Smart Machines and Service Work

Smart Machines and Service Work PDF Author: Jason E. Smith
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789143179
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
In recent decades digital devices have reshaped daily life, while tech companies’ stock prices have thrust them to the forefront of the business world. In this rapid, global development, the promise of a new machine age has been accompanied by worries about accelerated joblessness thanks to new forms of automation. Jason E. Smith looks behind the techno-hype to lay out the realities of a period of economic slowdown and expanding debt: low growth rates and an increase of labor-intensive jobs at the bottom of the service sector. He shows how increasing inequality and poor working conditions have led to new forms of workers’ struggles. Ours is less an age of automation, Smith contends, than one in which stagnation is intertwined with class conflict.

Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines

Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines PDF Author: Jamie Merisotis
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 194812260X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
A public policy leader addresses how artificial intelligence is transforming the future of labor—and what we can do to protect the role of workers. As computer technology advances with dizzying speed, human workers face an ever-increasing threat of obsolescence. In Human Work In the Age of Smart Machines, Jamie Merisotis argues that we can—and must—rise to this challenge by preparing to work alongside smart machines doing that which only humans can: thinking critically, reasoning ethically, interacting interpersonally, and serving others with empathy. The president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, Merisotis offers a roadmap for the large-scale, radical changes we must make in order to find abundant and meaningful work for ourselves in the 21st century. His vision centers on developing our unique capabilities as humans through learning opportunities that deliver fair results and offer a broad range of credentials. By challenging long-held assumptions and expanding our concept of work, Merisotis argues that we can harness the population’s potential, encourage a deeper sense of community, and erase a centuries-long system of inequality.

How Smart Machines Think

How Smart Machines Think PDF Author: Sean Gerrish
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262537974
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Everything you want to know about the breakthroughs in AI technology, machine learning, and deep learning—as seen in self-driving cars, Netflix recommendations, and more. The future is here: Self-driving cars are on the streets, an algorithm gives you movie and TV recommendations, IBM’s Watson triumphed on Jeopardy over puny human brains, computer programs can be trained to play Atari games. But how do all these things work? In this book, Sean Gerrish offers an engaging and accessible overview of the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning that have made today’s machines so smart. Gerrish outlines some of the key ideas that enable intelligent machines to perceive and interact with the world. He describes the software architecture that allows self-driving cars to stay on the road and to navigate crowded urban environments; the million-dollar Netflix competition for a better recommendation engine (which had an unexpected ending); and how programmers trained computers to perform certain behaviors by offering them treats, as if they were training a dog. He explains how artificial neural networks enable computers to perceive the world—and to play Atari video games better than humans. He explains Watson’s famous victory on Jeopardy, and he looks at how computers play games, describing AlphaGo and Deep Blue, which beat reigning world champions at the strategy games of Go and chess. Computers have not yet mastered everything, however; Gerrish outlines the difficulties in creating intelligent agents that can successfully play video games like StarCraft that have evaded solution—at least for now. Gerrish weaves the stories behind these breakthroughs into the narrative, introducing readers to many of the researchers involved, and keeping technical details to a minimum. Science and technology buffs will find this book an essential guide to a future in which machines can outsmart people.

The Work of the Future

The Work of the Future PDF Author: David H. Autor
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547309
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem. The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher paid knowledge workers. What’s wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation. Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.

Only Humans Need Apply

Only Humans Need Apply PDF Author: Thomas H. Davenport
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062438603
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
An invigorating, thought-provoking, and positive look at the rise of automation that explores how professionals across industries can find sustainable careers in the near future. Nearly half of all working Americans could risk losing their jobs because of technology. It’s not only blue-collar jobs at stake. Millions of educated knowledge workers—writers, paralegals, assistants, medical technicians—are threatened by accelerating advances in artificial intelligence. The industrial revolution shifted workers from farms to factories. In the first era of automation, machines relieved humans of manually exhausting work. Today, Era Two of automation continues to wash across the entire services-based economy that has replaced jobs in agriculture and manufacturing. Era Three, and the rise of AI, is dawning. Smart computers are demonstrating they are capable of making better decisions than humans. Brilliant technologies can now decide, learn, predict, and even comprehend much faster and more accurately than the human brain, and their progress is accelerating. Where will this leave lawyers, nurses, teachers, and editors? In Only Humans Need Apply, Thomas Hayes Davenport and Julia Kirby reframe the conversation about automation, arguing that the future of increased productivity and business success isn’t either human or machine. It’s both. The key is augmentation, utilizing technology to help humans work better, smarter, and faster. Instead of viewing these machines as competitive interlopers, we can see them as partners and collaborators in creative problem solving as we move into the next era. The choice is ours.

Human + Machine

Human + Machine PDF Author: Paul R. Daugherty
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633693872
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
AI is radically transforming business. Are you ready? Look around you. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a futuristic notion. It's here right now--in software that senses what we need, supply chains that "think" in real time, and robots that respond to changes in their environment. Twenty-first-century pioneer companies are already using AI to innovate and grow fast. The bottom line is this: Businesses that understand how to harness AI can surge ahead. Those that neglect it will fall behind. Which side are you on? In Human + Machine, Accenture leaders Paul R. Daugherty and H. James (Jim) Wilson show that the essence of the AI paradigm shift is the transformation of all business processes within an organization--whether related to breakthrough innovation, everyday customer service, or personal productivity habits. As humans and smart machines collaborate ever more closely, work processes become more fluid and adaptive, enabling companies to change them on the fly--or to completely reimagine them. AI is changing all the rules of how companies operate. Based on the authors' experience and research with 1,500 organizations, the book reveals how companies are using the new rules of AI to leap ahead on innovation and profitability, as well as what you can do to achieve similar results. It describes six entirely new types of hybrid human + machine roles that every company must develop, and it includes a "leader’s guide" with the five crucial principles required to become an AI-fueled business. Human + Machine provides the missing and much-needed management playbook for success in our new age of AI. BOOK PROCEEDS FOR THE AI GENERATION The authors' goal in publishing Human + Machine is to help executives, workers, students and others navigate the changes that AI is making to business and the economy. They believe AI will bring innovations that truly improve the way the world works and lives. However, AI will cause disruption, and many people will need education, training and support to prepare for the newly created jobs. To support this need, the authors are donating the royalties received from the sale of this book to fund education and retraining programs focused on developing fusion skills for the age of artificial intelligence.

Automation and the Future of Work

Automation and the Future of Work PDF Author: Aaron Benanav
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839761318
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
A consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their effect on workplaces and the labor market In this consensus-shattering account of automation technologies, Aaron Benanav investigates the economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists, and social critics have united in arguing that we are on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But does the muchdiscussed “rise of the robots” really explain the long-term decline in the demand for labor? Automation and the Future of Work uncovers the deep weaknesses of twenty-first-century capitalism and the reasons why the engine of economic growth keeps stalling. Equally important, Benanav goes on to salvage from automation discourse its utopian content: the positive vision of a world without work. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity if technological innovation alone can’t deliver it? In response to calls for a permanent universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a groundbreaking counterproposal.

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies PDF Author: Erik Brynjolfsson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393239357
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A pair of technology experts describe how humans will have to keep pace with machines in order to become prosperous in the future and identify strategies and policies for business and individuals to use to combine digital processing power with human ingenuity.

Robot-Proof

Robot-Proof PDF Author: Joseph E. Aoun
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262535971
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
How to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—filling needs that even the most sophisticated robot cannot. Driverless cars are hitting the road, powered by artificial intelligence. Robots can climb stairs, open doors, win Jeopardy, analyze stocks, work in factories, find parking spaces, advise oncologists. In the past, automation was considered a threat to low-skilled labor. Now, many high-skilled functions, including interpreting medical images, doing legal research, and analyzing data, are within the skill sets of machines. How can higher education prepare students for their professional lives when professions themselves are disappearing? In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot. A “robot-proof” education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society—a scientific proof, a hip-hop recording, a web comic, a cure for cancer. Aoun lays out the framework for a new discipline, humanics, which builds on our innate strengths and prepares students to compete in a labor market in which smart machines work alongside human professionals. The new literacies of Aoun's humanics are data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy. Students will need data literacy to manage the flow of big data, and technological literacy to know how their machines work, but human literacy—the humanities, communication, and design—to function as a human being. Life-long learning opportunities will support their ability to adapt to change. The only certainty about the future is change. Higher education based on the new literacies of humanics can equip students for living and working through change.

Smart Machines

Smart Machines PDF Author: Fouad Sabry
Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
ISBN: 1005202052
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
The future is here: Self-driving cars are on the streets, an algorithm gives you movie and TV recommendations, IBM's Watson triumphed on Jeopardy over puny human brains, computer programs can be trained to play Atari games. But how do all these things work? Smart machines are no longer science-fiction. They are being used by businesses right here and now. And, every day, their capabilities are growing. So exactly what is a smart machine? Everything you've always wanted to know about smart machines other cognitive computing systems that are able to make decisions and solve problems without human intervention. By the end of reading this book, you will master the discussion about the following topics in Smart Machines: 01 - The Rise of Smart Machines: Smart machines are built on top of the breakthroughs in computer science. the advent of computers in the 20th century laid the modern groundwork for Smart Machines. Researchers, analysts and technology leaders agree that Smart Machines will change our lives 02 - Smart machines definitions: Why did Smart Machines emerge now and not later? General-purpose technology (GPT) is an economics term for innovation. Smart machines are devices that can teach themselves how to do things. Smart machines are built on top of existing technologies. The surge of progress in machine learning thanks to big data. 03 - Artificial intelligence of Smart Machines: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Projects. 04- Cognitive computing of Smart Machines: This categorization of Cognitive Computing and the discussion of the types of applications. Cognitive technologies are very good at analyzing large amounts of data and identifying anomalies. 05 - The real-world examples of Smart Machines: From DeepBlue to Watson. 06 - Smart Machine technologies: Smart Dust, Virtual Personal Assistants, Smart Data Discovery, Smart Workspace, Conversational User Interfaces, Smart Robots, Commercial UAVs (Drones), Autonomous Vehicles: Autonomous Vehicles. 07 - Smart machines go to school to learn:Central to machine learning is the process of feeding training data into a mathematical prediction model. The outlier cases are the best chances for learning 08 - Smart machines are wiser and smarter every day: Future machine learning, and the large increase in available data and the rise of crowdsourcing 09 - Smart machines speak multi-languages: One particularly complex problem facing machine translation today is dealing with rare languages 10 - Artificial Intelligence Levels: Support for Humans, Repetitive Task Automation, Context Knowledge and Learning, Self-awareness. 11 - Cognitive Task Types: Analyzing Numbers, Words and Images Analysis, Performing Digital Tasks, Performing Physical tasks 12 - The Great Convergence: The approach of key vendors to achieve the great convergence. The attributes of cognitive architecture. People will continue to have advantages over even the smartest machines. 13 - Smart robotics from vision to reality: Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. Funding the robotics projects. Robots navigate on planets. Developing robots for government and consumer-oriented applications. Robots in Japan. Robots Deployment. Social acceptance of robots. 14 - The business benefits of Smart Machines: Smart machines will change the way work. The use of Smart Machines in information technology. 15 - Smart machines are efficient: what do we really mean by machines replacing jobs? 16 - Smart machines raise challenging questions: The impact of Smart Machines on labor market. machines get smarter and more independent, and may not to our advantage. 17 - The future of Smart Machines: The growing role of industry labs and federal agencies. The advance of Smart Machines cannot be stopped so we must be ready for it.