This is a link to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s website. There is a working paper here which you can download for a mere $5. I include it here as an example of the type of work being done from a neoclassical perspective on the subject of technological unemployment. Working Paper 20941 http://www.nber.org/papers/w20941 Here […]
Oxford University: The Future of Employment
The following except is from the abstract of an in-depth study done by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne on the susceptibility of various occupations to computerization. You may be interested in seeing where your line of work falls on their scale. As a machinist, I come in at number 358 with a probability of being […]
Tesla Robot Dance: Steve Jurvetson on flicker
IBM’s Watson
IBM’s term for Watson is Cognitive Technology — think of what that terminology implies. Cognition refers to the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning. Perception, learning, reasoning, this is a really big deal if we are talking about machines actually doing this. This is a game changer. Speaking of changing the game, check out […]
Rethink Robotics
Photo of Baxter courtesy of Rethink Robotics Forget losing jobs to China or Mexico, this guy works for about $1 an hour and can be employed at that price right here in the United States. Although best suited to a limited range of tasks Baxter and his little brother Sawyer will only improve over time. […]
Jeremy Rifkin
In this video Jeremy Rifkin discusses how the internet is bypassing the capitalist market and facilitating the emergence of the Collaborative Commons. Although traditional market employment is going down due to technological change, Rifkin is optimistic that new opportunities are opening in the “internet of things” economy. We remain skeptical of why the “internet of […]
Meet Jules
Hanson Robotics specializes in animatronics for theme parks, but their aspirations run much higher. Their website says that they are working “to realize the dream of friendly machines who truly live and love, and co-invent the future of life”. Visit them at: http://www.hansonrobotics.com/ If we imagine the type of life-like realism their robots display with the […]
Interview with Neil Gershenfeld
Is the Star Trek replicator about to become a reality? A machine which will build anything we request, molecule by molecule? Yes, according to Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms. In this interview, first broadcast on Fareed Zakarias’ CNN show The Global Public Square, Gershenfeld explains the nature of the work […]