The world of work is changing – and that brings skills development challenges for the tertiary education sector.
Do you know how technology is changing the occupations you prepare people for?
To help my clients keep track of the changes, I periodically publish news items showing how technology is changing work in different industries and occupations. I hope you find this latest update useful to you in understanding the changes technology is bringing.
Just before we get into the serious technology/digital disruption information though – you might enjoy this low-tech automated rocking chair which knits you a hat while you sit in it….
Transport
Overwhelmingly it is the transport sector which is currently generating the most news items about technological disruption. While the rollout of driverless technology is clearly not without challenges and is proceeding more slowly than some envisaged – it’s happening in trials across Australia and across the world. If you educate people to work in this sector – it’s pretty clear ‘business as usual’ (or ‘training as usual’) will in the near future no longer be feasible.
- Comprehensive report on automation across various modes of transport by Rio Tinto (a leader in automation in Australia)
- 60 companies have permits to operate driverless cars in California. One has now been given permission to carry passengers.
- Automation is emerging as an issue for pilots ($)
- Will unmanned planes be the answer?
- Flying cars might be just over the horizon
- Sydney’s new metro trains will be driverless
- Victoria is preparing for self-driving taxis
- Driverless cars will create new jobs by 2025 ($)
- General Motors investing in extra engineers to build driverless cars ($)
- Toyota invests in Uber to jointly progress self-driving cars ($)
- People frustrated by driverless cars ($)
- Apple’s self-driving car ‘rear-ended’ during test
- Self-driving cars proving more difficult than expected ($)
- Driverless freight train hurts two in Tasmania
- World’s first autonomous train sets off in Germany
- Significant benefits expected from driverless cars in Victoria
- Australia’s first self-driving car trial in Adelaide
- Arguments against a self-driving ‘utopia’
- Zoox autonomous cars approved to offer free rides to the public
- Victoria allows driverless car trials on rural roads
- Rio Tinto launches world’s first driverless rail network ($)
- Self-flying planes could be a reality within a decade
- People attack self-driving vans in Arizona
- Food deliveries in driverless vehicles ($)
- Electric flying taxis unveiled ($)
- Why food deliveries will use autonomous cars before humans ($)
- Debates in Australia about the take-up rate predicted for driverless cars ($)
- Sydney’s first driverless train completes its first trip ($)
- Qantas builds new AI flight planning tool to save fuel and travel times
- Driverless trains in Sydney to be making regular trips by April
- Using drones to deliver medicine to remote PNG villages
- Australian automated car trials – how to avoid kangaroos ($)
- The possible future of mail delivery?
- Driverless cars to be tested on UK roads this year ($)
- Google’s Waymo is out-driving other self-driving cars
Agriculture/environment
- Robots replacing fruit pickers($)
- Robots may take over sheep shearing
- Robots versus fruit pickers on US farms
- Drones being used to plant 10,000 trees per day
- Robots saving the Amazon rainforest
- Robots tackling crown of thorns starfishes on the Great Barrier Reef ($)
- Robots and automation changing work on the farm
Assistance/personal care
- Robots which will tidy up your clothes and toys ($)
- Toyota wants to put a robot ‘friend’ in every house
- Personalised robots which follow you around (your own R2D2)
‘Blue collar’ work
- Cadbury replaces workers with machinery
- Robot bricklayer builds three-bedroom house ($)
- Micro-robots to undertake work in dangerous spaces
Creative industries
- Robots painting original artworks ($)
- Robots replacing actors in mainstream film
- Robot teaches itself chess and within hours is the world’s best player
- The robot dogs can now dance
- Deepfakes– using AI in videos
- Google’s Alpha Star beats pro-video gamers
Defence
- The unstoppable spread of lethal drones
- The need for a treaty to ban killer robots
- Chinese students being recruited to develop killer bots
Education
- Students need work experience/placements to “fight the rise of the machines”
- AI and the Internet of Things pose significant challenges to how we teach different learners ($)
- Review of three new books challenging what impact robots will have on the world of work
- Robot appears before UK Parliamentary Committee inquiry into education
Finance
- Robots taking over in the banks ($)
- NAB shifts staff profile to focus more on digital skills and announces major shift to AI ($)
- Technology changing property investment ($)
- AI will radically transform the global finance sector ($)
- Technology transforming the work of accountants
- Australian start-up digital bank given full banking licence
- Regulatory-technology (regtech) to help the finance sector achieve compliance ($)
Health
- Google is training robots to determine when sick patients will die ($)
- Australia anticipates a boom in robotic surgery ($)
- Microchip health implants are already here and becoming more prevalent
- Digital disruption in the healthcare sector ($)
- VR to help detect Alzheimer’s
- Contact lenses that turn people into a camera and provide them with health benefits
- Augmented reality to help identify brain tumours
- Big market in aged care for tech investors
- Australia’s ‘precision’ health future
- Virtual reality could help cure cancer
Hospitality
- A new fastfood store where robots make the burgers ($)
- Robots doing more advanced cooking than just making burgers ($)
- Robots running a café in Budapest
Journalism/writing
- Journalism not just impacted by digital disruption, now AI is generating ‘fake news’
- Guardian Australia’s first news story written by a robot
- Elon Musk refuses to release AI writing system for fears of its impact
- Machines quickly learning ‘natural’ language
Mining
- Autonomous mining already underway
- World’s first fully autonomous underground mine
New jobs
- Babysitting the robots – new jobs emerging but which may not last for long
- The robots will create new jobs – a glass half full view of the future ($)
- Half of all jobs are vulnerable to automation
- Technology is splitting the US workforce in two
- Hi-tech jobs of the future likely to include: flying car developer, cyber calamity forecaster and e-sports arena builder ($)
Retail and Warehousing
- More Australians are shopping online with global retailers ($)
- Australia could be facing ‘retail employment Armageddon’
- Woolworths invests $500 million in automated distribution centre ($)
- Woolworths trials ‘shop and go’ store – replacing checkouts
- Coles also invests in automated distribution centres ($)
- 3-D foot scans to enhance online shoe shopping ($)
- Online shopping growth outpacing traditional retail ($)
- Amazon triggers a ‘step change’ in Australian retail ($)
- Robot empties warehouse after accidentally opening can of bear repellent
- Augmented reality changing online shopping experience
- Computerised running shoes unveiled by Puma ($)
- Amazon hires 20,000 fewer staff for the Christmas season as a result of automation
- More on Coles’ plans for digital warehouses ($)
- Australian retailers suffering unprecedented fall in foot traffic ($)
Security
- Robot security guards on patrol at Luna Park in Sydney ($)
- Taylor Swift uses facial recognition technology on fans
Technology
- Australia’s needs 200,000 more tech experts to remain competitive ($)
- Teaching AI at ANU ($)
- Automation is creating IT jobs ($)
- Kiwis leading the way on machine learning
- Google’s push into AI (making and screening calls and taking pictures for you) ($)
- Optus cuts jobs as a result of automation and increased digitisation
- Women don’t get the benefits men do from learning to code
‘White collar’ work
- AI and Big Data transforming the staff recruitment process ($)
- IBM’s ‘Project Debater’ uses AI to debate humans: wins one debate, loses the other
- The next-generation of robot public servants
- AI replaces legal professionals
- Automation impacting on the work of middle managers ($)
- Automation key for the industrial property sector ($)
- AI will decide if you get a job interview ($)
Other issues
- Understanding human and robot interactions
- Children more susceptible to ‘peer pressure’ from robots
- Big data is watching in China
- How will we teach robots to behave? ($)
- Why do people hurt robots?
