Australia has long been a nation of innovators and early adopters. We’re quick to create or embrace new approaches that can help us to compete in business, improve social services or become more resilient in the face of threats like droughts, bushfires or cybercrime. This ability to innovate relies on us having access to the…
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It may sound like something from a science fiction movie, but the use of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to effectively air condition city parks is now a reality. Smart Irrigation Management for Parks and Cool Towns (SIMPaCT) uses a range of proprietary irrigation systems with IoT technology, created as a collaboration between 11…
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Australia should “stop all efforts” to regulate artificial intelligence according to one of the country’s leading authorities on the subject, who says it remains too early to grasp the true impact of the technology on society. Professor Mary-Anne Williams, an eminent AI researcher and the Michael J Crouch Chair in Innovation at the University of…
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A new cross-party forum has been launched in Parliament to drive engagement and understanding on the role of technology and innovation in the future of Australia’s economy. The Parliamentary Friendship Group on Tech and Innovation will be co-chaired by Labor MP Jerome Laxale, Liberal MP Aaron Violi, and Independent MP Allegra Spender. It will provide…
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Almost daily, developments in AI make headlines – from updates in regulation, to what’s allowed in schools, numerous copyright and privacy breaches, to the latest in the high-profile Hollywood Screen Actors Guild negotiations. This week SXSW, one of the biggest creative and technology festivals in the world will be held in Sydney and showcase numerous…
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The eleventh Václav Havel Human Rights Prize has been awarded to imprisoned Turkish human rights defender, philanthropist and civil society activist Osman Kavala.
The 60,000-euro prize was presented at a special ceremony on the opening day of the autumn plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg on 9 October 2023. For more on the award and its laureates, see https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/7A8B4A4A-0521-AA58-2BF0-DD1B71A25C8D
Mr Kavala, a supporter of numerous civil society organisations in Türkiye for many years, has been in prison continuously since 2017 following his arrest for his alleged links to the Gezi Park protests.
In a 2019 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights ordered his immediate release, finding his detention violated his rights and pursued an ulterior purpose, “namely to reduce him to silence as a human rights defender”, and could dissuade other human rights defenders. In 2022 the Court’s Grand Chamber confirmed that Türkiye has failed to fulfil its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/07/27/kavala-ruling-of-european-court-of-human-rights-infringement-procedure-against-turkey/]
In a letter written from prison, read out by his wife Ayşe, Mr Kavala said he was honoured by the decision, and dedicated the Prize to his fellow citizens unlawfully kept in prison. He said the award reminded him of the words of Václav Havel, writing to his wife Olga from prison in 1980: “The most important thing of all is not to lose hope. This does not mean closing one’s eyes to the horrors of the world. In fact, only those who have not lost faith and hope can see the horrors of the world with genuine clarity.”
Responding to the awarding of the 2023 Václav Havel Prize to Turkish prisoner of conscience, Osman Kavala, by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake, said:
“While we celebrate the fact that Osman Kavala has been recognised with this top human rights award, the fact that he cannot be in Strasbourg to collect it in person is heartbreaking. Instead, having already been in jail for almost six years, he is languishing behind bars in Türkiye on a politically-motivated life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Rather predictably: in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said it was unacceptable for the CoE to award a “so-called” human rights prize to a convict, whose verdict of conviction was approved by one of Türkiye’s top courts.
A group of nine nongovernmental organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the prosecution of rights defender and businessman Osman Kavala and four codefendants in connection with mass protests a decade ago was unfair and essentially a political show trial from the beginning, calling for an urgent international response.
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
The federal government is focused too much on regulating artificial intelligence and not enough on the “real public policy issue” of building local AI skills, according to shadow minister for government services and the digital economy Paul Fletcher. Mr Fletcher said the federal government needs to work to ensure the country has “enough AI expertise and…
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South Australia’s regulatory response to AI must not become the victim of “unsubstantiated and unwarranted” privacy concerns that could hinder important public safety work, the state’s policing agency has warned. The South Australian Police Force (SAPOL) has also talked up the technology’s potential to protect civil liberties by avoiding “random, widespread stop and search” activities…
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The agency controlling university research grants has flagged potential future requirements for researchers to disclose their use of artificial intelligence in post project reviews. Currently the Australian Research Council (ARC) bans the use of AI in the assessment of grant applications, but not in writing them or in use for the actual research. But the…
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Australia is not prepared for the next wave of cyber-crime. Government has yet to implement regulations that would reduce the impact of what is coming. And Australian businesses and industry continue to lag international best practice. Imagine what would happen when artificial intelligence and automated lifelike voice generators become weaponised by cyber-criminals and rogue nations….
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Australia is ill-prepared to take advantage of the opportunities being created by artificial intelligence and is not investing sufficiently in sovereign capability to adequately safeguard the national interest, according to global AI leader Toby Walsh. Professor Toby Walsh is scientia professor of artificial intelligence at the University of NSW, and chief scientist at the university’s…
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Quantum technologies will be as disruptive as the generative artificial intelligence wave that swept the world in the last year, Australia’s chief scientist said on Thursday, while revealing the three sectors she sees as critical for Australia to take full advantage. In an address to the Quantum World Congress in Washington DC overnight, Dr Cathy…
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Building trust and adoption of artificial intelligence in Australia would be the focus of the Albanese government’s upcoming regulatory framework, with Industry minister Ed Husic still weighing a risk-based or principles approach. In an address on Thursday Mr Husic backed AI, robotics and automation as genuine answers to some of Australia’s productivity problems. But he…
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Australian universities say they are managing the risks of artificial intelligence to academic integrity and the federal government should wait to enforce specific regulations for the technology on the sector. At a standing committee’s inquiry into the use of generative AI in the Australian education system on Wednesday, university groups argued for a light touch…
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Artificial intelligence is a “different kind” of technology challenge for government, according to assistant minister for competition Dr Andrew Leigh, who will lead a new competition reform push that addresses the technology. On Wednesday, Dr Leigh said AI held great potential, particularly in service heavy economies like Australia, but poses key challenges to competition and…
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Over the past year, Iranian authorities have committed a litany of crimes under international law to eradicate any challenge to their iron grip on power. These include hundreds of unlawful killings; the arbitrary execution of seven protesters; tens of thousands of arbitrary arrests; widespread torture, including rape of detainees; widespread harassment of victims’ families who call for truth and justice; and reprisals against women and girls who defy discriminatory compulsory veiling laws.
“The anniversary of the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ protests offers a stark reminder for countries around the world of the need to initiate criminal investigations into the heinous crimes committed by the Iranian authorities under universal jurisdiction. Government statements calling on the Iranian authorities to halt the unlawful use of firearms against protesters, stop torturing detainees, and release all individuals detained for peacefully exercising their human rights remain as crucial as ever. These actions show victims they are not alone in their darkest hour.”
The anniversary of the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ protests offers a stark reminder for countries around the world of the need to initiate criminal investigations into the heinous crimes committed by the Iranian authorities under universal jurisdiction. Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa
These include the confiscation of cars and denial of access to employment, education, healthcare, banking services and public transport. Simultaneously, they have prosecuted and sentenced women to imprisonment, fines and degrading punishments, such as washing corpses.
This assault on women’s rights is taking place amid a spate of hateful official statements referring to unveiling as a “virus”, “social illness” or “disorder” as well as equating the choice to appear without a headscarf to “sexual depravity.”
The authorities are also working on new legislation that will introduce even more severe penalties for defying compulsory veiling.
During the uprising and in the months that followed, the authorities arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of men, women and children, including protesters, human rights defenders and minority rights activists. Those arrested include at least 90 journalists and other media workers and 60 lawyers, including those representing families of individuals unlawfully killed. Scores of other lawyers were summoned for interrogations. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/05/11/now-it-is-the-turn-of-the-iranian-journalists-who-reported-on-mahsa-amini/]
Ahead of the anniversary, the authorities have intensified their campaign of arbitrary arrests targeting, among others, family members of those unlawfully killed, and forcing thousands of university students to sign undertakings not to participate in anniversary protests.
Over the past year, the authorities have increasingly used the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instil fear among the public, arbitrarily executing seven men in relation to the uprising following grossly unfair sham trials. Some were executed for alleged crimes such as damage to public property and others in relation to the deaths of security forces during the protests. All were executed after Iran’s Supreme Court rubber stamped their unjust convictions and sentences despite a lack of evidence and without carrying out investigations into their allegations of torture. Dozens remain at risk of execution or being sentenced to death in connection with the protests.
The authorities have refused to conduct any thorough, independent and impartial investigations into the human rights violations committed during and in the aftermath of the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising and have failed to take any steps to hold those suspected of criminal responsibility to account.
Instead, authorities have applauded the security forces for suppressing the unrest and shielded officials from accountability, including two officials who admitted raping women protesters in Tehran. They have also dismissed complaints from victims and/or their families, threatening them with death or other harm if they pursued their complaints.
Amnesty International welcomed the establishment of a Fact-Finding Mission on Iran by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2022, yet much more is needed to combat the crisis of impunity for serious crimes in Iran – and to deter further cycles of bloodshed.
Amnesty International urges all states to consider exercising universal and other extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations committed by Iranian authorities, irrespective of the absence or presence of the accused in their territory. This includes initiating adequately resourced criminal investigations aimed at disclosing the truth about the crimes, identifying those suspected of responsibility, including commanders and other superiors and issuing, when there is sufficient admissible evidence, international arrest warrants. States should also contribute to achieving reparations for the victims.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/
see also:
https://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/iran/iran-statement-on-the-un-fact-finding-mission-s-oral-upda
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
The final polish on the “crown jewel” of artificial intelligence standards is expected next month, paving the way for responsible AI and other accreditation standards, but Australia’s leading AI champion warns businesses are unprepared. Amid growing fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could herald the end of human history and with a push from tech founders,…
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By Jacob Zinkula
See original post here.
Nearly 12 million Americans in occupations with shrinking demand may need to switch jobs by 2030.
That’s according to a new McKinsey Global Institute study that examined how the rise of AI and other factors like an aging population and e-commerce could impact US employment in the years ahead.
Over the past few years, the job-switching boom dubbed the Great Resignation was driven by workers seeking better pay and work-life balance. But between now and 2030, the McKinsey researchers projected that 11.8 million workers will have to change jobs not because they want to, but because they have to. Roughly 9 million of them might have to find new jobs in new industries altogether, the study found.
Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute who has researched the impact of new technologies on businesses, and a coauthor of the study, told Insider that 75% of the projected declines in job levels are in four categories: office support, customer service and sales, food services, and production work (e.g., manufacturing).
Lower-wage workers are expected to be most impacted by these changes. The study found that Americans in lower-wage jobs are up to 14 times more likely to need to change occupations by 2030. At the same, the study found that the demand for higher-wage professions in industries like healthcare, tech, and transportation is likely to grow considerably moving forward.
Chui pointed to four key factors that are driving the projected shifts in workforce demand.
First is the automation of jobs, which could be fueled by the rise of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT. The study found that up to 30% of hours currently worked in the US could be automated by 2030.
“It’s going to change the number of work hours that humans have to do when sometimes machines do some of their work,” he said.
The researchers said they expect generative AI to enhance the way STEM, creative, and business and legal professionals work rather than replace a significant number of them. They said automation’s biggest negative impacts could be on office support, customer service and sales, and food-service professions.
The study estimated that within the four categories most affected, demand for clerks, retail salespersons, administrative assistants, and cashiers, in particular, would each decline by over 600,000 jobs by 2030, in part because these jobs “involve a high share of repetitive tasks, data collection, and elementary data processing, all activities that automated systems can handle efficiently.” They noted that improved chatbots could impact the demand for customer-service roles.
The second factor is the continued rise of online shopping.
“If people spend relatively more on e-commerce than they do at brick-and-mortar retail, you might have fewer needs for a salesperson working in a store, but you’ll need more people to drive stuff and you’ll have more demand within warehouses,” Chui said.
In part due to the e-commerce boom, the researchers projected that the transportation-services category will see job growth of 9% by 2030.
Third, America is getting older, and people of different ages tend to have different spending patterns. Chui said this could lead to less demand for some jobs and increased demand for others — like healthcare workers.
“Everything from nursing aides all the way through surgeons and radiologists,” he said.
Fourth, despite the uptick in US manufacturing, Chui said productivity gains could lead to the industry requiring fewer workers than it used to.
“You’ll need fewer people, but with more skills,” he said.
To what degree these shifts will be positive or negative for the US workforce is up for debate, Chui said. It comes down to the country’s ability to retrain vulnerable workers.
“The glass-half-empty version is that the people who are most vulnerable to some of these shifts are some of the lower-paid folks in the economy,” he said, adding, “The glass-half-full version is if we’re actually able to transition them through re-skilling, etc., then they could be taking on roles that actually have higher incomes. If we can make the labor market work by enabling these transitions, it’s actually all for the good.”
Chui said he’s confident that the US can make this transition, but that it will require significant investment by companies, schools, and governments. Along with training workers, he said the US could also benefit from a more “skills-based labor market,” one where during the hiring process, a worker’s specific skill set is valued as much if not more so than whether they have a college degree.
“There was a time when a vast majority of the workers in the United States were involved in agriculture,” he said. “And then years later, far more people were working in factories for instance. But we didn’t end up with 50% unemployment. We have historically been able to do this. It’s a new set of challenges, but if you’re an optimistic American, you say, ‘We can do this.’”
This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.
A new research centre focused on AI-powered law enforcement initiatives has been set up by the Australian Federal Police and Monash University. The AI for Law Enforcement and Community Safety Lab (AiLECS) was launched on Tuesday as a formal research centre at the University’s Faculty of Information and Technology. Last year, the AFP committed $4.4…
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On 30 August 2023, Amnesty International reported on that Representatives of the families of people forcibly disappeared in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen gathered in Beirut to demand that their governments uphold their rights to truth, justice and reparation, during an event organized by AI to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
Across the Middle East, both state authorities and non-state actors, such as armed opposition groups, abduct and disappear people as a way to crush dissent, cement their power, and spread terror within societies, largely with impunity.
While most governments in the region have not yet investigated disappearances nor provided accurate numbers of those missing or disappeared, civil society organizations and UN bodies have published estimated numbers of people abducted and disappeared in each country. These numbers in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, when multiplied by a conservative estimate of the total years these individuals have been missing, suggest that families have spent more than a million years waiting for answers – an agonizing length of time.
“In the face of their governments’ apathy and complicity for the crime of enforced disappearances, the families of the disappeared across the Middle East have led the charge, year after year, in demanding their right to know what happened to their loved ones and to get justice and reparation – often at great personal risk,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Today we honour their perseverance and add our voice to theirs in calling for authorities to take real action to investigate these crimes, hold those suspected of criminal responsibility accountable and ensure these crimes are not committed again.”
Iraq
In Iraq, the UN estimates that between 250,000 to 1,000,000 individuals have been disappeared since 1968 – making it one of the countries with the highest number of disappearances in the world. Disappearances are still being carried out today at hands of militias affiliated with the government. Consecutive Iraqi governments have repeatedly failed to take meaningful steps to investigate disappearances or hold those suspected of criminal responsibility to account. Widad Shammari from Iraqi organization Al Haq Foundation for Human Rights, whose son has been missing since 2006, said: “I was a single protester until I met many others who shared my struggle, and we formed a strong coalition who fights for the truth for all the disappeared in the Arab region, not just Iraq.”
Lebanon
In Lebanon, the official estimate of those abducted or missing as a result of the 1975-1990 civil war is 17,415. Every year, on 13 April – the anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War – the families of the missing and disappeared gather to mark the beginning of the conflict, repeating the mantra, “Let it be remembered, not repeated.”
The Lebanese authorities granted amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes that occurred during the civil war, but after years of campaigning, in 2018, the families of the disappeared successfully pressured the government to acknowledge the disappearances that took place. The government also passed a law that established the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared with a mandate to investigate individual cases, locate and exhume mass graves and enable a tracing process.
However, Wadad Halawani, whose husband was kidnapped in 1982 and who leads the Committee of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon said: “Today, we raise our voice and shout out loud. The National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared is 3 years old already. Only two years remain in its mandate. The Commission established a clear strategy for its work, but it cannot carry on without the needed financial and logistical support. The government must provide it with all the needed resources immediately.”
Syria
Since 2011, the Syrian authorities have forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of its actual or perceived opponents, including political activists, protestors, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, doctors, and humanitarian aid workers, as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population that amounts to crimes against humanity. Thousands have also gone missing after being detained by armed opposition groups and the so-called Islamic State. Given the Syrian government’s role in orchestrating the campaign of enforced disappearances, there has been total impunity for these crimes in Syria. The families have therefore resorted to international justice mechanisms.
In a momentous victory for the families, on 29 June 2023, the UN General Assembly voted to establish an international institution dedicated to shedding light on the fate and whereabouts of those missing and disappeared since the start of the armed conflict in Syria.
Fadwa Mahmoud from Families for Freedom, whose husband and son were disappeared in Syria in 2012 said: “We had big dreams in 2011. But we paid a very heavy price. My husband and son have been disappeared since September 2012… We faced our fears and raised our voice until it reached the United Nations …this [institution] is the product of our labour as the families of the detained…and this is its strength. We are demanding that we have an instrumental role in the institution.”
My husband and son have been disappeared since September 2012… We faced our fears and raised our voice until it reached the United Nations …this [institution] is the product of our labour as the families of the detained…and this is its strength.Fadwa Mahmoud from Families for Freedom, whose husband and son were disappeared in Syria in 2012
Yemen
In Yemen, human rights organizations have documented 1,547 cases of disappeared and missing people since 2015. All parties to the conflict, including the Huthi de facto authorities and the internationally recognized government forces, are still committing these crimes with impunity at a time when the world’s attention has turned away. Since the Human Rights Council voted in 2021 to end the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts, following heavy lobbying from Saudi Arabia, efforts to hold all those suspected of criminal responsibility accountable in fair trials and realize victims’ rights to reparations have stalled.
The Abductees’ Mothers Association in Yemen said: “We were harassed and threatened and beaten-up during demonstrations, but we will not give up and we are determined at ensuring some progress every step of the way. We are not mothers of our own disappeared family members only; we consider ourselves mothers of every single disappeared person in the region and we will continue our fight for the truth for all of them.
See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/09/14/portraits-of-disappeared-defenders-paraded-in-bangkok/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
A bottom-up approach to AI ethics should be adopted across the Australian government, according to an expert adviser to the Biden Administration, who says public servants must be empowered at an agency-level. Reggie Townsend, the vice president of data ethics at analytics software firm SAS and a National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee member, said that…
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On August 29, 2023, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and 16 additional civil society organizations delivered an open letter urging U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to encourage the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government to immediately and unconditionally release Emirati human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor ahead of the 28th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) that will take place from November 30 to December 12, 2023. [for more on UAE: see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/ahmed-mansoor/]
In the letter, the organizations urged Secretary Blinken to call on the UAE government to immediately and unconditionally release Ahmed Mansoor and other jailed human rights defenders and peaceful critics both privately and publicly at the highest levels. The organizations also called on the Secretary to signal deep concern about Mansoor’s well-being and request permission to visit him in prison as soon as possible.
“With the world’s attention on Dubai, the US government should deliver on this administration’s promise to center human rights in its foreign policy and press the Emirati authorities to finally release Ahmed Mansoor,” said Elizabeth Rghebi, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, “As a participant in COP28, the US government can demand the UAE demonstrate through this high profile release its commitment to the human rights principles required for healthy civic space at this upcoming global gathering.”
Governments have an obligation to protect the civic space for protest, in particular guaranteeing the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. Subjecting human rights defenders and critics to unlawful use of force, arbitrary detention, unfair trials, and abusive detention conditions violate these and other rights. The US government should work to uphold its obligations both at home and when engaging diplomatic partners.
Mansoor was arrested by Emirati authorities in March 2017 for “spreading false news” to “harm the reputation of the state.” All the charges on which he was convicted were based solely on his human rights advocacy, including using email and WhatsApp to communicate with human rights organizations. Following more than a year in isolation in pre-trial detention and a grossly unfair trial, an Emirati state security court sentenced Mansoor to 10 years in prison. Mansoor is a laureate of the MEA [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/074ACCD4-A327-4A21-B056-440C4C378A1A]
Throughout his imprisonment, Mansoor has been subjected to treatment that violates the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, including being held in solitary confinement without access to reading materials, television, or radio. Since December 2017, he has been denied eyeglasses, most personal hygiene items and, at least until recently, a bed or mattress in his cell.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/30/cop28-us-should-press-uae-activists-release
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
Most of the world’s biggest online publishers are not blocking bots from crawling their content to train generative AI, with some notable exceptions including the ABC and Australia’s regional publishers. Australia’s most read and most prolific news websites, including news.com.au, Daily Mail, the Nine newspapers, The Australian and The Guardian appear to have not moved…
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Australia urgently needs an AI Act and a dedicated regulator, the Australian Human Rights Commission is warning, two years after its landmark research with similar recommendations was ignored by the former government. On Thursday, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urged the Albanese government to conduct a sweep of the current “patchwork” regulatory environment for…
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By Greg Iacurci
See original post here.
KEY POINTS
The notion of technological advancement upending the job market isn’t a new phenomenon.
Robots and automation, for example, have become a mainstay of factory floors and assembly lines. And it has had various effects on the workplace, by displacing, changing, enhancing or creating jobs, experts said.
Artificial intelligence — a relatively nascent and fast-moving type of technology — will undoubtedly do the same, experts said. However, it’s likely such tech will target a different segment of the American workforce than has been the case in the past.
“AI is distinguished from past technologies that have come over the last 100-plus years,” said Rakesh Kochhar, an expert on employment trends and a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “It is reaching up from the factory floors into the office spaces where white-collar, higher-paid workers tend to be.”
“Will it be a slow-moving force or a tsunami? That’s unknown,” Kochhar added.
In basic terms, AI is built to mimic a human’s cognitive ability — i.e., to think like a human. It lets computers and machines perform tasks by themselves, Kochhar said.
ChatGPT — an AI chatbot developed by San Francisco-based OpenAI — went viral after debuting to the public in November 2022, fueling a national debate as millions of people used the program to write essays, song lyrics and computer code.
Such technology differs from robots, which generally perform physical tasks like lifting or moving objects.
In a new Pew study, Kochhar found that 19% of U.S. workers are in jobs with high exposure to AI. The study uses the term “exposure” because it’s unclear what AI’s impact — whether positive or negative — might be.
The high exposure group includes occupations like budget analysts, data entry keyers, tax preparers, technical writers and web developers. They often require more analytical skills and AI may therefore replace or assist their “most important” job functions, the report said.
Workers with the most AI exposure tend to be women, white or Asian, higher earners and have a college degree, the report said.
“Certainly, there could be some [job] displacement,” said Cory Stahle, an economist at job site Indeed. However, AI could also “open new occupations we don’t even know about yet.”
“The jury is still out,” he added.
Conversely, 23% of American workers have low exposure to AI, according to the Pew report.
These workers — like barbers, dishwashers, firefighters, pipelayers, nannies and other child care workers — tend to do general physical activities that AI (at least, in its current form) can’t easily replicate. The remaining share of jobs — 58% — have varying AI exposure.
In 2022, workers in the most exposed jobs earned $33 per hour, on average, versus $20 in jobs with the least exposure, according to the Pew study, which leveraged U.S. Department of Labor data from the Occupational Information Network.
Fear of technology and its ability to destroy jobs has been around since the Industrial Revolution, said Harry Holzer, a professor at Georgetown University and former chief economist at the federal Labor Department.
“To date, these fears have been mostly wrong — but not entirely,” Holzer wrote recently.
Over time, automation often creates as many jobs as it destroys, added Holzer, the author of the 2022 book titled “Shifting Paradigms” about the digital economy.
Technology makes some workers more productive. That reduces costs and prices for goods and services, leading consumers to “feel richer” and spend more, which fuels new job creation, he said.
In advanced economies like the U.S., new technologies have a negative short-term impact on net jobs, causing total employment to fall by 2 percentage points, according to Gene Kindberg-Hanlon, a World Bank economist. However, the impact swings “modestly positive” after four years, he found.
“Will it be a slow-moving force or a tsunami? That’s unknown.”
Rakesh Kochhar
However, some workers “lose out,” Holzer said. That group largely includes workers who are substituted by technology — those directly replaced by machines and then forced to compete.
“Digital automation since the 1980s has added to labor market inequality, as many production and clerical workers saw their jobs disappear or their wages decline,” Holzer said.
Business owners, who generally reap more profit and less need for labor, are often the winners, he said.
The “new automation” of the future — including AI — has the potential to “cause much more worker displacement and inequality than older generations of automation,” perhaps eliminating jobs for millions of vehicle drivers, retail workers, lawyers, accountants, finance specialists and health-care workers, among many others, he said.
It will also create new challenges and needs like retraining or reskilling; those may have knock-on effects, like child care needs for disadvantaged workers, Holzer said.
Indeed data suggests there’s been a “pretty significant uptick” in the number of employers looking for workers with AI-related skills, Stahle said.
For example, about 20 jobs listings per million advertised by Indeed in July 2018 sought some type of AI skill. That figure had swelled to 328 jobs per million as of July 2023.
This remains a small share of overall Indeed job ads but is noticeable growth from “basically zero” five years ago, Stahle said. And most of the growth has occurred in the past year, likely tied to the recent popularity of ChatGPT, he added.
The growth has largely occurred in two camps: Workers building AI technology and those in more creative or marketing roles who use those A.I. tools, Stahle said.
Jobs in the latter group will be an especially interesting area to watch, to see how artificial intelligence might disrupt roles as varied as marketing, sales, customer service, legal and real estate, he added.
The post A.I. is on a collision course with white-collar, high-paid jobs — and with unknown impact appeared first on Basic Income Today.
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Nasta (Anastasia) Loika was sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” on 20 June 2023. She is a prisoner of conscience, targeted in retaliation for her human rights work.
Nasta (Anastasia) Loika is a prominent human rights defender and educator, focusing her work on human rights violations resulting from the use of the repressive “anti-extremist” legislation in Belarus, the protection of foreign nationals and stateless persons in Belarus, and on human rights education.
Nasta Loika was sentenced for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” under Part 3 of Article 130 of the Belarusian Criminal Code on 20 June 2023. The Belarusian human rights defender and prisoner of conscience was arbitrarily detained on 28 October 2022, accused of “petty hooliganism”, a violation under Article 19.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. As the Belarusian authorities repeatedly brought the allegations against her, she served a total of five consecutive 15-day terms in detention for the same purported offence. On 24 December 2022, she was arbitrarily charged under Articles 342.1 (“Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them”) and 130.3 (“inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord”) of the Belarusian Criminal Code.
Nasta Loika reported that she had been tortured by electric shock during questioning and that whilst in detention she was left out in the courtyard for eight hours without outerwear in cold weather. She has consistently not been provided with the medical care she requires, which in itself may amount to inhumane and degrading treatment.
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/urgent-action-outcome-human-rights-defender-sentenced-7-years
By AI Automation Life Daily
See original post here.
The robots are coming for our jobs. Or so some predict about the rise of automation and artificial intelligence. While the doomsday scenarios may be overblown, it’s clear that AI and automation will disrupt the labor market. Productivity and profits may increase for companies, but what about workers? How can society distribute the dividends equitably? One bold proposal is to tie a universal basic income (UBI) to GDP per capita.
As AI and automation boost productivity and efficiency, GDP per capita is likely to rise. But these productivity gains tend to disproportionately benefit high-income earners and capital owners. A UBI tied to GDP per capita could ensure the dividends are distributed more evenly.
Let’s say the GDP per capita increased by $5,000 due to automation. That extra $5,000 per person could be redistributed as a UBI.
This would put money directly in people’s pockets, counteracting job losses and income inequality worsened by automation. It would also create a positive feedback loop. With more consumer spending power, demand would rise, stimulating further economic growth.
“The robots are baking more economic pies. We just need to put those pies in more ovens,” argues economist Robert Reich. Rather than each worker baking their own pie from scratch, automation allows for more pies to be mass-produced. A UBI would ensure every oven gets a pie, not just the owners of the robotic pie factories.
One approach could be to implement targeted social safety nets that provide support to individuals and communities most affected by automation. This could involve reskilling programs, job placement assistance, and investments in education and training. By focusing on those most vulnerable to job displacement, we can mitigate the negative consequences of automation without resorting to a universal income guarantee.
Also, instead of relying solely on income redistribution, society could encourage a broader distribution of ownership in AI and automation. This could be achieved through mechanisms such as employee ownership, cooperatives, or community-based investment funds. By giving more individuals a stake in the benefits generated by automation, we can create a more inclusive and equitable society.
Another intriguing player on the scene is Worldcoin, a project introduced by Sam Altman and his team with the ambitious goal of creating a new, universally accessible financial and identification network. Worldcoin combines a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) with a digital currency (WLD), gifted to users simply for being human, in regions where laws allow. With Worldcoin, Altman envisions a future where economic opportunity is significantly expanded, a reliable and privacy-preserving distinction between humans and AI is established, and global democratic processes are enabled. This revolutionary project could even pave the way towards an AI-funded UBI, reflecting the increasingly intertwined futures of automation, AI, and global economic systems.
Of course, the details matter greatly but distributing the latest model LLMs and GPUs to society can lead us to a better future.
The post Opinion: How a UBI Tied to GDP Could Distribute Automation’s Bounty appeared first on Basic Income Today.
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Australia’s regulatory response to artificial intelligence is shaping up as a battleground for the Albanese government, with a divergence of views emerging from its two-month long consultation on the world-changing technology. As the Industry department takes its last submissions to the consultation that ends on Friday, there is little consensus, based on the handful of…
The post Way forward on AI regulation divides Australia appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
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“How are these tools going to be used to increase the power of employers and of management once again, and to be used against workers,” asks Paris Marx. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Marx and host Kelly Hayes break down the hype and potential of artificial intelligence, and what we should really be worried about. Note: This a rush transcript and has been lightly edited for clarity.