The rise of of the robots: risks to more jobs as minimum wage increase warns IFS
By: CITY A.M January 04, 2018 Higher minimum wage levels could tempt British employers to automate more jobs, risking a rise in unemployment, respected economists at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) will today warn. In research to be published today, the IFS will call for “extremely careful monitoring” of the effects of government increases […]
Neurotechnology, Elon Musk and the goal of human enhancement
By: The Guardian January 1, 2018 At the World Government Summit in Dubai in February, Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said that people would need to become cyborgs to be relevant in an artificial intelligence age. He said that a “merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence” would be necessary to ensure we […]
The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine
By: New York Times December 27, 2017 GARPENBERG, Sweden — From inside the control room carved into the rock more than half a mile underground, Mika Persson can see the robots on the march, supposedly coming for his job here at the New Boliden mine. He’s fine with it. Sweden’s famously generous social welfare system […]
Autumn Budget 2017: UK gov pledges cash for 5G, AI and driverless cars
By: CNet November 22, 2017 MANBAG OWNER Philip Hammond on Wednesday delivered the government’s Autumn Budget, and while there is a clear focus on Brexit, there are some interesting announcements around technology. Much of the Chancellor’s announcements centred on emerging technologies that’ll impact our lives over the next few years. In particular, there’s a focus […]
Deutsche Bank CEO Cryan hints robots could replace thousands of people at the bank
By: Will Martin November 7, 2017 Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan has hinted that the lender could cut thousands more jobs as it continues to adjust to expectations of substantially lower future revenues. “We employ 97,000 people,” Cryan said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Most big peers have more like half that number.” […]
End of the checkout line: the looming crisis for American cashiers
By: Julia Carrie Wong August 16, 2017 he day before a fully automated grocery store opened its doors in 1939, the inventor Clarence Saunders took out a full page advertisement in the Memphis Press-Scimitar warning “old duds” with “cobwebby brains” to keep away. The Keedoozle, with its glass cases of merchandise and high-tech system of […]
A Robot Revolution, This Time in China
By: Keith Bradsher May 12, 2017 Even a decade ago, car manufacturing in China was still a fairly low-tech, labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers in a factory, earning little more than $1 an hour, performed highly repetitive tasks, while just a handful of industrial robots dotted factory floors. No longer. At Ford’s newest car assembly […]
Drone home: Amazon to triple R&D staff at Cambridge base
By: Sarah Butler May 5, 2017 Amazon is to more than triple its research and development team in Cambridge working on tech innovations such as its Alexa digital assistant, delivery drones and Echo smart speaker. The US online retailer is opening a new building in the city with room for 400 experts in mathematical modelling, […]
Driverless pods plot new course to overtake humans
By: Gwyn Topham April 25, 2017 In a little over two years, a fleet of driverless cars will make its way from Oxford to London, completing the entire journey from start to finish without human intervention, including on urban streets and motorways. Organisers of the government-backed project, announced on Monday, still expect to have a […]