Category Archives: Automation

Steve Mnuchin takes the automated stairs. Photo: Getty

Steve Mnuchin, the genius behind Suicide Squad and our nations treasury secretary, isnt worried about artificial intelligence or automation. Its not even on his radar, so just relax.

On Friday, Mnuchin sat down with Axios Mike Allen to talk about a wide range of issues including the strength of the dollar, tax reform, and Donald Trumps perfect genes. At one point, they got around to addressing the topic of American jobs being replaced by technology. Heres what they said in video and text form:

We had an Axios event the other day with Mark Cuban who was very focused on artificial intelligence and how that was going to affect the workforce, Allen said. Whats your take on that?

I think that is so far in the future, in terms of artificial intelligence taking over American jobs, I think were, like, so far away from that, thats, uh... not even on my radar screen. Mnuchin nervously said with a tight smile.

How far away, Allen pressed.

Far enough that its...(guffaws with laughter) Mnuchin trailed off.

Seven more years? Allen tried to help.

Seven more years, Mnuchin balked. I think its 50 to 100 more years.

And with that, Mnuchin showed himself to be completely uninformed or just a bald-faced liar. Jobs in the United States are already being taken over by automation. After all, his boss, Trump, famously crowed about his brilliant deal to save manufacturing jobs at Carrier. That deal effectively amounted to taxpayers subsidizing the automation of the factory and temporarily hanging on to some of the workers until upgrades are complete.

According to a study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, 5.6 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. An estimated 85 percent of those lost jobs were actually attributable to technological change largely automation.

So, technology and automation have already had a big impact on American employment but what about the future? Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP recently estimated that 38% of US jobs are at a high risk of automation by the early 2030's. Without giving a set number of years, Oxford Universitys Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published a paper in 2013 that estimated 47% of American jobs are at high-risk of being replaced by machines. They isolated 702 different occupations that will likely be automated.

People who actually have a clue about whats going on were appalled. Mark Cuban, the impetus of the question, simply tweeted Wow. And thats really all that needs to be said. But why stop there? Larry Irving, a former Clinton Administration official who now works in the tech sector, tweeted, This actually is kind of frightening. And DJ Patil, former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, suggested that Mnuchin should take a look at the White House AI report published under the Obama administration.

In the same interview, Mnuchin claimed that Trump has stopped eating McDonalds. Maybe the two of them should actually stop into the fast food restaurant and take advantage of the convenient automated checkout.

[Axios via Business Insider]

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LOL, the Treasury Secretary Says Automation of Jobs Is "50-100 More Years" Away - Gizmodo

What makes your work valuable?

Does it fulfill you? Allow you to connect with or help people? Contribute to a greater good?

Or does its value come from your income, which allows you to do other meaningful things?

You probably know someone who has a bullshit job. Maybe you have one yourself. Anthropologist David Graeber estimates 20 to 30 percent of the workforce feels their jobs are meaningless, and hes calling for an end to the era of bullshit jobs.

Graebers call to overhaul how we think about work introduces a twist to the ongoing debate about automation. Computers and robots are taking over more jobs, and in the process theyre rendering human employees obsolete. But what if large-scale automation is just the push we need to take our concept of work in a new direction?

Graeber urges us to think about what we consider valuable in work to begin with, and he examines how our ideology of work has evolved over time.

In the 19th century, he says, there was an industrial-based labor theory of value. Men worked in factories to produce physical goods, and their work was valuable because of those goods. Male muscle and sweat got things done, and thus became the paradigm for all work.

Obviously, though, theres value in work by males that doesnt involve sweat and muscle, not to mention work by females. In the 20th century, the labor theory of value was replaced by the idea that productivity comes from entrepreneurs. People have ideas, and with those ideas they invent products or services that make our lives easier.

But then our lives got easier to the point where many of us can sit at a desk all day rather than work in a factory. If were not producing physical goods, and were not inventing a new product or service, what makes our work valuable?

We decided work is valuable in itself. It gives us the satisfaction of earning a living. Its a good feeling seeing that bimonthly check hit your bank account and knowing you worked for it, isnt it? Work builds character, makes us stronger and more well-rounded, no matter what it is were doing.

In fact, Graeber argues, bullshit jobs actually became a virtue; they require more discipline since theyre not interesting or enjoyable. And thats where we are now: we value meaningless jobs for their very meaninglessness.

But what does it do to our morality and motivation to feel that eight hours of our time each day goes down the drain? Meanwhile jobs that do give people satisfaction, like those involving caring for others, are often poorly paid.

Graeber says, We are at the brink of a re-formulation of what work is and what is valuable about it. It could lead to a reformulation of how we organize everything.

So maybe the specter of automation is coming at the right time, and it wont be as bad as people fear. What if, instead of phasing out all human work, automation just gets rid of the mindless, boring jobs?

Even if thats the case, though, it wont mean well all end up with fulfilling, well-paid work. Each of us has a different set of abilities and interests; not everyones cut out to be a doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur (nor does a society need more than a given number of these). Similarly, if mindless work is taken over by machines, not every displaced employee will become an artist, musician, or inventor.

Experts have predicted that at least some portion of the time and energy freed up by automation will be channeled into innovation, creativity, and diversification of interests.

Its yet to be seen what the economic structure of such a society will look like, as well as how motivation and incentives will be affected. If we have the opportunity to eliminate bullshit jobs and find out, we should probably take it.

Image Credit: The Royal Society of Arts

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Automation Could End Meaningless JobsAnd None Too Soon - Singularity Hub

Automation is the new norm across sectors and will affect the bottom of pyramid so much so that four out of every 10 jobs globally would be lost due to this by 2021, experts say.

Automation is the new normal in sectors like engineering, manufacturing, automobiles, IT and banking. As automation adoption increases, all high transaction and labour intensive jobs will take a hit.

According to PeopleStrong CEO and Founder Pankaj Bansal, there will be a visible change in the next 3-4 years, first major effects will be seen in the sectors like manufacturing, IT and ITeS and security services and agriculture.

"We predict that by 2021, 4 out of every 10 jobs globally would be lost because of automation. And of these, one in every 4 will be from India. That sums up to 23 per cent of job loss in India," Bansal said.

India produces 5.5 million jobs (across levels) every year, but this number falls short of jobs needed to employ available talent and automation is further increasing the gap.

"If five years ago, there were 1,500 jobs in the assembly line, it has been reduced to 500 jobs now as focus has moved away from skilling to automation," said Francis Padamadan, Country Director KellyOCG India, a talent management solutions provider.

Experts said low skill and high transaction jobs will be affected as automation takes away their jobs. Hiring for short term projects, flexi hiring would be the way forward in these areas for roles that cannot be automated.

To cater to this fallout, government needs to focus on two key areas strengthening the mid-market segment and reskilling the workforce to take up new jobs which will emerge post automation, PeopleStrong's Bansal said.

KellyOCG India's Padamadan believes "automation will not take away all the jobs because you still need someone to build and monitor the robots. So, while jobs mostly at the bottom of pyramid will be affected, new jobs will get added".

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4 out of 10 jobs would be lost to automation by 2021 - Business Standard

Nearly 40 percent of jobs in the U.S. may be vulnerable to replacement by robots in the next fifteen years, according to a new study by the research firm PwC.

Other major advanced economies have fewer jobs at risk. The study estimates that 30 percent of jobs in the United Kingdom could be threatened by technical advancements in automation from AI and robotics, compared to 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent in Japan.

The U.S. has a higher percentage of jobs under threat by automation because more workers in the U.S. are employed in positions that require routinized tasks, like filling out paperwork.

Jobs most at risk of being done by new technologies are in industries related to transportation, manufacturing and retail.

To arrive at these estimates, PwC broke down the types of tasks of various jobs in different industries. The researchers then applied an algorithm that took into account the automatability of those tasks and characteristics of the workers employed to do them.

One example of how jobs in the U.S. may be more susceptible to automation than jobs in the U.K., according to the study, is in the financial services sector. Although both countries have similarly service-dominated economies, financial services jobs in the U.S. are more retail oriented and routinized. Jobs in financial services in the U.K., however, are mostly occupied by professionals working in international banking, whose jobs are harder to automate and require more education.

More of Germanys workforce is employed in manufacturing than the U.K., which are the types of jobs that could one day be done by robots, according to the report, accounting for its higher percentage of jobs that may potentially be automated.

In Japan, the low percentage of jobs at risk to automation compared to the other major economies examined in the study may, in part, have to do with the fact that jobs that are highly automatable in other countries are historically less so in Japan. Retail, for example, requires more training and skills in Japan, where workers have more management and organizing tasks, than similar jobs in the other countries studied, the report notes. (Japan also already utilizes a significant amount of automation, such as vending machines at fast-food restaurants that often handle the job of a cashier.)

The researchers point to a few policy interventions that might be explored to address the effects of broad job loss due to automation, like workforce re-training programs or universal basic income schemes.

But new policies require government action, and in the U.S. where job loss to automation may reach 38 percent by the 2030s, according to the study the Trump administration doesnt seem immediately concerned.

At an event with Axios Friday morning, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that job loss to technical advancements in AI and robotics isnt even on their radar screen and that he imagines these changes are more like 50 to 100 more years away.

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The US will be hit worse by job automation than other major economies - Recode

BENGALURU: Automation of setting question papers and making public students' marks cards are two major reforms that technology will drive at the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) and Pre University (PU) boards.

That the government will deploy technology to reform the two boards which conduct Class 10 and Class 12 exams for lakhs of students every year was a promise Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made in his 2017-18 budget. The board exam system came under severe attack last year when the II PU Chemistry question paper leaked twice in a span of ten days, forcing the government to rework the exam schedule leaving lakhs of students traumatised.

For a start, computers will replace teachers in setting question papers.A virtual bank of 40,000 questions will be created to generate question papers. For any subject, there's no reason why a question paper should be set by human beings, Additional Chief Secretary (primary and secondary education) Ajay Seth told ET.

Also, marks gained by students in the two exams will be made public.We are doing this because many fake SSLC and PUC marks cards are created with the idea of getting jobs.Employers can key in the name and date of birth of candidates to verify their marks, he said.

The government has students' marks data in an electronic format 2003 onward. There are no privacy issues here since they are public exams. The facility will be ready in about four months and the govern ment is in talks with the National Informatics Centre and Infosys Foundation-funded ICT Infracon for development. Seth ruled out using technology in transporting question papers to exam centres.

I'm more worried about the distribution stage because that's where leaks can happen, Vasavi Vidyanikethan Trust chief executive K Sheshamurthy said. He cited the example of the online question paper delivery system that Visvesvaraya Technological University adopted four years ago. There passwords are issued to exam centres to access a secure server and print question papers just 30 minutes before the exam.

The same can be piloted for smaller exams as a proof of concept, according to Nagendran Sundararajan, executive vice president at MeritTrac, a testing and assessments company .Another area where there's clearly a big room for technology to come in is evaluation. The likes of on-screen marking technology are being used globally. It cuts down totalling errors and ensures consistency, he said.

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New frontiers in automation- Computers to set board exam papers - Economic Times

by Eric Frederiksen | March 26, 2017

Okay, so its pretty cool that you can turn your car on without a key, or tell your house lights to dim after a certain hour, but none of us have anything on Zelda fan Allen Pan. His whole house runs onocarina songs.

In the video below, Pan shows off his setup by first unlocking his door with Zeldas Lullaby. Throughout the video, he shows off a bunch of custom responses to various Zelda tunes, including tweaking his homes thermostat, watering his plants, and finding his cellphone.

None of this is simple, and none of it is practical. Some of the automation, such as Minuet of Forest watering his plants, is pretty contrived. But thats kind of the point.

Pan clearly put a ton of work into the project, and the results are a lot of fun.

The first time I experiencedThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the titular musical instrument was a new idea and a magical experience. Instead of just activating pressing the A button to open a door or going into a menu to activate time travel, I had to punch in a series of buttons. The better I got at those tunes the better they sounded in-game. Learning them both made me feel smarterand immersed me in the game. By integrating them into his house, Pan is doing something similar: bringing a bit of magic to his home.

Allen, if youre reading this, might I recommend adding a trigger to play the Zelda treasure sound every time you raise the lid in your bathroom?

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This Zelda fan is taking home automation to a new level - TechnoBuffalo

By ValueWalk|Mar 26, 2017, 11:41 am EDT

Automation is an important requirement with the growing number of apps and notifications, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) knows it. That is why it has acquired the popular automation app Workflow, according to TechCrunch.

Source: Shutterstock

Like the IFTTT service, the Workflow app allows users to perform several complicated tasks with a single tap by enabling them to group together a large number of actions, notes TechCrunch.

Workflow came into existence in 2014. Since then, it has made several tasks easy such as creating GIFs from a series of photos, posting photos on several social platforms at once, translations of texts and lot more. To use an automation task, a user needs to go to the apps built-in gallery, which offers them numerous options, including custom automation.

In 2015, the app received AAPLs design award at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The iPhone maker told TechCrunch that it chose the app for the award because it used iOS accessibility features in a commendable manner.

The app did tremendous work when it comes to implementing VoiceOver with clearly labeled items, thoughtful hints, and drag/drop announcements. This made the app usable and easily accessible.

The Workflowacquisition also brings to Apple the team behind it, whichincludes Ari Weinstein, Nick Frey, Conrad Kramer and Ayaka Nonaka. The app will become available for free on the App Store (it was a paid app earlier).

Expressing his excitement about joining Apple, Weinstein stated, Weve worked closely with Apple from the very beginning, from kickstarting our company as students attending WWDC to developing and launching Workflow and seeing its amazing success on the App Store. We cant wait to take our work to the next level at Apple and contribute to products that touch people across the world.

No more details about the deal are known for now. It is not known how Apples offerings will be integrated with the app. It may be that its capabilities will be integrated into iOS in the future. According to TechCruch, Siri could benefit immensely from Workflows capabilities.

The Workflow acquisition could also help in one more way. AAPL automation guru Sal Saghoian recently quit. Since then, many have been wondering whether the company will abandon its automation features, but now with Workflows team, itmay continue them.

The post Apple Buys Powerful Automation App Workflow appeared first on ValueWalk.

Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, http://investorplace.com/2017/03/apple-inc-buys-powerful-automation-app-workflow/.

2017 InvestorPlace Media, LLC

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Apple Buys Powerful Automation App Workflow - Investorplace.com

Napatech discusses the role of NFV in moving telecom into the cloud

As carriers gradually work out how to automate increasingly complex networks, NFV is the clear solution, but deployment has been slow. Management and orchestration have been stumbling blocks, but major progress has been made, particularly with the Linux Foundations ONAP. But now, The frameworks are starting to come into place, Joe Dan Barry, Napatech vice president of marketing, said. Therere real solutions that are being deployed and are getting hardened. Now youve got the management and orchestration layer.

During a recent interview, Barry said passive monitoring solutions currently used by carriers arent ready for the level of automation that will come with network functions virtualization. He gave credit to the Metro Ethernet Forums Lifecycle Service Orchestration reference architecture as crucial in providing an overview of end-to-end service automation across multiple carrier networks.

During Mobile World Congress 2017, Barry participated in a panel discussion on NFV. In a follow up blog post, he reflected on the importance of MEFs LSO reference architecture: That is the ability to automate service delivery and enable greater agility in responding to changing market demands. I dont know if everyone really appreciates how much of a revolution this is for carrier organizations. While, in the past, significant efforts have been made in establishing end-to-end management frameworks based on TMForum recommendations, these OSS/BSS solutions were largely static and reactive. The vast majority of processes were and still are manual in nature taking a lot of resources and time to complete.

Napatech specializes on what it calls smarter data delivery, and provides telecom, cloud, data center, network management, infrastructure, financial, cyber security and other solutions. In terms of NFV enablement, Barry said the company is focusing on three areas: accelerating virtual switches; maximizing single-core throughput; and hardware acceleration. Theres all these things coming together now, he said. The final piece of the puzzle then is implementing, being able to see whats going on. These are all for us fundamental capabilities that we have to baked into the NFV infrastructure.

Barry, in his blog post, addressed these trends in the context of the internet of things and 5G: Investment in 5G deployments are progressing despite the lack of standards as carriers prepare for the IoT wave set to engulf us. SDN and NFV are cornerstones of current 5G architecture designs and will be essential in meeting the lofty ambitions of 5G architects. But, the real drive for investment must surely be that carriers need to transform their organizations and operations from utility providers to cloud service providers. In my final statement in the panel discussion, I made the point that in a few years, there might not even be a telecom industry, but that we would all be working in the cloud industry.

As far as NFV goes, The ice is breaking, Barry told RCR Wireless News. Weve been in a trough of disillusionment. I do believe all the stuff going on with MANO has moved a lot of those concerns away. Im hearing from customers there is stuff starting to move right now. But now is the time to get back to the NFV infrastructure. Do we have an NFV instructure thats better for automation and service agility?

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As NFV matures, is the infrastructure ready for automation? - RCR Wireless News

Monday Morning Cup of Coffeetakes a look at news coming across HousingWires weekend desk, with more coverage to come on larger issues.

Lots of people, including your friends here at HousingWire,have noted that the mortgage industry is ripe for tech disruption. But buried in all the good news about efficiency, lower costs and borrower satisfaction is the potential for serious job loss.

How serious?

An analysis by PwC, reported on by the Los Angeles Times,says 38% of U.S. jobs could be taken by robots in the next 15 years, which is significantly higher than countries like Britain, Germany and Japan. And the PwC analysis identified jobs in the financial and insurance sector as especially vulnerable in the U.S. compared to other countries. The reason cited by the article? A lack of education byU.S. bankers.

While London finance employees work in international markets, their U.S. counterparts focus more on the domestic retail market, and workers do not need to have the same educational levels, the report said. Jobs that require less education are at higher potential risk of automation, according to the report.

But its hard to see how more education would stop the juggernaut of automation.Would a master's degree really benefit loan officers, identified by Salary.com as No. 2 on the list ofjobs mostly likely to be taken over by robots? Seems pretty unlikely.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for one, doesnt seem too worried about the coming robot apocalypse. In reaction to the report, Mnuchin said, I think were so far away from that that its not even on my radar screen. I think its 50 or 100 more years."

That did not sit well with the goodfolks at Wired.com, including Emily Dreyfuss, whopublished an article entitled "Hate to break it to Steve Mnuchin but AI is already taking jobs."

Despite beingslightlyjealous of the familiarity Dreyfuss apparently has with Steve Mnuchin (we are still on a Steven basis), I thought she had some pretty valid points.Artificial intelligence is not onlycomingfor jobs, the jobs its coming for are the precious few left over after old-school automation alreadycame for so many others, Dreyfuss writes.

Dreyfuss attended a recent conference on the topic at MIT and observed lots of worry among experts on AI and employment, in stark contrast to those in Washington. The article quoted Gene Sperling, former chief economic advisor in both the Obama and Clinton administrations.

When you are outside of Washington, this is often the most significant issue, but its not back in D.C., Sperling said.

Which is ironic, because if we're looking to supplanthumans with artificial intelligence, D.C. would strike many people asa good place to start.

There were new developments this week in the hunt for perpetrators of the $81 million cyberheist last year at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors are now looking at North Korea as the culpritbehind the massive theft from Bangladeshs bank account.

On Friday, the president of the New York Fed, William Dudley, said the bank is working to improve its cyberdefense. From The Wall Street Journal article:

Mr. Dudley said the New York Fed phishes its own employees to test them on cyberawareness, and is working with international stakeholders to help ensure the cross-border payments system is more secure. The focus of that work is to make sure everyone understands their responsibilities in the global payments chain, he said.

(That heist has inspired many in the mortgage space to tighten cybersecurity.Check out ourfeature in the latest issue of HousingWire Magazine by Caroline Basile, which outlines whatcompanies likeBlack Knight are doing to be more secure.)

What's almost as valuable as the money sitting in bank vaults? The treasure trove of consumer information that banks have access to. That's according to this article in the New York Times, which details the battle between tech companies and banks for this valuable data.

Banks are pushing for new data agreements with third parties, contending that they are only looking out for consumers as they seek to limit access. Tech companies say the banks just don't want the competition that would come from revealing what consumers are paying in interest rates, etc. From thearticle:

In recent weeks, several large banks have been pushing to restrict the sharing of this kind of data with technology companies, according to the tech firms. In some cases, they are refusing to pass along information, like the fees and interest rates they charge. Both sides see big money to be made from the reams of highly personal information created by financial transactions.

We reported last week that Americans are returningto their traditional migration patterns, as suburbs grew more than cities in 2015, reversing a decade-long trend. Cities with high housing prices are feeling the impact the most, but in at least one red-hot market, that's just leaving more room for buyers from other countries.

The Miami Herald reports that the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area is seeing a huge shift. From the article:

Today, far more people are moving out of South Florida than moving in from other parts of the country, and by margins that are growing every year, the analysis shows. Net domestic migration has plummeted by a startling 2,670%since 2010 and that number is not a typo, Ilcheva stressed.

Meanwhile, net international migration to the region has increased 397%over the same period, she found, more than making up for the domestic losses.

We have people coming here from other countries to invest and to migrate for other reasons, Ilcheva said. On the other hand, the locals are looking for exit strategies.

With housing inventory at an eight-year low and home prices at a 10-year high, the trend is only going to gain momentum.

On that happy note, just be glad you haven't spent the last 12 months as a contestant on a reality showstrandedin the Scottish wilderness, only to find that the show was canceled after four episodes.

Have a great week!

Originally posted here:

Monday Morning Cup of Coffee: The dark side of mortgage automation - HousingWire (blog)

B2B marketers across the board are embracing Account-Based Marketing. In our latest webinar, we are deep-diving into the use of marketing automation for ABM.

Marketing automation is not new, and nor is account-based marketing. But, bringing the two together is creating a revolution across industries. Suddenly, B2B marketing managers are seeing the potential to not just streamline their clients into key and non-key accounts, but to leverage existing and familiar marketing automation solutions to more easily execute an ABM strategy.

ABM by itself is bringing sales and marketing teams together in new ways, since the basic principle is to approach the acquisition process like one would manage Key Accounts, that is:

This webinar will help you answer the following questions:

Speaker:

David Raab, Principal at Raab Associates Inc.

Widely recognized expert in marketing technology and analytics, and an independent consultant since 1987, specializing in marketing trends, technology strategy, product requirements, and vendor selection, David Raab specializes in advising for marketing technology evaluation and analytics. He is Principal at Raab Associates Inc., which published the B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool. Raab has written hundreds of articles for industry publications. Many of these are available without charge at http://www.archive.raabassociatesinc.com.

Moderator:

Ginger Conlon, Contributing Editor at MarTech Advisor

Contributing Editor Ginger Conlon, drives Executive Interviews with CMOs of leading martech companies at MarTech Advisor. As part of MTAs video Q&A series she discusses the latest trends in martech, the challenges of this ever-burgeoning landscape and opportunities therein besides the skill-sets marketing chiefs are on the lookout for to build their teams. Ginger also overlooks MTAs media relations and provides on-site coverage for MTAs partner events. Ginger has covered marketing, sales, and customer service strategies and technologies for more than 25 years. She has in the past been the chief editor of Direct Marketing News and has been cited as a Top 100 Most Social Customer Service Pros on Twitter and a Top 25 CRM Influencers You Should Be Following.

To know how your Marketing Automation can Boost your ABM initiatives, REGISTER NOW.

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Marketing Automation Meets ABM | MarTech Advisor - MarTech Advisor