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A robot avatar that mimics the motions of a human controller could take the place of workers in several dangerous jobs, such as tree trimming and construction, by the end of 2022.

The challenge: If a tree branch gets too close to a power line, it can cause electrical outages or, even worse, dangerous fires (as Californians know all too well). To avoid this, utility companies have to regularly trim trees near their lines.

But it’s dangerous work, as workers are dozens of feet above the ground, using sharp power tools to trim trees while power lives are still active — this puts them at risk of falls, cuts, and electrocution, all at once.

“If you’re working on something that involves people or engineering, it’s probably a good focus for your future,” Musk.

Elon Musk has made many predictions about the future of society and the role that his companies Tesla and SpaceX will play. The millionaire has very strong opinions and is not afraid to express them in interviews, conferences, and even on social networks. This time, he spoke about the impact that Artificial Intelligence will have on the jobs of the future and mentioned the careers that will be safe. to the tech mogul, the essentials will be engineering and human-interactive careers.

As workers move around, forecasters predict additional jobs will continue to open up in the new year, giving job-switchers even more opportunities to choose from, says Julia Pollak, chief economist with the job-search site ZipRecruiter.

“We’ve seen substantial job growth in recent months, all taking place without the labor force participation rate changing,” Pollak tells CNBC Make It. She says it’s “an exciting moment for job seekers who are benefiting from employers offering hiring incentives and reducing their requirements” to fill a sharply rising number of vacancies.

Here are three reasons why Pollak believes workers will continue to have their pick of jobs in 2022, and what it will take for more Americans to rejoin the labor force.

One of the most important issues in contemporary societies is the impact of automation and intelligent technologies on human work. Concerns with the impact of mechanization on jobs and unemployment go back centuries, at least since the late 1,500 ’ s, when Queen Elizabeth I turned down William Lee ’ s patent applications for an automated knitting machine for stockings because of fears that it might turn human knitters into paupers. [2] In 1936, an automotive industry manager at General Motors named D.L. Harder coined the term “automation” to refer to the automatic operation of machines in a factory setting. Ten years later, when he was a Vice President at Ford Motor company, he established an “Automation Department” which led to widespread usage of the term. [3]

The origins of intelligent automation trace back to US and British advances in fire-control radar for operating anti-aircraft guns to defend against German V-1 rockets and aircraft during World War II. After the war, these advances motivated the MIT mathematician Norbert Weiner to develop the concept of “cybernetics”, a theory of machines and their potential based on feedback loops, self-stabilizing systems, and the ability to autonomously lean and adapt behavior. [4] In parallel, the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence workshop was held in 1956 and is recognized as the founding event of artificial intelligence as a research field. [5]

Since that decade, workplace automation, cybernetic-inspired advanced feedback systems for both analogue and digital machines, and digital computing based artificial intelligence (together with the overall field of computer science) have advanced in parallel and co-mingled with one another. Additionally, opposing views of these developments have co-existed with one side highlighting the positive potential for more capable and intelligent machines to serve, benefit and elevate humanity, and the other side highlighting the negative possibilities and threats including mass unemployment, physical harm and loss of control. There has been a steady stream of studies from the 1950 ’ s to the present assessing the impacts of machine automation on the nature of work, jobs and employment, with each more recent study considering the capability enhancements of the newest generation of automated machines.

Astronauts have one of the most competitive jobs in the world — 18,300 people applied to be part of NASA’s 2017 class of astronauts, and only 12 made the final cut. But the process of finding astronauts with “the right stuff” has changed over time, and a lot of us Earthlings have the wrong idea about what NASA is looking for.

“I think a lot of the public conception is that we choose super-geniuses or super-jocks or super-pilots,” says Mike Barratt, a NASA astronaut and physician. “I would say that the astronaut office right now is full of people who are comfortable to be with. I mean, don’t get me wrong — we’ve got a couple of super-geniuses, but the main [goal] is that we’ve chosen well-rounded, well-behaved, professional people who are adaptable and resilient, and just someone you could see exploring a brand new world or locking yourself in a garage with for six months.”

A documentary exploring how artificial intelligence is changing life as we know it — from jobs to privacy to a growing rivalry between the U.S. and China.

FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of AI and automation, tracing a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our world, and allow the emergence of a surveillance society.

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And it would create 4.7 million long-term jobs.

The United States’ energy system that’s running completely on wind, water, and solar, combined with storage, would not only avoid blackouts but also lower energy requirements and consumer costs, a Stanford University study has shown. In addition, this would create millions of jobs, improve health, and free up land for various other purposes.

This is incredibly important because, for some people, a future powered by renewable energy isn’t feasible due to concerns about blackouts driven by inconsistent electricity sources. Take, for example, the grid blackouts caused by extreme weather events in California in August 2020 and Texas in February 2021.

However, the study, which examined grid stability under various scenarios in which wind, water, and solar energy supplied 100 percent of all energy needs in the U.S., has now demonstrated that those concerns are misplaced.

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Skills shortages are easily brushed off as Covid collateral, but in fact, they are much more troubling signs of an education system that is not preparing people for the future of work. These issues stem from a union of education and employment that has been designed to fill specific criteria for the workforce, but the job market that young people are training for today will require a much greater emphasis on human skills to complement the repetitive tasks handled by AI and automation.

But bringing up young people with the human skills they need for a changing world of work is a mammoth task that must combine the powers of government, businesses, and dedicated organizations to reshape our education systems and integrate them with the communities they serve. I spoke with Justin van Fleet, Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education), about the need for a holistic and skills-centered approach to education, and how change needs to start as early as possible.

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Robots are already in space. From landers on the moon to rovers on Mars and more, robots are the perfect candidates for space exploration: they can bear extreme environments while consistently repeating the same tasks in exactly the same way without tiring. Like robots on Earth, they can accomplish both dangerous and mundane jobs, from space walks to polishing a spacecraft’s surface. With space missions increasing in number and expanding in scientific scope, requiring more equipment, there’s a need for a lightweight robotic arm that can manipulate in environments difficult for humans.

Robots are already in space. From landers on the moon to rovers on Mars and more, robots are the perfect candidates for space exploration: they can bear extreme environments while consistently repeating the same tasks in exactly the same way without tiring. Like robots on Earth, they can accomplish both dangerous and mundane jobs, from space walks to polishing a spacecraft’s surface. With space missions increasing in number and expanding in scientific scope, requiring more equipment, there’s a need for a lightweight robotic arm that can manipulate in environments difficult for humans.

However, the control schemes that can move such arms on Earth, where the planes of operation are flat, do not translate to space, where the environment is unpredictable and changeable. To address this issue, researchers in Harbin Institute of Technology’s School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation have developed a robotic arm weighing 9.23 kilograms—about the size of a one-year-old baby—capable of carrying almost a quarter of its own weight, with the ability to adjust its position and speed in real time based on its environment.

They published their results on Sept. 28 in Space: Science & Technology.