Daily Archives: November 29, 2020

November 26th, 2020 by Jennifer Sensiba

A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows that drivers tend to let attention lapse more as they get used to lane-centering driver assist.

In the study, 10 volunteers drove a vehicle with adaptive cruise control (ACC), or smart cruise control that maintains a follow distance and avoids colliding into other vehicles. A second set of 10 volunteers had adaptive cruise control and lane centering technology, so that the vehicle could drive on the highway without driver input. Presumably, all volunteers knew that the systems were not fully self-driving systems and that their attention would be required when driving, much like Teslas Autopilot.

According to IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan, the two groups of drivers paid equal attention to the road when they first started using the systems. After a month, plenty of time for the volunteers to get used to the systems, those with both ACC and autosteer were far more likely to ignore the road than those with ACC alone. Drivers were more than twice as likely to show signs of disengagement after a month of using Pilot Assist compared with the beginning of the study, Reagan says. Compared with driving manually, they were more than 12 times as likely to take both hands off the wheel after theyd gotten used to how the lane centering worked.

The IIHS press release goes on to explain how the use of less than full automation can be more dangerous than either full self-driving cars (in theory, when they exist) or manual driving, because drivers are more likely to abuse the systems as they falsely gain trust in them. To solve this problem, different manufacturers take different approaches. Tesla uses the nag system that detects torque on the wheel, so it can tell whether one has hands on the wheel (assuming weights arent added to the wheel to defeat this safety feature). Some other manufacturers use a driver monitoring camera that will warn the driver and then disengage or stop the vehicle if the driver is not paying attention.

While theres debate on which approach is best, with many experts favoring driver monitoring, one thing is not really up for debate: that the driver is still required to pay attention to safely use these systems. Its important that drivers using semi-automated driving systems dont fall into complacency and start treating systems like Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, or the Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta like theyre true self-driving car systems.

As the new FSD beta is out longer and longer, be sure to remind yourself and others to not do what the drivers in this study did. Safety has to come first.

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Tags: IIHS, Tesla, Tesla autopilot, Tesla Full Self-Driving

Jennifer Sensiba Jennifer Sensiba is a long time efficient vehicle enthusiast, writer, and photographer. She grew up around a transmission shop, and has been experimenting with vehicle efficiency since she was 16 and drove a Pontiac Fiero. She likes to explore the Southwest US with her partner, kids, and animals.Follow her on Twitter for her latest articles and other random things: https://twitter.com/JenniferSensibaDo you think I've been helpful in your understanding of Tesla, clean energy, etc? Feel free to use my Tesla referral code to get yourself (and me) some small perks and discounts on their cars and solar products. https://www.tesla.com/referral/jennifer90562

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IIHS: Attention Slips As Drivers Get Used To Level 2 Automation - CleanTechnica

They can check you in and deliver orange juice to your hotel room, answer your questions about a missing package, whip up sushi and pack up thousands of subscription boxes. And, perhaps most importantly, they are completely immune to Covid-19. While people have had a hard time in the coronavirus pandemic, robots are having a moment.

The Covid-19 pandemic has left millions of Americans unemployed disproportionately those in the service industries where women and people of color make up the largest share of the labor force. In October, 11 million people were unemployed in the US, compared with about 6 million people who were without a job during the same time last year.

And as humans are experiencing record job losses and economic uncertainty, robots have become a hot commodity. Multiple technology manufacturers have reported increased demand for their bots over the course of the pandemic, from drone-like machines that can roam hallways to make deliveries and AI-powered customer service software to increased use of self-service checkouts at supermarkets.

A recent report from the World Economic Forum predicted that by 2025 the next wave of automation turbocharged by the pandemic will disrupt 85m jobs globally. New jobs will be created but businesses, governments and workers must plan to urgently work together to implement a new vision for the global workforce.

The hospitality industry, which has been one of the hardest-hit by the pandemic, has seen a clear uptick in the adoption of new technology during the pandemic. Hotels are allowing guests to use kiosks to check themselves in, apps to control the television and light switches in their room and a few use delivery bots to send to guests room when they want a refreshment.

Ron Swidler, chief information officer of the Gettys Group, a hotel design and development consultancy firm, said more hotels are experimenting with new technology during the pandemic. Swidler leads the Hotel of Tomorrow, a consortium of hospitality leaders that was re-upped in the middle of the pandemic to think of ways to innovate the industry. The group came up with five big ideas on how the industry needs to change, and new technology including robots are a core part of the equation.

The cost [of automation] is coming down, the technology is getting better and we are seeing innovation working effectively in other parts of the world that we can transfer here, Swidler said, citing Alibabas FlyZoo hotel that is staffed nearly entirely by technology, from check-in to room service.

While the idea of being serviced by a BB-8 lookalike in a hotel may seem strange, Swidler said permanent job losses in the industry will be a reality as hotels adopt new technologies to try to save on labor costs.

It is unclear whether the increased demand for new technology has directly caused job losses during the pandemic, but a discussion paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in September found that automatable jobs occupations that could be replaced by technology that is in development or is already available lost 4.2 more jobs per every 100 than occupations that are less at risk for automation. Occupations that are considered automatable include hotel desk clerks, shuttle drivers and retail salespeople, according to the paper.

The papers authors raise the widely shared concern that the automation undertaken during the pandemic will be a permanent replacement for jobs.

The longer time it takes to fully control the virus, the higher the probability that the labor-saving technology will become permanent, said Lei Ding, senior economic advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and co-author of the paper. Job losses will become permanent losses.

Currently, there are only anecdotal examples of permanent job loss due to an uptick in automation brought on by the pandemic, but the layoffs of hundreds of Pennsylvania toll booth workers provides one clear example of how labor-saving technology can sweep away jobs.

In June, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission laid off about 500 toll collectors in the state when it switched to all-electronic toll collecting.

For years, the commission had talked about replacing toll booth workers with automated collectors, and they finally gave workers a timeline. Per a union agreement, workers were supposed to be kept on payroll until at least October 2021, with final layoffs happening by January 2022.

The longer time it takes to fully control the virus, the higher the probability that the labor-saving technology will become permanent

When the pandemic arrived, collectors were sent home in March and were promised that the commission would still uphold the October 2021 date. But in June, the commission permanently laid off all workers, over a year before the agreed date.

We understand the safety of employees is the most important thing, but for them to have safety mean the elimination of their jobs Its been devastating, said Jock Rowe, principal officer for Teamsters Local 77, the union representing 300 of the laid-off toll workers.

Rowe cited other toll-collecting agencies that brought back toll workers with enhanced safety measures, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The impact of a recession on the growth of automation has been well-documented by economists and has shown that automation does not grow steadily, but rather happens in bursts. Businesses are more likely to automate after experiencing economic shocks, when they have strong incentives to save on labor.

For a study published in 2016, researchers from the University of Rochester combed through 87m job postings online from before and after the Great Recession. They found that employers in cities that were hit hardest by the recession were replacing workers with labor-saving technology and more skilled workers. A report published by the Century Foundation found that robot intensity increased in 2009, in the immediate wake of the Great Recession, particularly in the manufacturing industry.

While an increase in automation can be good for educated workers and help to stimulate the economy, studies have also shown that new technology tends to leave low-wage workers behind.

Automation has been a major driver in the increase in inequality, said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Acemoglu co-authored a study published in May that showed automation creates a prosperity gap that benefits high-skilled workers at the sake of lower-skilled workers.

Low-wage workers are not only more susceptible to job loss and wage depression due to automation, but they also experienced the most job losses due to shutdowns. Higher-wage workers are more likely to be able to work from home during the pandemic, while lower-wage workers a disproportionate number of whom are Black or Hispanic were more susceptible to layoffs due to shutdown orders.

Automation has been a major driver in the increase in inequality

An important caveat many roboticists will point out is that artificial intelligence technology is not quite smart enough to cause mass waves of layoffs due to robots. New AI technology can take a lot of money, time and resources to set up, something that many businesses do not have during the pandemic.

You should definitely not worry about losing your job to an AI-enabled robot right now. If youre going to lose your job to automation, its going to be some proven, well-known automation that is more than 10 or 15 years old, said Matt Beane, an assistant professor at the University of Santa Barbaras Technology Management Program.

AI has tremendous potential for making humans more productive without replacing humans, Acemoglu said, if society takes a human-centric approach to technological advances. But without the political will to make sure those who do lose jobs are taken care of, by training them for new jobs, for example, the impact of automation may be devastating and a pandemic that has already hit those workers hardest could be leave a lasting legacy of unemployment.

Im not saying automation is terrible What Im saying is it would be terrible if we put all the eggs in the automation basket, Acemoglu said. We have to a large extent done so over the last 30 years. [The pandemic] will just exacerbate that.

See the article here:

Robots on the rise as Americans experience record job losses amid pandemic - The Guardian

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The new Automation and Instrumentation market research report from SpendEdge indicates an incremental growth during the forecast period as the business impact of COVID-19 spreads.

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Automation and Instrumentation Market Procurement Report | Roadmap to Recovery for Businesses From the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic | SpendEdge -...

As the Covid-19 pandemic gripped businesses all over the world, many turned to automation technology and artificial intelligence for help, and are producing stellar results.

A new report from Deloitte, based on a poll of 441 executives from 29 different countries, claims that two thirds of business leaders (68 percent) used automation to tackle the coronavirus crisis, bringing the total number of businesses using the modern tech to about 73 percent. The figure is up from 48 percent last year.

Furthermore, the number of businesses that deployed automation at scale tripled in the last two years. The number of businesses with 50 and more automations almost doubled in a year, and tripled in the last two years.

Deloitte's latest UK CFO survey also argues that were just seeing the beginning of business transformation, as it now considered the biggest investment for the next year. Two thirds of CFOs in the UK expect their business to invest more in organization and business process improvements, such as restructuring, streamlining and automation.

Implementing the new technology, however, is not without its challenges, and if businesses are to continue on this path, they will need to retrain and upskill their workforce. The report says that over the next three years, business leaders can expect to have to retrain a third of their workforce.

Today, almost a quarter (23 percent) of workers experienced their roles changing because of automation. A tenth has already had to retrain due to the significant changes brought upon them by the tech.

Deloittes full report can be found on this link.

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Automation was the secret weapon for many businesses during pandemic - ITProPortal

In what it describes as a significantindustry milestone, Ericsson has revealed that it has passed the century mark for its orchestrator technology in the third quarter of 2020, securing 139 commercial orchestration dealswith more than 100 global communications service providers.

The Ericsson Orchestrator is designed to enable automation of hybrid infrastructure, including PNFs and VNFs, in a multi-supplier environment. It supports resource orchestration, VNF lifecycle management and end-to-end service orchestration for both telecom and enterprise environments.

Ericsson said the key benefits of its orchestration offering include providing the capabilities that service providers need to operate their networks efficiently, increase agility, build new services quickly and future-proof their networks to stay ahead in the race to obtain 5G market share.

Orchestration is also a vital component for 5G network slicing, which is predicted to be a key revenue enabler in the 5G arena. A recent study from Juniper Research calculated that the growth of 5G networks will be robust over the next five years, with 5G revenue set to represent 44% of global operator billed revenue at the end of the study period because of rapid migration of 4G mobile subscribers to 5G networks and new business use cases enabled by 5G technology.

This would mean operator billed revenue from 5G connections is projected to reach $357bn by 2025, rising from $5bn in 2020, its first full year of commercial service.

Ericsson claims that with its orchestration solution, customers can expect to reduce time to market for new service development by up to 70%, reduce operational costs by up to 30%, and enable new enterprise service revenues.

Our smart orchestration solutions transform our customers operations to cut time to market, automate order fulfilment and improve operations, said Peo Lehto, head of Ericsson Solution Area OSS. This is made possible with efficient lifecycle management and closed-loop assurance built with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Ericsson claims it is sealing wins in what it says is current industry momentum in the areas of network virtualisation, automation and orchestration as next-generation infrastructures build out. Its publicly announced orchestration contracts include deals with Verizon, TIM, NTT DoCoMo, Telefnica and Swisscom.

Three-fifths of Ericsson Orchestrator customers are said to have selected the system for management and orchestration of NFV infrastructure and virtual network (NFVi) functions.

The company also noted that the number of service providers orchestrating advanced enterprise services is increasing, that many enterprise services are multi-supplier, and service providers expect to be able to orchestrate multicloud services in the future. It said the current top three enterprise services are: SD-WAN orchestration; WAN optimisation, often in conjunction with SD-WAN; and enterprise security services.

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Ericsson taps into industry momentum for network orchestration and automation - ComputerWeekly.com

Automation will play a major role in shaping cybersecurity attack and defence activities in 2021, WatchGuard predicts.

Traditionally a high-investment, high-return targeted attack, in 2021 automation tools will replace manual techniques to help cybercriminals launch spear phishing campaigns at record volumes, by harvesting victim-specific data from social media sites and company web pages.

And as society continues to grapple with the impact of COVID-19, it is likely that these automated spear phishing attacks will prey on fears around the pandemic, politics and the economy.

Conversely, the research team believes that automation will also help cloud-hosting providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google to crack down on cybercriminal groups abusing their reputation and services to launch malicious attacks.

Threat actors commonly host website HTML files designed to mimic a legitimate website like Microsoft 365 or Google Drive to steal credentials submitted by unsuspecting victims. But in 2021, these companies will deploy automated tools and file validation technologies that will spot spoofed authentication portals.

In its annual look ahead to the next 12 months, the tumultuous events of 2020 will impact the threat landscape next year and for years to come. Other predictions include:

As more companies adopt VPNs and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) solutions to provide secure connections to employees working from home, attacks against them will double in 2021. If an attacker can compromise VPN, RDP or remote connection servers, they have an unobstructed path into the corporate network.

Endpoints have become a high priority target for attackers during the global pandemic and many personal computers are still running legacy software that is difficult to patch or update.

With Microsoft just ending its extended support program for Windows 7, organizations are warned to expect at least one major new Windows 7 vulnerability to make headlines in 2021.

Authentication is the cornerstone of strong security; but with billions of usernames and passwords available on the dark web and the prevalence of automated authentication attacks, no Internet-exposed service is safe from cyber intrusion if it isnt using multi-factor authentication (MFA). In fact, any service without MFA enabled is highly likely to be compromised in 2021.

As we have learnt in 2020, it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen in the future, says Corey Nachreiner, CTO at WatchGuard.

But our Threat Lab team along with other researchers around the world have an increasing level of analytics and insight to make well-informed guesses. Cybercriminals always look for the weak links, so the growing ranks of home workers are an obvious target and when it comes to new technologies such as automation and AI, what can work for good, can also be exploited for malicious activity. Its just a case of trying to stay one step ahead.

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Automation to shape cybersecurity activities in 2021 - Help Net Security