jobs
Fears that digital technology will cost jobs and lead to large-scale unemployment are nothing new. In last week’s blog, I pointed out such fears as long ago as 1971. But they’ve become more prevalent of late. This week, I’ll comment on a new view of long-term employment and unemployment in the digital age, from Oxford economist Daniel Susskind. A World Without Work, he calls it. I’ll agree with his core arguments but challenge the optimism of his conclusion. A family affair The digita...
Last week I wrote about some of the big picture issues affecting jobs – employment – in the digital society. How many jobs are likely to be created, and how many destroyed, by automation? How different will the jobs experience be in different countries? The gig economy It’s very hard to predict the answers to these questions. This week I’ll take the focus down to one job sector that’s emerged of late – to platform jobs, ‘the gig economy’. There’s been a lot written on t...
One of the most important underlying issues of the digital revolution that’s now underway is: what will happen to the jobs? Artificial intelligence, robotics and automated decision-making, it is clear, will displace a lot of jobs – professional as well as manual. It’s cheaper and more efficient for very many tasks than using humans. Robots and algorithms don’t fall sick, seek pensions o...
Last week I wrote about some of the policy and regulatory issues that arise from the accelerating trend towards a digital society and new technologies such as artificial intelligence. This week some thoughts about employment issues that arise from that same trend: issues that are increasingly being discussed but on which we have very little evidence to base conclusions. Visions of the future As...
What will the digital society do to jobs? Will it usher in an age of unemployment or an age of leisure? Will we be served by robots or displaced by them? Will there be greater income inequality or less? This week: some comments on that theme, with a closing (counter-intuitive) conclusion. Five scenarios are put forward where AI, robotics and employment are concerned. Where are we heading...
