Oct 28 Column: How intellectual property rules help the rich and hurt the poor By Dean Baker It is not the technology that determines who gets the benefits of major innovations; it is laws that govern technology, which in turn are made by politicians. Specifically, the laws on patents and intellectual property more generally will determine whether… Continue reading
Oct 22 Watch 8:29 How will South Korea’s robot revolution affect American jobs? By Mori Rothman, Karla Murthy Continue watching
Sep 21 Watch 6:27 How robots are joining the police force By PBS News Hour In light of the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey, science correspondent Miles O'Brien takes a look at a new technology that is increasingly being used by law enforcement: bomb-disarming robots. Operated from a safe distance, these robots… Continue watching
Jul 30 Watch 8:42 Do labor-saving robots spell doom for American workers? By PBS News Hour The onslaught of automation that's replacing human workers -- from golf caddies to bank tellers -- may be putting us on a path to humanitarian crisis, says Jerry Kaplan, author of "Humans Need Not Apply." As technology grows and jobs… Continue watching
May 22 3 white collar jobs that robots are already mastering By Joanne Elgart Jennings Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen plenty of blue collar jobs outsourced to machines — from auto assembly to customer service. Now, as computers, equipped with artificial intelligence, increasingly take over “information jobs,” tasks that were once reserved for… Continue reading
May 20 Watch 8:15 Will your job get outsourced to a robot? By PBS News Hour It's not just basic tasks anymore: Computers can now do work once deemed possible only by humans. And in some cases, the computers are doing it better. In an economy driven increasingly by intelligent automation, which jobs will survive? Hari… Continue watching
May 08 Watch 9:03 How smart is today’s artificial intelligence? By PBS News Hour Artificial intelligence is creeping into our everyday lives through technology like check-scanning machines and GPS navigation. How far away are we from making intelligent machines that actually have minds of their own? Hari Sreenivasan reports on the ethical considerations of… Continue watching
Apr 02 Why education won’t solve America’s inequality crisis By Simone Pathe Earnings inequality in America has increased since 1979 — that much we know. But why and what to do about it is murky — in part because we’re often talking past each other when we talk about inequality. There are… Continue reading
Mar 25 Watch Designing disease-resistant robots for the front lines of the Ebola crisis By PBS News Hour Continue watching
Feb 20 Will your job exist in the future, or will a robot have replaced you? By Simone Pathe In the long view of history, technological advancement unleashed by the Industrial Revolution has come to be seen as a net positive for economic development and everyone’s well-being, even those workers who initially lost their jobs. There’s reason to wonder,… Continue reading