l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Robot Theory
The battle of robot theory is on. Bank of America paints one picture and
McKinsey another.
Let's investigate both theories.
Automation Will Change Jobs More Than Kill Them
As reported by the New York Times, McKinsey says Automation Will Change Jobs
More Than Kill Them
The report, published on Friday and written by two members of the
McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm’s research arm, and another
McKinsey employee, adds a twist to the debate over the likely nature and
pace of automation in the workplace.
Today’s automation fears essentially rest on two assumptions. First,
the speed of advances in digital software and hardware is faster than in
previous waves of technological change. And second, clever software and
machines are increasingly able to automate cognitive tasks, not just
physical ones. Artificial intelligence, it seems, poses a new kind of threat
to jobs — not so much replacing muscle but brains.
Looking at the trends in artificial intelligence, Carl Benedikt Frey and
Michael A. Osborne, researchers at Oxford University, estimated in a paper
published two years ago that 47 percent of American jobs were at risk from
automation.
The McKinsey research suggests a different kind of impact, at least over
the next three to five years, which is the time span of its analysis. The
McKinsey study found that less than 5 percent of jobs can be entirely
automated using “currently demonstrated technologies,” which it describes
as technologies that are either in the marketplace or in research labs.
The work ripe for automation is not just routine tasks in lower-paying
jobs. “Most high-wage, high-skill jobs have a significant amount of
activity that can be automated,” said Michael Chui, a principal at the
McKinsey Global Institute, and a co-author of the report.
Jobs where some portion of activities could be automated include
physicians, financial managers and senior corporate executives. At the apex
of the corporate job ladder, chief executives, more than 20 percent of the
work could be automated, McKinsey estimates. The C.E.O. chores that could be
automated with machine-learning software include analyzing reports and data
to make operating decisions, preparing staff assignments and reviewing
status reports.
The McKinsey authors emphasized the potential for automation to enrich
work, liberating people to focus on more creative tasks. Apparently there is
a lot of room for improvement on that front. According to one calculation
in the report, “just 4 percent of the work activities across the U.S.
economy require creativity at median human level of performance.”
McKinsey Report
Inquiring minds may be interested in the actual report. If so please
consider the Four Fundamentals of Workplace Automation in the McKinsey
Quarterly.
Compare and contrast that viewpoint with that of Bank of America.
Robots Will Change World Beyond Recognition Says BoA
The Telegraph comments on the viewpoint of Bank of America in Robots May
Shatter the Global Economic Order Within a Decade.
Robots will take over 45pc of all jobs in manufacturing and shave $9
trillion off labour costs within a decade, leaving great swathes of the
global society on the historical scrap heap.
In a sweeping 300-page report, Bank of America predicts that robots and
other forms of artificial intelligence will transform the world beyond
recognition as soon as 2025, shattering old business models in a whirlwind
of “creative disruption”, with transformation effects ultimately amounting
to $30 trillion or more each year.
“The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear
to parabolic,” it said. Any country that fails to embrace the robot
revolution will slip rapidly down the rankings of competiveness, and will be
left behind.
Manufacturing wages in China have jumped ninefold since 2000, and the
country’s workforce is shrinking. China is already the world’s biggest
buyer of robots, making up a quarter of the global market.
The costs of robots, "care-bots" for the elderly, "agribots" to plants
seeds or pick fruit, commercial drones and artificial intelligence have, on
average, dropped by 27pc over the past 10 years, and are expected to fall a
further 22pc by 2005.
The price of an advance robotic welder fell from $182,000 in 2005 to $
133,000 last year, and its sophistication is increasing all the time. The
standard Baxter collaborative "cobot" that works side by side with people on
the factory floor – fixing bolts on a conveyor belt, for example – costs
just $22,000.
We are coming close to the crucial “inflexion point” when it is 15pc
cheaper to use a robot than to employ a human worker.
This threshold has already been crossed in the American, European and
Japanese car industries, where it costs $8 an hour to employ a robot for
spot welding, compared to $25 for a worker. Hence the eerie post-human feel
of the most up-to-date car plants. “We are facing a paradigm shift, which
will change the way we live and work,” said the report's author, Beijia Ma.
The social effect is to squeeze out those at the bottom of the
employment ladder, rendering them almost unemployable without re-education.
Bank of America describes this as the “displacement of human labour”,
estimating that almost half of US jobs could be at risk.
Productivity will soar but wages will not rise at the same pace, if at
all. The owners of capital will take an even bigger slice of global income,
pushing inequality to yet greater extremes. Labour’s share of the pie
peaked at 65pc in 1975 in the rich countries and has already dropped to 58pc.
The workforce will split yet further into the "haves" at the top of
education scale and the "have-nots" with just high school qualifications,
not to mention the 800m illiterates in the world. It is easy to imagine the
explosive political consequences if governments fail to take action to
mitigate the effects, yet this may be almost impossible in a borderless,
globalised world.
Nor are the middle classes invulnerable. Bank of America said "robo-
advisors" using algorithm-based systems will “disrupt” 25m workers in
financial and legal services. The Millennial generation – now 18-34 years
old – will be the first to switch en masse to these post-human services.
This rising cohort already holds $7 trillion of liquid assets and is likely
to inherit another $30-$40 trillion from Baby Boom parents.
There is nowhere to go. Labour-saving devices are sweeping everything,
everywhere. A single professor can teach a course to 150,000 students
through digital technology.
We may achieve the dream of prosperity without toil as robots take over,
but find ourselves living in a jobless dystopia.
Deflationary Force
Regardless of which viewpoint you think more likely, it should be perfectly
clear that robots are a huge deflationary force.
The Fed's (central bank's in general), that the global economy needs 2%
inflation is 100% absurd in the face of such forces.
Attempts by the Fed, by unions, by Obama, and by those screaming for a $15 "
living wage" are totally counterproductive.
The higher the wage inflation, the greater the incentive to replace workers
with robots. | h********t
发帖数: 555 | 2 你这个人啊，其实人不坏，就是不愿意独立思考，很容易被资本家洗脑。如果最低工资
8刀，每
周赚320，年薪16640，如果有两孩子，老婆只能在家带孩子，这样的家庭肯定是领大量
的福利。福利哪里来的？中产阶级就得多交税。看起来是中产阶级多交税补贴穷人，其
实是在补贴资本家。应该消减福利，增加最低工资，鼓励辛勤工作的人。现在低工资，
高福利，很多人发现辛苦工作，还不然躺家里吃福利，还有什么动力去工作呢？
Jobs
another
【在 l****z 的大作中提到】
: Robot Theory
: The battle of robot theory is on. Bank of America paints one picture and
: McKinsey another.
: Let's investigate both theories.
: Automation Will Change Jobs More Than Kill Them
: As reported by the New York Times, McKinsey says Automation Will Change Jobs
: More Than Kill Them
: The report, published on Friday and written by two members of the
: McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm’s research arm, and another
: McKinsey employee, adds a twist to the debate over the likely nature and
|
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