Economics – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jan 24
2016

The World Economic Forum On The Future Of Jobs

“According to many industry observers, we are today on the cusp of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. Developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and genetics and biotechnology are all building on and amplifying one another…”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) published an analysis today on the technological and sociological drivers of employment.

The report, titled The Future of Jobs, validates the accelerating impact of technology on global employment trends, and also highlights serious concerns that job growth in certain industries is still very much outpaced by large scale declines in other industries.

The report surveyed senior executives and chief human resources officers of various companies “representing more than 13 million employees across 9 broad industry sectors in 15 major developed and emerging economies and regional economic areas.”

Jan 24
2016

3 ways robots and AI will change the way you work

Essentially, the jobs being replaced will give rise to new roles that people can take up.

“There are new classes of jobs that we haven’t thought of yet. Those who can curate and manage the full rich data lifecycle will be a new class of professional,” Shadbolt added.

Whether you like it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) and robots are going to be a big part of the future workforce.

Amid warnings about “killer robots” from the likes of Tesla boss Elon Musk and the way in which they could take over your job, businesses are bracing for changes to the workforce over the next few years.

In a report published Monday, the World Economic Forum estimated that up to 5.1 million jobs could be lost over the next five years in the 15 global leading economies from disruptive labor market changes such as robots and artificial intelligence.

Jan 23
2016

Manpower’s CEO just gave us an awesome solution to the ‘robots taking human jobs’ conundrum

Kudos to Manpower’s CEO Jonas Prising — with the possibility on the horizon of a world wide loss of 5 million jobs; we need to make sure we a structure in place to absorb that hit with needs to include education & retraining and a financial support structure to help those laid off and their immediate family members (namely children). And, the earlier we can train folks; the less costly it will be for governments and countries in the long run.

Jonas Pri sing1
ManpowerJonas Prising, CEO and Executive Chairman of Manpower, spoke to Business Insider in Davos for the WEF meeting.

Over 2,500 of the world’s most powerful people have talked about the risks and opportunities surrounding “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The biggest risk that has been pointed out time and time again when Business Insider spoke to the bosses of the largest corporations in the world is two pronged.

Jan 23
2016

Robots ‘will be able to read your thoughts within a generation’ — and hackers could steal your innermost secrets

This all sounds extremely familiar to me for some reason. And, really ties in well with my recent articles on “AI holding your data hostage” and “Quantum Computing — things that need to be considered” — glad more folks are speaking up.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps, Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy, said the device reading brain activity could be accessed by ‘not good Samaritans’.

Jan 22
2016

Here come the robots, welcome to the next industrial revolution

Go Hubo

The so-called ‘fourth industrial revolution’ will bring ever faster cycles of innovation, posing huge challenges to companies, workers, governments and societies alike Implantable mobile phones. 3D-printed organs for transplant. Clothes and reading-glasses connected to the Internet.

Such things may be science fiction today but they will be scientific fact by 2025 as the world enters an era of advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and gene editing, according to executives surveyed by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Nearly half of those questioned also expect an artificial intelligence machine to be sitting on a corporate board of directors within the next decade.

Jan 21
2016

Bill Gates: We can end poverty

“There is good reason for optimism about progress on reducing inequity,” he writes. He published the essay from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is taking place this week.

Gates points out that since the turn of the century, “Maternal deaths have almost halved; child mortality and malaria deaths have halved; extreme poverty has more than halved.” Plus, thanks to the Global Fund, a project supported by the Gates Foundation, 17 million lives have been saved from malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis.

Progress like that is encouraging him to believe that in a mere 14-ish more years, poverty can be wiped out. That’s the cornerstone of the Global Goals plan, which was been signed by the United Nations’ 193 countries agreed in September.

Jan 21
2016

A Basic Income for All!

There is enough wealth for all of us. What if we decided that every human being has a right to income security? How could a basic income change our lives? Could this relieve our society from the stress and anger that comes with the rising inequality?

Featuring: Guy Standing (economist, UK), Phillippe Van Parijs (philosopher, co-founder European Basic Income Network, BE) Enno Schmidt (Co-initiator of the Swiss Citizen’s Initiative on Basic Income, CH) Daniel Hani (Co-initiator of the Swiss Citizen’s Initiative on Basic Income, CH) Roland Duchatelet (entrepreneur, BE) Francine Mestrum (researcher on social development, BE) Dirk De Wachter (psychotherapist, BE) Sarah Van Lieferinge (Pirate Party, BE) Claudia & Dirk Haarman (Researchers Basic Income Grant project Namibia, NA) Bischop Kameeta (current Minister of poverty aleviation, NA) Ismael Daoud, Pierre & Axelle Catelin (calculated a possible basic income, BE) …

Jan 20
2016

Lagarde: The end of cash could happen within a decade

Ok, my one world currency comsipracy friends; here is a story for you.

Cash could become history within a decade, thanks to new financial instruments, including virtual currencies, some of the world’s leading bankers said during the World Economic Forum on Wednesday (20 January).

The impact of technology, the overarching theme of this year’s meeting, will be very significant.

The evolution would be so significant that John Cryan, co-CEO of Deutsche Bank AG, predicted that, in ten years’ time, “probably” we would not see cash anymore. It is “terribly inefficient”, he added.

Jan 20
2016

World Economic Forum 2016: Technology is like Force, depends how you use it, says Anand Mahindra

When AI and particularly a Quantum AI society takes hold; we may see another huge shift in the balance of economic power again. For the past 20+ years, we have seen the trade and economic power shift to emerging markets across Asia. What type of a shift may we see when AI and particularly Robots on Quantum are in place? Could we see a complete reversal of markets and growth shift away from Asia back to Europe and the US/ Canada? Or, even no shift at all, etc.? Key questions that we need to be ready to address especially as more sophisticated AI is introduced over the next 3 to 5 years.

DAVOS: Invoking the famous Star Wars series, top industrialist Anand Mahindra today said technology is like the Force and everything depends on how we use it, as business leaders from across the world began debating here the challenges and benefits from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Speaking here at the first official session of the World Economic Forum’s five-day annual meet, which started last night, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also said the world cannot afford another digital divide and the key question was how to ensure that the fourth industrial revolution leads to digital dividends.

Participating at a session on the ‘Transformation of Tomorrow’ alongside Mahindra, Nadella said, “We cannot afford another digital divide. Key question is about how the benefits from the fourth industrial revolution will be spread.

Jan 20
2016

Globalization is dead: what now?

Interesting perspective of the world and globalization.

It is my belief that we are heading toward a blend of Islandization and Commonization. World transformation is powered first and foremost by the mega-driver of technology, which in turn is central to both of these worlds. The most significant change in the past seven years of world history is that we have entered into a period of sustained technological progress. I fully expect in coming years further breakthroughs in areas including alternative energy, biotechnology and artificial intelligence that dramatically change our economies and our societies.

Unfortunately, I am less sure that technological change will be positive. The exploitation by violent extremists of social media is a case in point of the double-edge that new technologies can bring. This is an extremely disruptive and dislocating time for individuals, organizations and governments alike. The net gain of technology will almost certainly be positive, but there will be winners and losers, and losers will not necessarily go quietly. Nor will the winners necessarily perceive objective gain as actual gain. And some new technologies, such as the gene-editing powers of CRISPR, point to a highly uncertain future.

In our days together in Davos, I will focus my conversations on this new age of exploration in a post-globalization world. As the next global order takes hold, organizational foresight and agility will be critical in determining winners and losers in the new global operating environment.