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At Davos conversation among rich elites turns to automation
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2019-01-26 at 10:28 PM UTC
DAVOS, Switzerland — They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/automation-davos-world-economic-forum.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
I know this because, for the past week, I’ve been mingling with corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. And I’ve noticed that their answers to questions about automation depend very much on who is listening.
In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They take part in panel discussions about building “human-centered A.I.” for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — Davos-speak for the corporate adoption of machine learning and other advanced technology — and talk about the need to provide a safety net for people who lose their jobs as a result of automation.
But in private settings, including meetings with the leaders of the many consulting and technology firms whose pop-up storefronts line the Davos Promenade, these executives tell a different story: They are racing to automate their own work forces to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers.
All over the world, executives are spending billions of dollars to transform their businesses into lean, digitized, highly automated operations. They crave the fat profit margins automation can deliver, and they see A.I. as a golden ticket to savings, perhaps by letting them whittle departments with thousands of workers down to just a few dozen.
“People are looking to achieve very big numbers,” said Mohit Joshi, the president of Infosys, a technology and consulting firm that helps other businesses automate their operations. “Earlier they had incremental, 5 to 10 percent goals in reducing their work force. Now they’re saying, ‘Why can’t we do it with 1 percent of the people we have?’”
Few American executives will admit wanting to get rid of human workers, a taboo in today’s age of inequality. So they’ve come up with a long list of buzzwords and euphemisms to disguise their intent. Workers aren’t being replaced by machines, they’re being “released” from onerous, repetitive tasks. Companies aren’t laying off workers, they’re “undergoing digital transformation.”
A 2017 survey by Deloitte found that 53 percent of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans. The figure is expected to climb to 72 percent by next year.
The corporate elite’s A.I. obsession has been lucrative for firms that specialize in “robotic process automation,” or R.P.A. Infosys, which is based in India, reported a 33 percent increase in year-over-year revenue in its digital division. IBM’s “cognitive solutions” unit, which uses A.I. to help businesses increase efficiency, has become the company’s second-largest division, posting $5.5 billion in revenue last quarter. The investment bank UBS projects that the artificial intelligence industry could be worth as much as $180 billion by next year.
Something like 25% of all jobs are in the direct firing line for automation - more if something like automatic checkouts at shops or self driving cars make a big break through. In many cases bosses are just waiting for someone to come along and implement some code to render a person obsolete. -
2019-01-26 at 10:48 PM UTCJob-pocalypse
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2019-01-26 at 10:51 PM UTCIf machines replaced the six posters here would this place pick up?
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2019-01-28 at 4:19 PM UTCUniversal income will save them...aka more fucking welfare checks.
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2019-01-28 at 6:10 PM UTC
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2019-01-28 at 6:11 PM UTC
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2019-01-28 at 6:12 PM UTChow ?
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2019-01-28 at 6:15 PM UTCIt had nothing to do with my statement about UI
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2019-01-28 at 6:27 PM UTC
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2019-01-28 at 6:28 PM UTC
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2019-01-28 at 6:34 PM UTCI imagine you checked under her skirt.