Highly skilled professionals were forecast to be more in demand in contrast with other recent research. Highly skilled professionals were forecast to be more in demand in contrast with other recent research. Up to 3m low-skilled jobs could disappear in the UK by 2035 because of automation and AI, according to a report by a leading educational research charity. The jobs most at risk are those in occupations such as trades, machine operations and administrative roles, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) said. Highly skilled professionals, on the other hand, were forecast to be more in demand as AI and technological advances increase workloads "at least in the short to medium term".

The academic literature suggests that, in the past decades, technological progress has led to job polarisation in European Union countries. While computer technologies and robots have replaced, to some extent, routine middle-skilled jobs such as machine operation, construction work or administrative work, they have also led to an increase in complementary, non-routine high-skilled jobs (eg managers, professionals) and in low-skilled jobs (eg agriculture, cleaning and personal care services). However, our new research suggests that the new technologies that have emerged since 2010 – artificial intelligence and machine learning – are set to change drastically the job landscape over the next few decades. These technologies are likely to have a deeper impact across a wider range of jobs and tasks, including possible destruction of low-skilled jobs. These technologies are likely to have a deeper impact across a wider range of jobs and tasks, including possible destruction of low-skilled jobs.

Over the last few years, there has been lots of conversation around how AI is going to affect our lives, and the economy. A quick google search returns multiple studies. For example, PWC says that the UK's economy GDP will increase by at least 5% as the result of AI. A report by McKinsey says that the annual productivity will be increasing by 1.2% each year. There are also some books that have started to come out on that subject. I am also talking about this topic in my upcoming book called Uncertainty.

Quivering and hesitant, like a spoon-wielding toddler trying to eat soup without spilling it, the world's first raspberry-picking robot is attempting to harvest one of the fruits. After sizing it up for an age, the robot plucks the fruit with its gripping arm and gingerly deposits it into a waiting punnet. The whole process takes about a minute for a single berry. It seems like heavy going for a robot that cost £700,000 to develop but, if all goes to plan, this is the future of fruit-picking. Each robot will be able to pick more than 25,000 raspberries a day, outpacing human workers who manage about 15,000 in an eight-hour shift, according to Fieldwork Robotics, a spinout from the University of Plymouth.

LONDON – The rise of robots in manufacturing in Southeast Asia is likely to fuel modern-day slavery as workers who end up unemployed due to automation face abuses competing for a shrinking pool of low-paid jobs in a "race to the bottom," analysts said Thursday. Drastic job losses due to the growth of automation in the region -- a hub for many manufacturing sectors from garments to vehicles -- could produce a spike in labor abuses and slavery in global supply chains, said risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. More than half of the workers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines -- at least 137 million people -- risk losing their jobs to automation in the next two decades, the United Nations' International Labour Organization says. The risk of slavery tainting supply chains will spiral because workers who lose their jobs due to increased robot manufacturing will be more vulnerable to workplace abuses as they jostle for fewer jobs at lower wages, said Alexandra Channer of Maplecroft. "Displaced workers without the skills to adapt or the cushion of social security will have to compete for a diminishing supply of low-paid, low-skilled work in what will likely be an increasingly exploitative environment," she said.

While artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are poised to shake up the workforce by becoming skilled at performing human tasks, it has not been clear exactly how many--and which--human workers will be affected by the changes. And although AI is expected to master a variety of human tasks--351 scientists just offered a timeline for when human tasks will be completed by machines--the vast majority of US workers still do not fear that their entire job will be replaced by robots, according to the 2017 Randstad Employer Brand Research. A new report, however, sheds light on which human workers will be most impacted by advances in automation and AI, by geographic region. Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, recently released a report from its Center for Business and Economic Research making a bold prediction: Half of low-skilled US jobs are at risk of being replaced by automation. The report examined how AI and automation will impact the workforce in America by mapping out two variables: Risk of automation, and offshore job losses.

Our modern age is rife with questions that could have been (indeed, often were) posed by genre writers such as Ray Bradbury, H. G. Wells or Philip K. Dick. We'd like to pose a few of our own: Is it truly safe to put our lives in the "hands" of self-driving cars? Is Amazon's Alexa spying on our idle chatter? What happens when smart machines become smarter than the people who operate them? Many of the most critical questions brought about by advancing technology are related to work.

Yuval Noah Harari's first book, Sapiens, was an international sensation. The Israeli historian's mind-bending tour through the triumph of Homo sapiens is a favorite of, among others, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Barack Obama. His new book, Homo Deus: a Brief History of Tomorrow, is about what comes next for humanity -- and the threat our own intelligence and creative capacity poses to our future. I spoke with Harari recently for my podcast, The Ezra Klein Show. To hear our whole conversation, subscribe on iTunes (or wherever you get your podcasts) or stream it off SoundCloud. In this excerpt, which has been edited for length and clarity, Harari and I discuss the rise of artificial intelligence, whether digital consciousness is a necessary byproduct of digital intelligence, and what it will all mean for human beings. As you'll see, I'm a bit less convinced than Harari is that the computers are coming for our jobs, and that human beings are on the edge of economic uselessness.

Artificial intelligence, and technology in general, will have a crucial role to play in society's progress, that is the view of the UK and American governments anyway. This Thursday President Obama announced at the first White House Frontier Conference that more than $300 million in funding, through partnerships, will be released for tech innovations that will improve healthcare, develop smart cities and enhance America's space ambition. "We may be in a slightly different period now, simply because of the pervasive applicability of AI and other technologies," said President Obama in a video shown at the start of the conference. President Obama believes AI, in particular, will be able to help solve the biggest crises that face the world, such as disease, famine, climate change and economic inequality. Others, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, suggest AI's rise will be the biggest threat to the survival of the human race.

Artificial intelligence, and technology in general, will have a crucial role to play in society's progress, that is the view of the UK and American governments anyway. This Thursday President Obama announced at the first White House Frontier Conference that more than $300 million in funding, through partnerships, will be released for tech innovations that will improve healthcare, develop smart cities and enhance America's space ambition. "We may be in a slightly different period now, simply because of the pervasive applicability of AI and other technologies," said President Obama in a video shown at the start of the conference. President Obama believes AI, in particular, will be able to help solve the biggest crises that face the world, such as disease, famine, climate change and economic inequality. Others, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, suggest AI's rise will be the biggest threat to the survival of the human race.