‘Tech tax’ necessary to avoid dystopia, says leading economist
By: Alex Hern October 23, 2018 A “tech tax” is necessary if the world is to avoid a dystopian future in which AI leads to a concentration of global wealth in the hands of a few thousand people, influential economist Dr Jeffrey Sachs has warned. Speaking to the Guardian, Sachs backed calls for taxation aimed […]
Google and Orange building cable between US and France
By: Alex Hern October 15, 2018 Telecoms firm Orange has teamed up with Google to work on a private undersea cable connecting the Atlantic coasts of France and the United States Measuring 6,600km in length, the undersea cable will be named Dunant after Henry Dunant, the first Nobel peace prize winner and founder of the […]
Don’t believe the World Bank – robots will steal our wages
By: Larry Elliott October 14,2018 The World Bank has a reassuring message for those fearful of being made obsolete by automation. The robot age is nothing to be worried about. Just like all previous waves of technological advance, the fourth industrial revolution will create rather than destroy jobs, so fears of mass unemployment are largely […]
Worries about the rise of the gig economy are mostly overblown
By: The Economist October 04, 2018 IT IS a warm morning on Bondi Beach. Simon and Sophia are drinking coffee on a terrace while athleisure-clad millennials stroll by. The young American couple, both management consultants, came to Sydney from New York for a working holiday. Both found work through Expert360, a platform that connects professionals […]
The data revolution: privacy, politics and predictive policing
By: The Economist October 3, 2018 Erlanger hospital, Tennessee – the medical staff here are at the forefront of efforts to transform healthcare with data and those efforts could make the difference between life and death. At many hospitals there can be critical delays in analyzing brain scans. Hours can go by before patients are […]
Chr. Hansen CEO talks tapping food’s top five mega-trends
By: Katy Askew October 1, 2018 In his first international interview as Chr. Hansen chief executive, Mauricio Graber explains why he feels the company is uniquely positioned to capitalise on global mega trends shaping the food and beverage sectors. Read Full Article
The biggest challenge for the future of work hasn’t changed for decades
By: Asbar World Forum September 26, 2018 Technology and what it will do to change how we work is the driving obsession of the moment. The truth is that nobody knows for sure what will happen – the only certainty is uncertainty. How then should we plan for the jobs that don’t yet exist? Our […]
John Hancock will include fitness tracking in all life insurance policies
By: Reuters September 19, 2019 (Reuters) — John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday. The move by the 156-year-old insurer, owned by […]
Robots in workplace ‘could create double the jobs they destroy’
By: Richard Partington September 17, 2018 The rise of machines, robots and algorithms in the workplace stands to create almost double the number of jobs for the global economy by the middle of the next decade than it puts at risk of being replaced. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), about 133m jobs globally […]