Lifeboat Foundation

Many organizations will likely look to technology as they face budget cuts and need to reduce staff. “I don’t see us going back to the staffing levels we were at prior to COVID,” says Brian Pokorny, the director of information technologies for Otsego County in New York State, who has cut 10% of his staff because of pandemic-related budget issues. “So we need to look at things like AI to streamline government services and make us more efficient.”

For 23 years, Larry Collins worked in a booth on the Carquinez Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area, collecting tolls. The fare changed over time, from a few bucks to $6, but the basics of the job stayed the same: Collins would make change, answer questions, give directions and greet commuters. “Sometimes, you’re the first person that people see in the morning,” says Collins, “and that human interaction can spark a lot of conversation.”

But one day in mid-March, as confirmed cases of the coronavirus were skyrocketing, Collins’ supervisor called and told him not to come into work the next day. The tollbooths were closing to protect the health of drivers and of toll collectors. Going forward, drivers would pay bridge tolls automatically via FasTrak tags mounted on their windshields or would receive bills sent to the address linked to their license plate. Collins’ job was disappearing, as were the jobs of around 185 other toll collectors at bridges in Northern California, all to be replaced by technology.

Continue reading “Millions of Americans Have Lost Jobs in the Pandemic — And Robots and AI Are Replacing Them Faster Than Ever” »

WASHINGTON — The Army National Guard will move most of its brigades under the command of its eight division headquarters as it reorganizes its fighting formations to give the force more combat power and some soldiers new career opportunities, officials said.

The Guard move will mark a substantial increase in the number of fully manned divisions that the Army can deploy, as only the service’s 10 active-duty divisions are now filled out with subordinate units, said Lt. Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the director of the Army National Guard. The increase to 18 complete Army divisions comes at a time when service officials believe a major conflict with a near-peer rival — namely Russia or China — would require the employment of full divisions, he said.

For the last two decades, the Army has focused on its smaller brigade combat teams as its primary fighting elements for counterterrorism operations and deployments focused on assisting the forces of other nations.

The pandemic has accelerated demand for robots and automation. Robots have been regulated to marketing jobs, receptionist duties, and companionship for the elderly. But they’re really starting to come into their own and have practical use. Let’s take a look at how.

Supermarkets started to adopt robots to free up employees who previously spent time taking inventory to focus on disinfecting and sanitizing surfaces and processing deliveries to keep shelves stocked.

These retailers insist the robots are augmenting the work of employees, not replacing them. But as panic buying stops and sales decline in the recession, companies may no longer have a need for these workers.

Do you agree?

Elon Musk may be a strong proponent of all things tech. But he’s far from positive on its implications for the jobs market.

In fact, the Tesla CEO says one of tech’s great developments — artificial intelligence — could spell the end of many jobs altogether.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: ‘A.I. will make jobs kind of pointless’ — so study this” »

Scott Morrison will unveil $748m in new cyber security initiatives, with the planned reallocation of resources from within the defence portfolio rising to $1.35bn over a decade once the government unveils a new cyber security strategy in coming months.

Resources reallocated from defence portfolio are planned to rise to $1.35bn over a decade with 500 new jobs created.

Ivanka Trump, a woman with a lifetime career guarantee and a net worth equalling the GDP of a small African country, has a plan for the millions of unemployed workers, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic: “Find Something New.” The initiative, in partnership with the nonprofit Ad Council, Tim Cook, and IBM executive chairman Ginni Rometty, sounds like the familiar Obama-era “learn to code” trope and not exactly on-brand with the Make American Great Again promise of told Ivanka to take her own advice.

In the coronavirus economy, companies are adopting more automation, as they seek to cut costs and increase efficiency. There is debate about which jobs are most at risk and how soon. But climbing up the skills ladder is the best way to stay ahead of the automation wave.

Even groups that regularly disagree on labor issues said there should be significant public investment in programs that can upgrade the skills of American workers.

The best way to prevent this is by focusing on the basics. America needs a major all-of-society push to increase the number of U.S. students being trained in both the fundamentals of math and in the more advanced, rigorous, and creative mathematics. Leadership in implementing this effort will have to come from the U.S. government and leading technology companies, and through the funding of ambitious programs. A few ideas come to mind: talent-spotting schemes, the establishment of math centers, and a modern successor to the post-Sputnik National Defense Education Act, which would provide math scholarships to promising students along with guaranteed employment in either public or private enterprises.

Forget about “AI” itself: it’s all about the math, and America is failing to train enough citizens in the right kinds of mathematics to remain dominant.

By Michael Auslin

Continue reading “Why China’s Race For AI Dominance Depends On Math” »

This dude was A+OK in my book. Yeah you knew Jobs, yeah you knew Minsky, but did you ever know even the name of the guy who convinced me to become a programmer? Rest In Eternal Peace. #RIP