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Your job isn’t safe. Nearly half of the jobs in America today may soon be done by robots.

Robots will begin delivering Domino’s pizza starting this summer. The small, six-wheeled devices go 4 miles per hour and will drop the pizzas off within a one-mile radius of its stores in the Netherlands and Germany.

It’s part of a the robotification of American jobs. Indeed, almost half of the jobs in America are at risk of being done by robots on computers in the next two decades, a study by researchers at Oxford University found.

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The fear that automation in the form of robots or artificial intelligence is going to destroy jobs is widespread. But it can be difficult to gauge just how serious to take the threat. Different reports offer different estimations of how many jobs will be lost, while politicians and economists argue that technology creates as many jobs as it destroys, maintaining an equilibrium in employment over the long run.

But is this really true? A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research aims to add some solid numbers to the debate, looking at the historical effects of robots on employment in the US. Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, looking at employment rates in different areas and industries while controlling for the influence of factors like increased imports from China and the offshoring of jobs.

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In his final speech as US president, Barack Obama warned of the “relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class jobs obsolete.” Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has said that governments will need to tax robots to replace forgone revenue when human workers lose their jobs.

If the past is prologue, these concerns are warranted.

In a recent study (pdf), economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They conclude that each additional robot reduced employment in a given commuting area by 3–6 workers, and lowered overall wages by 0.25–0.5%.

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For centuries, humans have been fretting over “technological unemployment” or the loss of jobs caused by technological change. Never has this sentiment been accentuated more than it is today, at the cusp of the next industrial revolution.

With developments in artificial intelligence continuing at a chaotic pace, fears of robots ultimately replacing humans are increasing.

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Are robots coming for your job?

Although technology has long affected the labor force, recent advances in and robotics are heightening concerns about automation replacing a growing number of occupations, including highly skilled or “knowledge-based” .

Just a few examples: self-driving technology may eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers, algorithms are playing a growing role in journalism, robots are informing consumers as mall greeters, and medicine is adapting robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to detect cancer and heart conditions.

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I did a 10-min interview on Radio Columbia today, one of the largest stations in Latin America. We talked about robots taking jobs and the possibility of #robot politicians. It’s a combo of English and Spanish.


Aunque expertos advierten que las máquinas podrían dejar sin empleo a la mitad de la población en 30 años, Zoltan Istvan explica los beneficios de esta iniciativa.

Robot encuentro. Foto: Getty Images.

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PWC predicts 30% of jobs to be automated by 2030s.


You’ve been warned before—robots are coming for your job. The speed of technological advancement, particularly in smart automation, has sprung countless economic studies and political warnings about how many people are likely to lose their jobs to this rise of the machines. But it’s not an easy number to peg down; estimates range from 5% to 50%.

The latest predictions from PricewaterhouseCoopers (pdf) survey the damage for specific countries. Analysts at the consulting firm said that by the early 2030s, 38% of US jobs are at a high risk of automation, more than in Germany, the UK, and Japan.

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