Blog – Page 207 – Technology vs Humanity: the coming clash of man and machine

Humans are going to have the edge over robots where work demands creativity (says Tim Dunlop) via TheGuardian

As I said, the point of capitalism is to destroy jobs, not create them.

The second big change is post-industrialisation. Wealth is being created – not by making and selling physical things – but in areas of knowledge, information and financialisation.

These areas simply do not need as many workers as traditional employers. Where Kodak used to employ 140,000 people and was valued at $28bn (and is now bankrupt thanks to digitisation), Instagram was sold to Facebook in 2012 for a billion dollars when it (Instagram) employed 12 people.

Facebook itself is the sixth-largest company in the US, but it employs a mere 12,000 people full time. Compare that to, say, General Motors, which during the 1980s employed 349,000 workers in the US alone.

Google, one of the richest corporations on the planet, only employs about 55,000 people worldwide.

You get the picture.”

Humans are going to have the edge over robots where work demands creativity | Tim Dunlop
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/sep/26/humans-are-going-to-have-the-edge-over-robots-where-work-demands-creativity
via Instapaper

Google developing ‘kill switch’ to stop robot uprising against humans

“Safe interruptibility can be useful to take control of a robot that is misbehaving and may lead to irreversible consequences, or to take it out of a delicate situation, or even to temporarily use it to achieve a task it did not learn to perform or would not normally receive rewards for this.””

Google developing ‘kill switch’ to stop robot uprising against humans
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/08/google-developing-kill-switch-to-stop-robot-uprising-against-hum/
via Instapaper

On algorithmic management

Great article published by the Financial Times, titled, “when your boss is an algorithm” on the liberating or exploitative sides for workers working in the gig economy and where companies such as Uber and Deliveroo manage workers via their phones. There are no good estimates on the global scale of the gig economy but in the US there … Continue reading "On algorithmic management"

Some key memes from ‘Technology vs Humanity’ (Gerd Leonhard)

1. There are two kinds of happiness – passing and profound. Technology is good at the first, but not at the second. 2. The second kind – deeper happiness that involves Creativity, Originality, Reciprocity and Empathy (CORE) – is what defines humanity. 3. Algorithms are starting to take the place of androrithms – those … Continue reading "Some key memes from ‘Technology vs Humanity’ (Gerd Leonhard)"

How Technology Disrupted the Truth

Here is a must read article via The Guardian on the challenges for journalism in an era when everyone has their own facts. “Now, we are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the … Continue reading "How Technology Disrupted the Truth"