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Newsman Jim Lehrer dead at age 85

01/23/20 10:40 AM

New story in Technology from Time: AI Is About to Spark a Radical Shift in White Collar Work. But There’s Still ‘Plenty of Work for People to Do’

The story of automation in America has long been told in shuttered factories and declining Midwestern cities. But the latest wave of advancements in artificial intelligence may be bring the prospect of machine replacement beyond blue collar work. Developers are creating algorithms that promise to take over vast amounts of work in white collar fields like law and medicine, potentially upending traditionally high-status fields. For people in those once-secure positions, the questions are whose jobs may be changed, how soon, and what new opportunities may arise to take their place.

Knowledge work that involves repetitive tasks or large amounts of data, such as lawyers’ often arduous document discovery process, is particularly ripe for disruption from AI, experts say. Tasks that require human-to-human interaction or some element of creativity are likely to be safer. “Pattern recognition in general is something that these technologies seem good at,” says Mark Muro, one of the authors of a recent Brookings Institution report that suggests high-paid, educated workers will be highly exposed to new AI technology. “That is a contribution to a lot of white collar activities.”

MIT economics professor David Autor says middle management positions are particularly susceptible to this new wave of automation, particularly in fields like finance and inventory management, where humans are in charge of translating data into concrete business decisions. But he also argues that displacement from machine learning is likely to create new opportunities.

“Historically, tons of new work comes into existence as a result of automation,” Autor says. “The whole industrial revolution came about as a result of the automation of artisanal tasks, but it would have been impossible for anyone at the dawn of that period to foresee where that would go.”

That optimism may come as cold comfort for the artisans of 2020: the millions of paralegals, human resource managers, IT professionals and other knowledge industry workers whose positions are prime targets for a new wave of automation. McKinsey predicts across-the-board cuts in such fields over the next decade. Some fields, like office financial support personnel, are likely to lose more than one in four positions.

Some economists predict even more dramatic changes in the coming years, including a radical shift in top-tier white collar work. Richard Baldwin of the Graduate Institute in Geneva argues that AI, coupled with outsourcing enabled by new advances in telecommunications, will sharply reduce white collar employment. He believes those twin drivers could displace professionals in elite sectors from media and finance to architecture and law, at least until people find new ways to put themselves to work.

“What we have is displacement being driven at the pace of digital technology, but job creation being driven at the pace of human ingenuity,” Baldwin says. “What I’m worried about is that job displacement driven by digital will outstrip job creation driven by ingenuity.”

Recent advancements illustrate the extent of possible change in some of society’s most illustrious professions. This month, a team of researchers announced they had created an AI algorithm that outperformed radiologists in detecting breast cancer in mammograms. Trained on tens of thousands of mammogram images, the algorithm measurably reduced both false positives and false negatives compared to human doctors. Of course, radiology involves a lot more than classifying images. With demand for radiologists surging, it’s not likely the field will die off any time soon. “AI will not replace radiologists,” says Kevin Lyman, CEO of AI radiology startup Enlitic. “But radiologists using AI will replace those who do not.”

Of course, there are winners in any mass economic reorientation. The explosion in AI development has already created thousands of high-paying jobs for those with the skill sets to design, test, and sell such systems. Hiring growth for “AI Specialists” grew by 74% annually over the past four years, according to LinkedIn data. Carnegie Mellon University, a premier school for computer science, reports a recent explosion of interest in hiring their graduates, with three times as many tech companies recruiting in 2019 compared to just three years earlier. Over the same period, the number of data analytics, information technology, and software engineering jobs posted to CMU’s recruitment portal also tripled.

Even within the tech campuses of Silicon Valley, machine learning automation may be making inroads. San Francisco-based startup Kite has developed a plugin that uses AI to offer auto-complete suggestions for coders. CEO and Founder Adam Smith predicts the technology will eventually do much more. “Instead of Kite predicting the line of code you’re currently typing, the human will just tell us what they want the piece of code to do and we’ll synthesize that code for them,” says Smith. But while coders may be working faster, he maintains that the obsolescence of software engineers is a long way off.

Even as some high-status professions face possible AI disruption, economists are generally optimistic about the future of employment. Few are predicting anything like the end of work as we know it in coming decades. The challenge, says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor of management science and information technology at MIT, is finding ways to transition people away from work where machines are outpacing humans and into jobs where they will be most needed.

“In healthcare, in childcare, cleaning the environment, in creative work, science, entrepreneurship, the arts — these are all areas where machines can’t hold a candle to humans,” he says. “We’ve got plenty of work for people to do.”

New story in Technology from Time: From Threats of Gang Rape to Islamophobic Badgering, Indian Women Politicians Face High Levels of Online Abuse, Says Report

Women politicians in India receive on average 113 problematic or abusive tweets per day, including threats and badgering, according to a report released today by Amnesty International.

The report, which analyzed 114,716 tweets directed at 95 Indian women politicians during the last Indian general election in 2019, found that 1 in 7 tweets about female politicians were abusive or problematic.

“Online abuse has the power to belittle, demean, intimidate and eventually silence women,” the report said.

While women around the world face sexist abuse online, Indian female leaders deal with nearly twice as much harassment than their counterparts in the U.K. or the U.S., according to the report.

Gender inequality remains a salient issue in India, which ranks 135 out of 187 on the Gender Inequality Index. In 2018, India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women and in recent months, violence against women has resurged. While last year’s election ushered in a record-high level of women to India’s lower house, political spheres continue to be dominated by men, who today make up 86% of the house’s representatives.

Women who do break into the male-dominated political landscape find themselves battling sexism in parliament as well as online.

“These trolls … they are going after me regularly, routinely, for my skin color, for my looks, telling me I’m not worth raping, what kind of torture and rape I should be subjected to, telling me what kind of men I should be sleeping with … and on and on and on, more and more,” Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association and member of the Communist Party of India Liberation told CNN.

For Muslim women politicians in India, the abuse is more frequent and severe. 55% of the most aggressive trolling was directed at Muslim women leaders.

“In terms of types of abuse, Muslim women received 94.1% more ethnic or religious slurs than women from other religions,” Amnesty noted.

The same is true for women from marginalized castes who are 59% more likely to face abuse.

Because there are few legal avenues for women to challenge online abuse in India, Amnesty has called on Twitter to take a leading role in regulating abuse on its platform.

The report made several recommendations for Twitter which includes sharing information on online abuse against women on a country basis, improving reporting mechanism, and providing more clarity on how the company defines, identifies, and responds to abuse.

“Twitter must reaffirm its commitment to providing a ‘safe space’ to women and marginalized communities,” Tete said. “Until then, the silencing effect of abuse on the platform will continue to stand in the way of women’s right to expression and equality and Twitter will continue to fail to keep women safe from violence and abuse.”

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Michelle Carter, woman convicted of manslaughter for urging her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself, released from jail

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Everything you may have missed from Night 2 of the Senate impeachment trial, including Adam Schiff's dire Russia warning to slee

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3 American firefighters killed in Australia air tanker crash

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Eli Manning to announce retirement after 16 seasons with New York Giants, team says

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