productivity gains are the world's best hope to limit the pain of a demographic squeeze.
Why it matters: As computers get better at doing jobs humans have traditionally done, it creates the risk of mass displacement of workers.
• But the flip side is an emerging shortage of working-age humans in most advanced economies and a murky future for globalization, which effectively expands the global pool of workers.
• The big macroeconomic question for the coming decade is which force proves more powerful — the undersupply of workers or the displacement of jobs caused by AI.
State of play: The Baby Boom generation is entering retirement years and comparatively smaller generations are entering their prime working years.
There is no equivalent of China's massive population poised to join the global economy, as happened in the early years of this century.
Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill
-Joe Hill
Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
New Report Confirms Worst Fears: AI Will Disrupt Countless Animation Jobs Over Next 3 Years
By Amid Amidi | 01/31/2024 1:47 pm
There is little doubt that the emergence of generative artificial intelligence models will massively disrupt the future of the entertainment industry. This week, a new report outlined just how devastating the impact of Generative AI (GenAI) could be to artists over the next three years.
The report (downloadable here as a PDF) warns that GenAI “signifies a large-scale transition from existing techniques into new processes” and it will “likely rebalance the demand for labor and capital across the entertainment industries.”
For creative workers, this means they will be “facing an era of disruption, defined by the consolidation of some job roles, the replacement of existing job roles with new ones, and the elimination of many jobs entirely.”
The survey was conducted by consulting firm CVL Economics and co-commissioned by The Animation Guild IATSE Local 839, the Concept Art Association, the Human Artistry Campaign, and the National Cartoonists Society Foundation. It polled 300 bosses from six entertainment industries, including C-suite executives, senior executives, and mid-level managers. It was conducted between November 17 and December 22, 2023.
Easily the most alarming takeaway from the study: GenAI is not a hypothetical technology that could impact film, gaming, and vfx artists at some distant date in the future. It is available right now and it is upending the entertainment industry today. In fact, two-thirds of the 300 business leaders who were surveyed expect GenAI to play a role in consolidating or replacing existing job titles in the coming three years (2024-2026).
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-righ ... 37495.html
By Amid Amidi | 01/31/2024 1:47 pm
There is little doubt that the emergence of generative artificial intelligence models will massively disrupt the future of the entertainment industry. This week, a new report outlined just how devastating the impact of Generative AI (GenAI) could be to artists over the next three years.
The report (downloadable here as a PDF) warns that GenAI “signifies a large-scale transition from existing techniques into new processes” and it will “likely rebalance the demand for labor and capital across the entertainment industries.”
For creative workers, this means they will be “facing an era of disruption, defined by the consolidation of some job roles, the replacement of existing job roles with new ones, and the elimination of many jobs entirely.”
The survey was conducted by consulting firm CVL Economics and co-commissioned by The Animation Guild IATSE Local 839, the Concept Art Association, the Human Artistry Campaign, and the National Cartoonists Society Foundation. It polled 300 bosses from six entertainment industries, including C-suite executives, senior executives, and mid-level managers. It was conducted between November 17 and December 22, 2023.
Easily the most alarming takeaway from the study: GenAI is not a hypothetical technology that could impact film, gaming, and vfx artists at some distant date in the future. It is available right now and it is upending the entertainment industry today. In fact, two-thirds of the 300 business leaders who were surveyed expect GenAI to play a role in consolidating or replacing existing job titles in the coming three years (2024-2026).
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-righ ... 37495.html
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Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions
Nobel prizewinning economist Christopher Pissarides predicts narrow AI will destroy countless STEM-dependent jobs.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nobel-pr ... 17209.html
And respected economist Tyler Cowen predicts narrow AI will destroy countless “wordcel” jobs.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... ed-ai.html
In other words, there's room for everyone to get a kick in the nuts.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nobel-pr ... 17209.html
And respected economist Tyler Cowen predicts narrow AI will destroy countless “wordcel” jobs.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... ed-ai.html
In other words, there's room for everyone to get a kick in the nuts.
