Posted to The Age (24/7/2015) on 25/7/2015 at 9:23AM
Commenting on "The Productivity Commission's figures and the good news they didn't want us to know"
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/the-productivity-commissions-figures-and-the-good-news-they-didnt-want-us-to-know-20150724-gijnib.html#ixzz3gutgbBkZ
The decline in utility usage and hence productivity is due to closure of large manufacturers which were hungry power users. Certain sectors may increase in productivity due to outsourcing to contractors locally and overseas.
The greatest concern is that "intelligent" machines can replace a lot more human labour, and soon even in the labour intensive service industries like hospitality and aged care. Automated kitchen with minimum number of chefs and cooks, and personal care robots are in the pipeline.
Remote diagnosis and operations by medical specialists, online education, heuristic forensic auditing, etc can all be done via advanced technology, but the high throughput rather the output are achieved with minimum use of human labour and costly brick-and-mortar expenses.
Commenting on "The Productivity Commission's figures and the good news they didn't want us to know"
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/the-productivity-commissions-figures-and-the-good-news-they-didnt-want-us-to-know-20150724-gijnib.html#ixzz3gutgbBkZ
The greatest concern is that "intelligent" machines can replace a lot more human labour, and soon even in the labour intensive service industries like hospitality and aged care. Automated kitchen with minimum number of chefs and cooks, and personal care robots are in the pipeline.
Remote diagnosis and operations by medical specialists, online education, heuristic forensic auditing, etc can all be done via advanced technology, but the high throughput rather the output are achieved with minimum use of human labour and costly brick-and-mortar expenses.