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Lexus is the latest automaker to leap into the fray of highly automated driving, announcing that its “Highway Teammate” advanced driver assist system (ADAS) will be available in 2020. The system, which offers “automated driving from entrance ramp to exit ramp on motor-vehicle-only roadways,” is featured as part of the sleek, glowing LS+ concept that Lexus is showing off at the Tokyo auto show this week. Highway Teammate will “enable automated merging, lane changes and diverging, as well as keep a vehicle in its lane and maintain vehicle-to-vehicle distance,” the Toyota-owned brand states. But as far as the types of...

WASHINGTON (AP) – When the robots came to online retailer Boxed, dread came, too: The familiar fear that the machines would take over, leaving a trail of unemployed humans in their wake. “I had a lot of people asking me, `What is going to happen to us?”’ says Veronica Mena, a trainer for the e-commerce startup, recalling the anxiety that rippled through her co-workers after company executives announced plans to open an automated warehouse in nearby Union, New Jersey. Yet their fears didn’t come to pass. When the new warehouse opened this spring, workers found that their jobs were less...

Robots may be coming for some jobs, but they will likely create new roles as well. Here are some spots humans are needed to fill and how to get them. It has become common to joke about how robots are going to take our jobs, and rightfully so: Oxford University researchers estimate that 47% of all current US employment is at high risk to become automated over the next decade or so. But there is positive news: Of the 1.8 million jobs AI will get rid of, the emerging field will create 2.3 million by 2020, according to a recent...

Contrary to the bleak picture painted by critics, a new IDC study of more than 1,000 organisations worldwide shows that AI will be in the workplace "sooner than we think", and will have a positive impact on productivity, revenues, and job creation. From 2017 to 2021, the Salesforce-sponsored study predicts that AI-powered CRM activities will boost business revenue by $1.1 trillion, and create more than 800,000 direct jobs and 2 million indirect jobs globally, surpassing those lost to AI-driven automation. The business revenue boost will be led primarily by increased productivity and lowered expenses due to automation, which account for...

A new partnership between Rolls-Royce and Google will see ships become smarter and self-learning thanks to advanced machine learning algorithms. It will also bring the company’s vision of a fully autonomous ship setting sail by 2020 a step closer to reality. Rolls Royce announced this month that it will use Google’s Cloud Machine Learning Engine across a range of applications, designed to both make today’s ships safer and more efficient, and to launch the ships of tomorrow. Initially the machine learning engine will be used to further train existing AI algorithms designed to power the image recognition systems of vessels....

Bastian Solutions will build a new manufacturing center in Westfield, IN, creating up to 87 new, high-wage jobs by 2020. The global systems integrator and consulting firm was recently acquired by Toyota Advanced Logistics, a subsidiary of Japan-based Toyota Industries Corporation. “Toyota Advanced Logistics and Bastian Solutions are honored to join the Westfield community, and we look forward to building a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will not only provide jobs but also become a catalyst for the local economy,” said Michael Romano, president of Toyota Advanced Logistics. “Toyota has a long history in Indiana, and we hope to utilize that...

After strong stock-market performance in the year to date, several big U.S. tech firms have begun to receive some negative attention from the public, as well as from regulators and politicians. Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) have gotten the most scrutiny, with European regulators leveling accusations of unfair search advantages against GOOG, and U.S. lawmakers drawing FB into the controversy surrounding alleged Russian efforts to influence the outcome of last year’s election. Amazon (AMZN) has not been above the fray. The company’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods Market led to a few muted pieces of press coverage that mentioned “antitrust,”...

Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/06/2017 -- The global agriculture robots market features a widely diverse competitive landscape characterized by region-wise dominance of prominent players, notes Transparency Market Research (TMR). For instance, the agriculture robots market in North America was dominated Harvest Automation, Inc., Clearpath Robotics, and PrecisionHawk, Inc., in 2015, while in the same year, Naio Technologies and SenseFly SA led the Europe market. In addition, Shibuya Seiki was one of the leading players in the Asia Pacific market for agriculture robots in 2015. Furthermore, driven by abundant lucrative avenues, the market is witnessing a constant influx of emerging...

Perrone Robotics, a developer of autonomous car software, will invest $3.8 million to expand its research and development operation in Albemarle County to add to its test track and facilities. Virginia successfully competed against California, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for the project, which will create 127 new jobs over the next three years. “Entrepreneurial companies like Perrone Robotics are putting Virginia on the map for cutting-edge industry and the jobs that come with it,” said Governor McAuliffe, speaking at the event. “This expansion is a testament to Virginia’s stellar technology workforce and competitive business climate, particularly for high-tech companies in sectors...

The Senate has agreed to pass legislation lifting regulations on manufacturers of self-driving cars. Full details will be announced the first week of October, but it's expected the bill will cover safety and manufacturing regulations as well as driver protection. Paving the Way United States roadways are one step closer to being traversed by driverless cars: on September 30, the Senate announced that it had reached an agreement to lift some of the regulations on manufacturers that made it harder to get self-driving cars on the road. “While this Senate self-driving vehicle legislation still has room for further changes,...

LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- In what has been described Friday as a world first, a farm field in Britain has been planted and harvested completely by autonomous vehicles and drones without any farmhands in sight. The hands-free crop farming was delivered in joint project by Harper Adams University in Shropshire and Yorkshire-based Precision Decisions, in an initiative partly-funded by the government agency, Innovate UK. The renowned agricultural university and Precision Decisions announced Friday the successful completion of "Hands Free Hectare", a project to plant, tend and harvest a crop using only autonomous vehicles and drones. A spokesman for Innovate...

TORONTO -- Former U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that closing borders won't create future jobs because what's changing industries like manufacturing are automation and artificial intelligence. Obama told a Toronto luncheon on Friday that the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy happened over the course of 150 years, but that the technological revolution is happening in 20 years. He said it's hard for governments to catch up to the pace of disruption. Obama said over the next 25 years, advanced economies will have to confront the fact that there is not going to be enough high-paying full-time...

Hawaii state representative Chris Lee has introduced a bill to guarantee economic security for the state's residents. Amidst fears of technology leading to job automation, Lee's Universal Basic Income (UBI) measure would ensure that that all residents of Hawaii are able to receive a steady income, regardless of their employment status. Prominent billionaire businessmen including Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk have expressed their support for the bill. "In the modern world, everybody should have the opportunity to work and to thrive. Most countries can afford to make sure that everybody has their basic needs covered," Virgin Group founder...

Jack Ma knows artificial intelligence will change the world. The Alibaba founder and chairman doesn't think we should be scared. But he does think we should be prepared for major disruptions to the job market. "In the last 200 years, manufacturing (has brought) jobs. But today -- because of the artificial intelligence, because of the robots -- manufacturing is no longer the main engine of creating jobs," Ma said Wednesday in a speech at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York City. Moving forward, Ma said he believes the service industry will be the largest engine of job creation....

These days, it’s tough to avoid newspaper headlines warning that artificial intelligence is coming for your job. The problem is that, often, the only thing these oversimplifications get right is that there is, in fact, an important connection between automation and work.What’s surprising is how many examples there are of AI acting as the catalyst for new hiring, higher wages, and happier employees. But of course, AI success stories aren’t as exciting as the “job-stealing robots” narrative. The reality is that the impact of AI on the workforce is complex, nuanced, and still very much in transition.Worker-Friendly OutcomesHere’s an...

Project Description Since 2012, we have been investigating the use of algorithms, automation and computational propaganda in public life. Political bots are manipulating public opinion over major social networking applications. This project enables a new team of social and information scientists to investigate the impact of automated scripts, commonly called bots, on social media. We study both the bot scripts and the people making such bots, and then work with computer scientists to improve the way we catch and stop such bots. Experience suggests that political bots are most likely to appear during an international crisis, and are usually designed...

Antonio Garcia Martinez fears revolution and armed conflict will erupt in America in the coming decades A former Facebook executive has quit his job and now lives as a recluse in the wilderness – because he is convinced that machines will take over the world. Antonio Garcia Martinez worked as a project manager for the social media giant in Silicon Valley but became terrified by the relentless march of technology. He reckons that machines will have taken half of humanity’s jobs within 30 years, sparking revolt and armed conflict. So he quit his job, fled his home and now lives...

The race to create A.I. and robotic technology that will change the way we work and live is dominating countless industries. But the chaos and disruption these ground-breaking fields are set to have on numerous areas of the economy, the job market, the banking system and the transportation industry have also incited fear. Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma has previously warned that society could see decades of "pain" thanks to new technologies. While Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that humans need to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg if we want to stay relevant. But forgetting...

More than half a million Angelenos stand to get a raise this weekend, making the city the latest testing ground in the drive to boost incomes of bottom-rung workers. Some businesses, facing a labor crunch, didn’t even wait for the new, $12 minimum wage to officially kick in. Josh Loeb started doling out pay bumps among the 400 employees of his six mostly upscale restaurants about a month ago. He paid for it by inching up prices at those Santa Monica haunts, adding a dollar to an organic chicken, and 50 cents to a sandwich or salad. “It’s got to...

McDonald's stock has hit new highs in recent days, despite fast-food industry woes. Why? Mickey-D's is replacing 2,500 human workers with digital kiosks this year. Way to go, minimum-wage advocates! Working from the absurd idea that if higher wages are good for individual workers, it must be socially beneficial to have government order all employers to pay their workers more, progressives and other leftists have had extraordinary success in forcing small businesses to pay higher minimum wages. Big Mac's stock is up 27% this year. Why? Pushed by concerns over a rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain is replacing human...