Technological Unemployment News & Discussions

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waitingforthe2030s
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Yuli Ban wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 10:34 pm

Jesus
I was going to post this. Crazy.
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raklian
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waitingforthe2030s wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 11:43 pm I was going to post this. Crazy.
Not quite as crazy as.... just seen long time coming. :)
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Yuli Ban
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Farming Robots Are Our Future. Will it be a Utopia or an Agricultural Dystopia?
German economist Thomas Daum has published research that explores how farming robots could lead the industry towards an environmentally friendly and abundant utopia, or a dystopia of heavy machinery and low-quality harvests
The use of robots in agriculture is nothing new. Primitive versions of autonomous vehicles were already in use in the early 20th century. As technology continued to advance and after the invention of the computer, proper agricultural machines began to be developed.

These can come in the form of robots that would perform harvesting tasks, such as Root A.I.’s tomato picking machine “Virgo” and autonomous vehicles using technology similar to self-driving cars to take care of fields. A more complex application of robots in agriculture can be found in EarthSense’s “TerraSentia field phenotyping system,” utilizing laser sensors to travel down rows of crop fields while simultaneously collecting detailed data on crop quality and health. Robots have also been developed to perform other more sweeping tasks in the field, such as seeding the ground or spraying the crops with pesticides. Total automation of outdoor agrarian land seems unrealistic for the near future, as the unpredictability of natural conditions could cause too many variables for modern robots to overcome. However, indoor farms and alternative planting methods may alleviate this issue.
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This illustration shows the utopian farm robot scenario. (Image: Natalis Lorenz)
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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wjfox
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Robots are poised to start unloading lorries

The last pieces of warehouse automation will soon be in place

Aug 7th 2021 edition

Unloading lorries is wearisome for people, but hardly an intellectual challenge. For robots it is the reverse. Robots never tire. They do, however, have problems interpreting the data streaming in from the cameras and laser scanners that are their eyes. Seeing where one box in the back of a crowded lorry ends and another begins is second nature to a human being. But even the best artificial-vision systems struggle to cope.

And that is just the start. The next question is what the robot should do with what it sees. The less tidy the contents, the greater the problem. Shrink-wrapped pallets of packages are one thing, the miscellaneous jumbles of objects handled by parcel-delivery businesses quite another. Cases may get wedged, or be fumbled. Or the robot may need to work out how to lift an irregular consignment like a set of skis. People learn how to do such things gradually, as they grow up. And machines have to learn, too. That takes time and a lot of training.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-t ... s/21803299


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Yuli Ban
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Amid the Labor Shortage, Robots Step in to Make the French Fries
In a White Castle just southeast of Chicago, the 100-year-old purveyor of fast food has played host for the past year to an unusual, and unusually hardworking, employee: a robotic fry cook.

Flippy, as the robot is known, is no gimmick, says Jamie Richardson, a White Castle vice president. It works 23 hours a day (one hour is reserved for cleaning) and has operated almost continuously for the past year, manning—or robot-ing—the fry station at White Castle No. 42 in Merrillville, Ind. An industrial robot arm sheathed in a grease-proof, white fabric sleeve, it slides along a rail attached to the ceiling, lifting and lowering each basket when ready, immune to spatters and spills. White Castle is so pleased with Flippy’s performance that, in partnership with its maker, Miso Robotics, the chain plans to roll out an improved version, Flippy 2.0, to 10 more of its restaurants across the country.

There were more than 1.3 million unfilled job openings at restaurants and hotels as of the end of May, double the number a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. For many restaurants, surviving the current labor crunch and resulting wage inflation means using self-service ordering kiosks and other tech tools to automate away some customer-facing jobs and streamline things like online ordering. But entrepreneurs and industry executives also are trying to tackle a bigger, knottier problem: automating the production of food itself.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Australia: Warehouse job cuts ahead as supermarkets increase automation

9 August 2021

Australia’s major supermarket chains are expected to outlay around $10 billion in capital expenditure over the next three years, in a bid to drive down labour costs and cash in on the growing online grocery market.

The major component of this investment is in new, highly-automated distribution centres, which will replace smaller warehouses across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, destroying thousands of jobs.

The motive for this is clear. The forthcoming closure of Woolworths’ Yennora, Minchinbury and Mulgrave distribution centres is expected to cut the company’s wage bill by $135 million per year and bring $65 million in other annual cost savings. Coles’ “Second Century” strategy aims to slash a billion dollars by 2023, relative to 2018 costs.

These sweeping restructuring operations are driven by the profit demands of the companies’ major shareholders, which include the world’s largest banks and investment funds.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/0 ... a-a10.html
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Ozzie guy
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Re: Technological Unemployment News & Discussions

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wjfox wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:20 am Australia: Warehouse job cuts ahead as supermarkets increase automation

9 August 2021

Australia’s major supermarket chains are expected to outlay around $10 billion in capital expenditure over the next three years, in a bid to drive down labour costs and cash in on the growing online grocery market.

The major component of this investment is in new, highly-automated distribution centres, which will replace smaller warehouses across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, destroying thousands of jobs.

The motive for this is clear. The forthcoming closure of Woolworths’ Yennora, Minchinbury and Mulgrave distribution centres is expected to cut the company’s wage bill by $135 million per year and bring $65 million in other annual cost savings. Coles’ “Second Century” strategy aims to slash a billion dollars by 2023, relative to 2018 costs.

These sweeping restructuring operations are driven by the profit demands of the companies’ major shareholders, which include the world’s largest banks and investment funds.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/0 ... a-a10.html
My initial reaction to this is I don't like it, despite being a futurist the lower class worker in me is concerned about when I need to find another crappy job after lockdown. Finding jobs that are crappy is already hard in my Australian city. Whist UBI would do a lot to protect capitalism from upcoming dissent I can't help but want it.
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Factories of the future: we’re spending heavily to give workers skills they won’t need by 2030

“This government is obsessed with skilling up our population,” said Boris Johnson in his recent speech on “levelling up”. There is still a fair amount of uncertainty about exactly what the UK prime minister’s plan to level up the regions will involve, but manufacturing and skills seem close to the heart of it.

The government is trying to achieve a renaissance in vocational education with its industry-focused T-level courses for students, “Skills Bootcamp” retraining programmes for adults, and increased funding for further education in general. Together with the recent announcement of a new Nissan “mega-factory” in Sunderland, some might argue that the UK is finally becoming a high-skill vocational manufacturing economy to rival Germany and Japan.

Unfortunately, the world is moving on. In the factories of the future, the role of skills will be dramatically different. We are in the early stages of what is known as industry 4.0: digital manufacturing that attempts to automate and regulate every aspect of production, including the human. There is little sign that the UK government is thinking about this, or what it means for the youngsters looking to work in manufacturing in future.

In a three-year study, I found that learning in factories is fundamentally shifting from human workers to machines. In high-tech manufacturing, machines are being connected to one another in what is often referred to as the internet of things – using sensors to gather information and send signals back to the production process. In the study, we refer to factories and even products becoming “chatty” through all this communication of information, and predict that this will lead to profound changes in manufacturing by 2030.

https://theconversation.com/factories-o ... 030-165109
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Tesco opens new checkout-free store

19th October 2021

Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket, has today opened its first checkout-free store in central London, giving customers the opportunity to shop and pay without scanning a product or using a checkout.

Retail giant Amazon has pioneered the idea of automated shopping, as seen with its Amazon Go store format. The first of these launched in January 2018 in downtown Seattle and nearly 30 others have opened since. The concept is now catching on with other companies – including Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket and third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues. It has just launched its own automated store in central London.

The rollout of this technology at Tesco Express High Holborn follows a successful trial in Welwyn Garden City, a town north of London. The High Holborn branch has already been a cashless store since it first opened in 2018 and is now checkout-less too.

The newly developed system – called "GetGo" – offers the same products but with a faster and more convenient shopping experience. A customer simply downloads the mobile app, scans the QR code generated on their screen, picks up the groceries they need and then leaves the store.

Read more: https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... nology.htm


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Yuli Ban
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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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