Amazon has created The Amazon Picking Challenge to spur improvements in picking robot performance. These are the robots that fill boxes in Amazon’s…
The Robots Are Coming
This is a blog I maintained for about 18 months a few years ago. It was about a topic that interested me at the time: automation and the effect it would have on our lives and our work.
I never publicized it much, and I only hosted it on a subdomain under the Blend domain.
Since the blog isn’t being updated anymore, the posts are listed in ascending chronological order.
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- manufacturing
- Words
- 109
It’s a common complaint that “America doesn’t make anything anymore.” Well, yes we do, it just doesn’t get as much press as the latest tech startup.…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- big data
- Words
- 131
I read this Automate This over the summer: The bot takeover began with high frequency trading on Wall Street, and from there it spread to all manners…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- innovation
- Words
- 250
All innovation is not created equal. This article identifies three different types, in chronological order: Empowering innovations “transform…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- manufacturing
- Words
- 111
From a 2011 study entitled The Case of the Disappearing Large Employer Manufacturing Plants : […] the dramatic disappearance of large employers is…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- productivity
- Words
- 48
Found in an article entitled The Art of Not Working at Work : Everywhere we look, technology is replacing human labor. In OECD countries,…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- humor
- Words
- 70
The Onion claims that Man’s Whole Job Undoing Handiwork Of Self-Checkout Machine : Admitting that he basically just stands there until one of the…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- self-driving cars
- Words
- 308
If I was an over-the-road trucker, I’d be watching Google’s self-driving car research with a careful eye, because the human behind the wheel of a…
- Date
- November 05, 2014
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 452
Every year, my Dad and I go to Las Vegas for a rugby tournament. The last time we were there, we managed to get a very high-end hotel at off-season…
- Date
- November 06, 2014
- Tags
- productivity
- Words
- 223
Author and and professor Erik Brynjolfsson is convinced that technology is increasing productivity at the cost of jobs, and he has a chart that he…
- Date
- November 07, 2014
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 113
You see the “47%” figure floating around a lot, refering to how many jobs the economy could lose to technology. Here’s where it comes from – an…
- Date
- November 07, 2014
- Words
- 257
Interesting discussion over on Reddit: Imagine a robot that is a complete replacement for the average American worker. What economic system develops…
- Date
- November 09, 2014
- Tags
- basic income, restaurants, books
- Words
- 307
Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future is a novel set sometime in the future with a protagonist living in Cary, North Carolina and working at a…
Ken Jennings “Final Jeopardy” answer when playing against IBM’s Watson in 2011.
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Tags
- ediscovery, big data
- Words
- 204
In 2011, the New York Times was telling us about how so-called “ electronic discovery ” would be putting lawyers out of business by enabling the…
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Tags
- luddites
- Words
- 264
Let’s just take a second to reflect on how long the battle against worker automation has been fought. Here’s where the pejorative term “ Luddite ”…
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Tags
- retail
- Words
- 128
If you have a public library, you can have automation even if you don’t have a budget, thanks to this open-source, web-based self-checkout system .…
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 576
Pew Research did a “canvassing” of experts and have released the results of one of their questions: AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs They asked…
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Words
- 454
Here’s an article about “The Knowledge,” which is the body of knowledge that London cab drivers need to know: The Knowledge, London’s Legendary…
- Date
- November 11, 2014
- Tags
- retail
- Words
- 104
This article is over three years old: Retail jobs are disappearing as shoppers adjust to self-service . You can bet the trend has just accelerated in…
Found this quote via Race Against the Machine : Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced…
- Date
- November 20, 2014
- Tags
- ai
- Words
- 80
A recurring theme of some of Elon Musk’s comments have been that the rise of artificial intelligence might end very badly for humans. From a CNBC…
- Date
- November 21, 2014
- Tags
- robots, self-driving cars
- Words
- 100
The next frontier of self-driving cars is teaching them ethics. It turns out that some split-second decisions are as much value judgments as clear…
- Date
- November 21, 2014
- Tags
- basic income
- Words
- 616
Marshall Brain of the How Stuff Works franchise, and the Manna novella, presents his case for a universal basic income . He starts off by painting a…
- Date
- November 25, 2014
- Tags
- self-driving cars
- Words
- 330
The impact of self-driving cars will ripple through several different industries. It may be a huge step in the idea of not owning a car at all. The…
- Date
- December 01, 2014
- Words
- 462
I’m wondering how much technological unemployment will result from the simple, natural elimination of information asymmetry and the subsequent…
This video is making the rounds today. Amazon’s robot army in action.
- Date
- December 05, 2014
- Tags
- self-driving cars, health care
- Words
- 101
I can’t find the original source mentioned in this column , but the CEO of McKinsey, Dominic Barton, apparently said this last week: If you are a…
- Date
- December 06, 2014
- Tags
- smart meters
- Words
- 150
Smart electrical meters were supposed to eliminate thousands of inefficient meter reading positions, and usher in a wave of intelligent energy…
- Date
- December 24, 2014
- Tags
- health care, quote
- Words
- 55
The Week has a short piece, provocatively titled “ How computers will replace your doctor .” I loved this quote about “the human we need.” But the…
- Date
- December 26, 2014
- Tags
- retail, restaurants
- Words
- 109
Waiters might be next on the chopping block, given that a company making pay-at-the-table tablets is raising significant capital . E la Carte Inc., a…
- Date
- December 29, 2014
- Words
- 190
This documentary just got funded in Kickstarter. It connects the death of work to the death of…well, actual death , and discusses how the two relate…
- Date
- December 29, 2014
- Tags
- self-driving cars, google
- Words
- 59
Google is apparently ready to sell this thing : Google’s prototype self-driving car could be rolling through the streets of Northern California in…
- Date
- January 02, 2015
- Tags
- bill gates
- Words
- 65
Bill Gates, speaking last week at The American Enterprise Institute, said this: Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses…
- Date
- January 02, 2015
- Words
- 165
Camel racing in the Middle East is big business, and the sport has worked for over a decade to replace all the jockeys with robots , However, in a…
- Date
- January 05, 2015
- Tags
- gig economy
- Words
- 544
Here’s an article from the Economist about the rise of technology that match people needing work with people who need the work done, in close to…
- Date
- January 24, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 293
Business Insider recently wrote a broad article on technological unemployment entitled “ The Future of Jobs .” Some highlights – John Maynard Keynes…
- Date
- January 24, 2015
- Tags
- robots
- Words
- 85
The New York Times reports further on the inability for robots to have morals or make moral-based judgments. One innovator is trying…
- Date
- January 28, 2015
- Tags
- bill gates, reddit
- Words
- 212
Bill Gates did another Reddit AMA , There were a couple questions about technological unemployment: Someone: How much of an existential threat do you…
- Date
- January 28, 2015
- Tags
- future
- Words
- 157
This video is stone-cold terrifying. It lays out the fundamental case for technological unemployment, and explains that technology evolves faster…
- Date
- January 28, 2015
- Tags
- smart meters
- Words
- 122
I stumbled across two articles today, both making the same claim about smart meters: Out of Columbus, Ohio: AEP expects decision soon on smart meters…
- Date
- March 02, 2015
- Tags
- logistics
- Words
- 183
Here’s an interesting article about how longshoremen at West Coast ports have prevented technological improvements from threatening their jobs – it’s…
- Date
- March 02, 2015
- Tags
- self-driving cars
- Words
- 280
Zack Kanter writes about autonomous cars : Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they…
- Date
- March 04, 2015
- Tags
- gig economy, uber
- Words
- 135
The New York Times talks about something that we discussed in the past. Uberization of work may soon be coming to your chosen profession. Just as…
- Date
- March 04, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment, ux
- Words
- 339
I’m wondering about much usability and HCI will affect automation and job losses. I’ve been thinking that a lot of transactions cannot be automated…
- Date
- March 08, 2015
- Tags
- retail
- Words
- 113
There’s very little detail in this article about parking at a Dallas stadium, but the last line is pretty clear: Last week American Airlines Center,…
- Date
- April 06, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 224
Here’s an article from the Harvard Business Review which argues that the Internet is killing job creation in the middle class. The Internet […] has…
- Date
- April 06, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 200
Interesting thread over at Reddit: Which jobs will never be replaced by machines? . The top answer: I think jobs where people need a human-human…
- Date
- April 16, 2015
- Tags
- smart meters
- Words
- 110
The city in Canada gets rid of meter readers in favor of smart meters. If you’re under 10 years old, you may never remember what a meter reader…
- Date
- April 16, 2015
- Tags
- retail
- Words
- 15
All of the checkout clerks at LaGuardia’s convenience stores have apparently been replaced with machines.
- Date
- April 20, 2015
- Tags
- agriculture
- Words
- 168
Wither the migrant agricultural laborer: Harvest CROO Robotics Develops Strawberry Picker, the Latest Solution in Agricultural Robotics Harvest CROO…
- Date
- April 20, 2015
- Tags
- smart meters
- Words
- 317
This is a press release from ComEd about the installation of smart meters in Chatham, which is a neighborhood in South Chicago, It’s fascinating in…
- Date
- April 22, 2015
- Tags
- politics
- Words
- 226
Here’s an article about the idea to raise retirement age which argues we should actually lower it. It starts with some common knowledge about…
- Date
- April 27, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 129
The Millenium Project is doing a study on the future of work, entitled: Future of Work and Glocal Strategies to Improve Long-Term Prospects The…
From the introduction of Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford. [This] is an era that will be defined by a fundamental shift in the relationship between…
- Date
- May 04, 2015
- Tags
- robots, agriculture
- Words
- 187
An article with more about the robot strawberry picker , but this article claims it will fix a labor shortage, and why this shortage exists. For some…
- Date
- May 12, 2015
- Tags
- transportation
- Words
- 194
Railroad companies are trying to reduce the number of employees onboard trains : Railroads have proposed eliminating the job of on-board conductor on…
There is a Robot Hall of Fame , One of the inductees is the first automobile assembly line robot: Unimate : In 1961 the first industrial robot,…
- Date
- June 11, 2015
- Tags
- self-driving cars
- Words
- 115
Falling oil prices and revenue have gotten oil sands producers interested in driver-less trucks. Suncor is buying 175 of them. The layoffs will be…
- Date
- June 15, 2015
- Tags
- self-driving cars
- Words
- 81
Self-driving cars will disrupt more than the automotive industry. They’ll mess with the insurance industry too . […] getting rid of the driver could…
- Date
- June 15, 2015
- Tags
- transportation, self-driving cars
- Words
- 102
Freightliner has a semi-autonomous truck licensed for use in Nevada . The lorry has the same “NHTSA Level 3” rating as Google’s self-driving car,…
- Date
- June 15, 2015
- Tags
- gig economy, uber
- Words
- 70
An interesting term is in this article about Uber drivers trying to file for unemployment . The companies of the gig economy, the on-demand economy,…
- Date
- June 15, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 121
A Yale researcher is on the record about technological unemployment : Thanks to the efficiency of the internet and automated systems, productivity…
- Date
- July 08, 2015
- Tags
- restaurants
- Words
- 11
Here are some order and pay kiosks that McDonalds is testing.
- Date
- July 09, 2015
- Tags
- luddites
- Words
- 91
Here’s an argument that the reason why our current predicament isn’t a Luddite Fallacy is because of the rate of change. But what is missing from…
- Date
- July 09, 2015
- Tags
- robots
- Words
- 207
An article about how humans and robots are working together in Amazon’s warehouse. The shelves move. In previous generations of its fulfillment…
Meg Bear was a VP for Oracle, In this LinkedIn post she makes this point which shows how computers and humans will never be the same: I have come to…
Here’s a phenomenal article adapted from an upcoming book: Humans Are Underrated . The article seeks an answer to this question: What are the…
- Date
- July 28, 2015
- Tags
- future
- Words
- 130
Here’s an article which argues that we should welcome an increase in automation and productivity: […] don’t worry that the robots will take your job.…
- Date
- July 31, 2015
- Words
- 143
Here’s some information on Netflix’s eventually-doomed DVD-by-mail business and how they’re keeping it going by making it more efficient using…
- Date
- July 31, 2015
- Tags
- workers
- Words
- 172
There’s not a lot new in this New York Times piece from April , but this quote is a good summation of the problem. This is the way technology is…
- Date
- August 06, 2015
- Tags
- robots
- Words
- 200
The title of this post is apparently the title of an official Chinese government program which subsidizes and rewards companies for actively…
- Date
- August 06, 2015
- Words
- 110
NPR has come up with a cute, if simplistic, app to tell you if your job will be automated . The parameters it reviews are: Do you need to come up…
- Date
- August 07, 2015
- Tags
- gig economy
- Words
- 192
Inside an article about Amazon’s business practices , there’s an interesting note about how the “gig economy” is coming to book writing: Amazon…
- Date
- August 09, 2015
- Tags
- basic income
- Words
- 187
Here’s an interesting documentary from a Dutch “future affairs” television series on the idea of a “basic income” and how it might work. The idea is…
- Date
- August 24, 2015
- Words
- 68
Here’s an interesting article on how white collar work in the U.S. will resist automation because we will simply invent more work , because that’s…
- Date
- September 08, 2015
- Tags
- humor
- Words
- 110
The Onion offers this humorous respite: Secretary Of Labor Assures Nation There Still Plenty Of Jobs For Americans Willing To Outwork Robots : During…
- Date
- September 09, 2015
- Words
- 94
It seems that planes don’t even need pilots . Advances in sensor technology, computing and artificial intelligence are making human pilots less…
- Date
- September 09, 2015
- Tags
- restaurants
- Words
- 99
We don’t need waiters anymore , apparently, as a new place in San Francisco is trying to prove. At this restaurant, customers order, pay and receive…
- Date
- September 21, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 85
There’s an upcoming conference on technological unemployment: The World Summit on Technological Unemployment is the first high-level forum and…
The tail end of this NY Times opinion piece on raising the minimum wage includes this bit about the threat of automation as a reason not to raise the…
- Date
- October 21, 2015
- Tags
- politics
- Words
- 107
Politicians are working with start-ups to understand the so-called “gig economy.” It’s driving conversations about worker protections, lack of health…
- Date
- October 21, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment
- Words
- 101
This article argues that it’s not just middle class jobs at risk. Indeed, there’s apparently nothing special about white collar jobs either. “The…
- Date
- October 22, 2015
- Tags
- unemployment, big data
- Words
- 135
Here’s an interesting note in the middle of this article about temp workers at Amazon : At the same time, we are living in an era of maximum…
- Date
- October 29, 2015
- Tags
- gig economy
- Words
- 96
This article claims that the Gig Economy has another casualty: middle management. With real-time rating systems, we’re turning into a world of…
- Date
- October 31, 2015
- Tags
- manufacturing
- Words
- 108
Interesting information in this article about how automation drives the pace of a chicken assembly line. Today, the maximum permissible rate is 140…
- Date
- November 03, 2015
- Tags
- restaurants
- Words
- 200
There is significant conservative spin on this article , clearly, but it summarizes what apparently happening on an earnings call for Panera Bread.…
- Date
- November 25, 2015
- Words
- 48
“The newest space, and the one that’s most exciting, is where machines are actually in charge, but they have enough awareness to seek out people to…
- Date
- January 25, 2016
- Tags
- future, inequality
- Words
- 148
Swiss Bank UBS has released a report saying that the move to automation is the “fourth industrial revolution,” and will drive considerable gains to…
- Date
- January 25, 2016
- Tags
- books
- Words
- 311
Martin Ford’s book, Rise of the Robots was on many “best of” books for 2015, It’s a broad overview of the problems of automation and the potential…
- Date
- January 29, 2016
- Tags
- gig economy
- Words
- 203
Two conservative Washington policy wonks write in Politico that we should use the gig economy to put welfare recipients to work: Historically, some…
- Date
- January 29, 2016
- Tags
- white collar
- Words
- 550
Narrative Science is a company that launched out of a project at the Intelligent Information Lab at Northwestern University. They make a software…
- Date
- January 29, 2016
- Tags
- agriculture
- Words
- 78
Japan is going to harvest lettuce with robots . So much so that Spread is creating the world’s first farm manned entirely by robots. Instead of…
Bill Joy is one of the world’s great computer scientists, He started Sun Microsystems, and he had a lot to do with the creation of the Java…
- Date
- February 05, 2016
- Tags
- transportation
- Words
- 368
A Vanity Fair article examines the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447, which went down in the Atlantic en route from Brazil to France. The Human…
In a discussion about automated business processing in Mindless: Why Smarter Machines are Making Dumber Humans . It is here perhaps that IBM gets us…
- Date
- February 06, 2016
- Tags
- robots
- Words
- 218
Could we ever replicate consciousness in machines? Might they ever become sentient like Skynet in the Terminator films? TechCrunch looks at the…
- Date
- February 06, 2016
- Tags
- basic income
- Words
- 177
Y Combinator – the startup incubator – is about to start up a study on the feasibility of basic income . We’re going to try something new – our first…
- Date
- February 08, 2016
- Tags
- aircraft, transportation
- Words
- 203
NASA is investigating the idea of aircraft with a single pilot , rather than the two in use today. The key is that a second officer is present as…
- Date
- February 10, 2016
- Tags
- transportation, uber, self-driving cars, lyft
- Words
- 84
Buzzfeed made a video where they took rights with Uber and Lyft drives and talked to the about driverless cars and what it might mean for their jobs,…
- Date
- February 10, 2016
- Tags
- sex doll
- Words
- 233
So, Real Doll has been around for years – I remember them being a blocked site on my company’s computer network back in 2000 or so, The company makes…
Every day, between 7,000 and 10,000 unique visitors come to this website. I don't keep analytics, so I have no idea why you're here. Maybe get in touch with me and tell me why you visited today?