Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Robotics

Slashdot Asks: Do We Need To Plan For a Future Without Jobs And Should We Resort To Universal Basic Income? (vox.com) 917

Posted by msmash from the jobless-future dept.
Andy Stern (former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which today represents close to 2 million workers in the United States and Canada) has spent his career organizing workers. He has a warning for all of us: our jobs are really, really doomed. Stern adds that one of the only way outs of this is a universal basic income. Stern has been arguing about the need for a universal basic income (UBI) for more than a year now. Stern pointed out that people with college degrees are not making anywhere near the kind of progress that their parents made, and that it's not their fault. He adds: The possibility that you can end up with job security and retirement attached to it is statistically diminishing over time. The American dream doesn't have to be dead, but it is dying. All the resources and assets are available to make it real. It's just that we have a huge distribution problem. Unions and the government used to play an important part at the top of the market, but this is less true today. The market completely distributes toward those at the top. Unions simply aren't as effective in terms of their impact on the economy, and government has been somewhat on the sidelines in recent years.Making a case for the need of universal basic income, he adds:A universal basic income is essentially giving every single working-age American a check every month, much like we do with social security for elderly people. It's an unconditional stipend, as it were. The reason it's necessary is we're now learning through lots of reputable research that technological change is accelerating, and that this process will continue to displace workers and terminate careers. A significant number of tasks now performed by humans will be performed by machines and artificial intelligence. He warned that we could very well see five million jobs eliminated by the end of the decade because of technology. He elaborates: It looks like the Hunger Games. It's more of what we're beginning to see now: an enclave of extremely successful people at the center and then everyone else on the margins. There will be fewer opportunities in a hollowed out and increasingly zero-sum economy. If capital trumps labor, the people who own will keep getting wealthier and the people who supply labor will become less necessary. And this is exactly what AI and robotics and software are now doing: substituting capital for labor.What's your thoughts on this? Do you think in the next two-three decades to come we will have significantly fewer jobs than we do now?

Comment Re:Hmm..... (Score 1) 175

In my case, the phone problem pretty much belongs to my wife. She has either lost or destroyed 5 phones so far. (Tracking software helped recover most, but they were usually in bad shape) Insurance covered 4 of them (they definitely did NOT make money off of her). Now I just get her not-so-high-end phones...cheaper than paying the insurance premiums and deductibles when she has a loss. She loses credit cards too. Yes, she isn't very aware of her surroundings sometimes. My 13 year old daughter lost her phone once (and I still think it's in the house somewhere). Luckily it was a cheap android (intentional on my part). I then got her another very cheap android telling her "This one is on me. The next one is on you". She doesn't use it much, though. Myself and my 16 year old son have yet to lose a phone. That's why he has his precious iPhone...because he's responsible. Eventually I'll upgrade my Nexus 5 (2013) but it's still serving me well right now.

Comment Re:Skylines got right what Simcity got wrong (Score 1) 256

by phlack (#49282241) Attached to: SimCity's Empire Has Fallen and Skylines Is Picking Up the Pieces
The original definitely had mass transit. And it had one little train (which looked like a bus) that would spawn and traverse the map. I always wondered if, say, the "bus" couldn't get to a certain section (if you built two disconnected rail lines, there would still be only one bus), if it would still apply the rail to that other section (I think it did...the bus was merely an animation that had no function other than to look cute). And yes, the entire city could be on mass transit. Great way to reduce pollution.

Submission + - The Pirate Bay block will be lifted in the Netherlands (www.nrc.nl) 1

Submitted by swinferno
swinferno writes: The Dutch ISP's Ziggo and XS4all are no longer required to block access to the websites of The Pirate Bay. This has been decided by the court in The Hague.
The blockade has proven to be ineffective. The Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN will have to reimburse legal costs of EUR 326.000. The internet provider XS4ALL has already started lifting the ban. The website of The Pirate bay was ordered to be blocked by the two major ISPs in January 2012. Recent studies by Amsterdam University and CentERdata.showed that this did not reduce the number of downloads from illegal sources. Many people circumvented the blockade.
The Media

Layoffs Hit Washington Post Mobile Team 108

Posted by timothy from the tough-market dept.
imac.usr writes "The Huffington Post is reporting that The Washington Post has gone through yet another round of layoffs, but this time instead of cutting editorial positions, they're apparently cutting IT positions, specifically in the mobile applications department. According to Washington, DC media blog FishbowlDC, 54 people, including the General Manager of Mobile and Director of Mobile Products, were given the axe on Valentine's Day. A particularly damning quote from the FishbowlDC article: '"[CIO and VP Shaliesh] Prakash thinks these are 'inefficiencies' – that is the exact word he uses for human beings who are not useful according to him," said a source who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "Get rid of experienced people to save money, under the garb of streamlining is the new trend inside the Post."' Given that mobile products seem somewhat more likely to succeed than printed newspapers, this seems a strange decision at best."
Google

Tesla, Ford, Amazon Hint At Cloudy Future For Cars 231

Posted by samzenpus from the where-the-processor-meets-the-road dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "The automobile, once the most analog of technologies, is rapidly becoming a smartphone on wheels: Amazon announced Feb. 13 that Ford SYNC Applink-equipped vehicles will include the Amazon Cloud Player, allowing drivers to access their music libraries via voice command or dashboard controls. Ford isn't the only automotive company seeking to integrate cloud computing into the driving experience. Tesla Motors' Model S electric sedan boasts a 17-inch capacitive touch-screen in place of the usual dashboard buttons and dials. And who could forget Google's self-driving car? This isn't a future everybody wants—there are more than a few wannabe Steve McQueens who won't feel complete unless they can stomp on a pedal connected to an internal-combustion engine, flick a physical dashboard knob to the radio station of their choice, and peel out their driveway in a cloud of burning rubber. But as the latest technology migrates into automobiles, it could well be the future we're going to receive."
Businesses

Reasons You're Not Getting Interviews; Plus Some Crazy Real Resume Mistakes 246

Posted by Slashdot Staff from the don't-sign-your-cover-letter-in-blood dept.
Yvonne Lee, Community Manager at Dice.com writes, "Not using standard job titles, not tying your work to real business results and not using the right keywords can mean never getting called for an interview, even if you have the right skills to do the job. I once heard advice to use the exact wording found in the ad when placing your keywords. I think you're even more unlikely to get a job if you do some of the things on this list."

Submission + - Photographer threatened with legal action after asserting his copyright (baldheretic.com)

Submitted by JamieKitson
JamieKitson writes: Photographer Jay Lee got more than he bargained for after sending some DMCA take down notifications out to hosts of sites using one of his pictures. One Candice Shwagger accuses him of everything from conspiracy over local sheriff elections to child abuse. Since Candice is now threatening legal action Jay has said he'll take down the post, so here's a snap shot.

After reading the story I checked for use of my own pictures and found one of them being used on a review site without even a credit. Here's a snap shot of that page.
China

Submission + - Building Material Absorbs and Releases Heat (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Researchers at the Ningpo, China campus of the University of Nottingham (UNNC) have created a new heat-regulating material that could be used to cut the heating and cooling costs of buildings. The non-deformed storage phase change material (PCM) can be fixed so that it starts absorbing any excess heat above a pre-determined temperature and releasing stored heat when the ambient temperature drops below the set point. The researchers say the material can be manufactured in a variety of shapes and sizes, even small enough so that it can be sprayed as a microscopic film to surfaces in existing buildings.
NASA

Submission + - NASA wants spacecraft for Mars return trip (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: If we ever do get to Mars, getting home might prove to be as difficult. NASA today selected three companies — Alliant Techsystems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — to being the task of defining the spacecraft that will leave Mars, presumably at first loaded with red planet rock samples, then later possibly humans — for a safe trip back to Earth.

The engineering challenges those three companies face are immense
Music

Submission + - 24-bit: the new way to make you pay more for music (pcpro.co.uk) 3

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Apple and music labels are reportedly in discussions to raise the audio quality of of the songs they sell to 24-bit. The move could see digital downloads that surpass CD quality, which is recorded at 16 bits at a sample rate of 44.1kHz. It would also provide Apple and the music labels with an opportunity to "upgrade" people's music collections, raising extra revenue in the process. The big question is whether anyone would even notice the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit files on a portable player, especially with the low-quality earbuds supplied by Apple and other manufacturers. Labels such as Linn Records already sell "studio master" versions of albums in 24-bit FLAC format, but these are targeted at high-end audio buffs with equipment of a high enough calibre to accentuate the improvement in quality."
Privacy

Submission + - Facebook Password Requests Suspended

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has suspended a roughly year-old practice of asking prospective employees to voluntarily divulge their user names and passwords to social media Web sites such as Facebook. In a statement, the department said requests for user names and passwords had been voluntary, and had not been taken into account when evaluating job applicants. Nonetheless, "in light of these concerns raised by the ACLU and because this is a newly emerging area in the law, the department has suspended the process of asking for social media information for 45 days to review the procedure and to make sure it is being used consistently and appropriately.""

Slashdot Top Deals

Programmers do it bit by bit.

Close