Month: April 2018

Robots Coming for Our Jobs? – Not So Fast

Reassuring News on Automation and Employment?

A recent study led by Melanie Arntz, acting head of the labor markets research department at the Center for European Economic Research,*  addressed the specter of massive unemployment due to automation.  It concluded that the risks of robots taking our jobs has been exaggerated.  Looking forward 10-20 years, it revises downward the estimates of job losses in the U.S. from 38% to 9%.  As we know, doomsayers (such as I) have forecast job losses more like 50% by 2040.

Here’s a link to the study, where you can download a free .pdf: Revisiting the Risk of Automation

The paper, released in July 2017, is chock-full of jargon and hairy statistical equations, but the thrust of it is commonsensical: scary scenarios of massive job losses** fail to take into account what the authors call “the substantial heterogeneity of tasks within occupations” [emphasis mine] “as well as the adaptability of jobs in the digital transformation.” (I take this language from the abstract, which nicely encapsulates the study and findings in the nine pages that follow.)

These findings stem from an approach that distinguishes between occupation-level work and  job-level work.

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Some “Good” Environmental News: Tigers Again

All Is Not Lost

To seek good environmental news nowadays feels like seeking fragments of Earth-friendly flotsam bobbing on  toxic seas of human depredation of our living world.  But at times glimmers of hope help ward off despair.

Herewith three glimmers from the world of tigers:

First, a survey, announced in 2016, found wild tiger numbers up worldwide for the first time in a century.  See Survey finds tiger numbers up 2010-2016

(It’s sad indeed that we have to consider tiger numbers in the three-to-four thousands as a success, when at the beginning of the last century the number the tiger population was estimated at 100,000.)

Note there are six existing subspecies of tiger (according to National Geographic), of which there are stunning pix and capsule descriptions to be found here.

“Subspecies” are populations of tigers that are separated by geographic range and/or morphology; all can viably interbreed, but they do not cross paths.  Bengal tigers—the ones you’re most likely to see in a zoo—make up about 70% of the aggregate number of wild tigers. With the other 30% split up among the remainder, the risk that any single subspecies could get wiped out is great.  Indochinese and South China tigers are especially imperiled.

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Electrical Energy Generation: More Inconvenient Truth

It is with great trepidation that I am coming out of the closet on energy generation policy, because my position rubs a lot of greens the wrong way.  One ex-friend stopped talking with me on account of it. But this has to be said, because the CO2 emissions problem is becoming increasingly dire. Unfortunately, one belief strongly held by many greens is simply, and dangerously, mistaken.

I advocate nuclear power.  65% of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science support nuclear power.  See:Pew poll of AAAS members

That’s quite a switch from my anti-nuclear position five years ago.  Then, browsing through the new release science section at Barnes & Noble, I happened to pick up a book by Michael H. Fox, Why We Need Nuclear Power.  Michael H. Fox is professor emeritus of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University. Given his area of study—principally, the effect of radiation on biological tissue—I figured this guy might have something significant to say about radiation, nuclear energy, human health, and climate change. He did. His explanations of what ionizing radiation does and does not do to the body, and how the body repairs itself, were eye-openers. I recommend his book for those seeking scientific facts, rather than gross exaggerations, concerning the health hazards of radiation.

What Fox said turned me around 180 degrees in my thinking about nuclear energy.  Once you start questioning anti-nuclear dogma, you soon find out that there are many people with strong environmental credentials who support nuclear power—not that they (most of them, anyway) love it, but they see it as a practical necessity in the fight against CO2 pollution. For a taste of their view, check out this piece in the Washington Post (if you are barred by a paywall, let me know in the comments and I’ll write you a summary): environmentalists, nuclear energy, and climate change

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Pianistic Thunder: Bossenbroek, Thomas, Beethoven

21st Century Classical Music Thrives, Thunderously
Elijah Bossenbroek

When Elijah Bossenbroek’s “I Give Up” obtruded on one of my usually tranquil Pandora background music stations, I was jolted, amazed, thrilled, thunderstruck . . . and secondarily subjected to a wave of nostalgia for classical piano music.

(My apologies to readers who do not usually warm to classical music, but I do urge you to give a listen to Bossenbroek and maybe the others if you like him. They are all short—the Beethoven is the longest at 6:47. They are best played loud; I advise donning headphones. )

Without further adieu, I recommend three YouTube videos of Bossenbroek’s “I Give Up”  (The title is a bit cryptic, but apparently has something to do with giving up the mundane and petty concerns that distract and clutter the soul.) Comments follow the videos.

(Addendum June 30: After listening to “I Give Up” about 70 times (literally!) I highly prefer OPTION THREE below (VikaKim), not just because of the visuals of her keyboard wizardry, which are great. VikaKim’s interpretation, especially near the end, emphasizes the most brilliant elements in a way that Bossenbroek’s himself does not.  (IMHO)

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