technology « Limits to Growth

Self-Driving Trucks Will Be a Part of Unprecedented Social Change

It was nice to see the Los Angeles Times recognize the negative effect of self-driving cars and trucks which will cause severe job loss, as shown by a front-page story on Wednesday.

A lot of reporting over the last few years has had too much fan-boy wonderment at the rapid growth of admittedly amazing technology. But […]

The Self-Driving Car Edges Closer to True Autonomy

We’ve been hearing about self-driving cars for several years, but until now, there has always been a human in the driver’s seat in case anything went wrong. The latest news from Google reveals that its autonomous car, called the Waymo, is ramping up to the next level where no driver will be present at the […]

Google Announces $1 Billion Initiative to Prepare Workers for Automation

Tucker Carlson has opined, “Google is the most powerful company in the history of the world” which sounds about right, yet the company’s leftist slant is noticeable in the speech it chooses to censor.

So it is a welcome change from the parade of bad behavior for Google to dip its corporate toe into the do-gooder field […]

California: Refugees Supply Cheap Labor for Meatpacking Industry

Monday’s front-pager for the Los Angeles Times is a reminder that refugees are just another variety of cheap-labor immigrants.

Meatpacking plants used to be a big magnet for illegal alien labor which was convenient for the industry, and the business recruited openly in Mexico. But in 2006, the government raided six Swift plants and carted off […]

Automation’s Future in Idaho Is Considered

In Idaho, a researcher at the state Department of Labor looked into automation and how it may play out locally. His overall estimate is based on that of the Oxford analysts, that nearly half of state jobs are susceptible within a couple decades.

But there’s no mention that workers are shoppers and are the engine of […]

Automation: How It’s Changing the Oil Patch

The report below from the Houston Chronicle about smart machines in the petroleum industry is helpful because it is fairly precise about how many jobs are being lost. As in many businesses, a complete wipeout of jobs is not what’s happening, but the increased efficiency of advanced machines does remove a significant chunk of human […]

Automation May Undermine President Trump’s Jobs Reshoring Plan

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to bring back manufacturing jobs by renegotiating trade deals which have been disadvantageous to American workers and also by improving the business environment generally.

On Thursday, the Trump jobs strategy was discussed on the Fox Business channel, including renegotiating NAFTA and rejecting the Trans Pacific Partnership.

As I wrote in […]

Congressman Mo Brooks Surveys the Big Picture of Immigration and Population Growth

On Wednesday, the Alabama Republican took the floor of the House to address the effects on America of the great immigration wave we are still experiencing, and which the Democrat Clinton hopes to increase.

As Rep. Brooks noted, billions of people on earth would like to live here, but that is not possible given limited resources […]

Amazon’s Picking Challenge Spotlights Robotic Advances

Tuesday was the Amazon Prime day, where super deals were offered to shoppers of the online store who pay a fee for extra services. Last year’s Prime Day broke records with its total of 34.4 million items ordered in eligible countries worldwide. That task requires mega processing capability that depends on computers and automation, particularly the company’s […]

Atlas Robot’s Advanced Capability Threatens American Jobs

The video below had more than eight million views in two days, February 23-25. The reason for the interest is certainly the machine’s remarkable balance and ease of movement. “Atlas” walks over a snowy landscape outdoors and regains footing after slipping. It lifts boxes and places them on shelves. When a human moves a box […]

Tech Titans See the Stratosphere as the Next Frontier for Expanding the Internet

Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News had a big front-page graphic showing the tech industry’s big plans to wire the third world for the internet.

One of the movers and shakers of the internetization of the planet is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, an open-borders billionaire who says he wants to share.

Zuck’s project is a drone with a […]

Sixty Minutes Promotes Self-Driving Cars

The CBS premier news magazine show included an entirely laudatory segment about self-driving cars on Sunday. That was disappointing, since the show had a very good piece about automation in 2013, “Are Robots Hurting Job Growth?”:

Andrew McAfee: Our economy is bigger than it was before the start of the Great Recession. Corporate profits are back. […]

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Limits to Growth