Raqib Annotations

How will your own research build from, counter and compare with this text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:53am

The idea of technological equilibrium is a new idea stems from a structuralist perspective, which will help me to understand, why there is no huge organised reciprocal action by actors. This study points out to the different researchers by engineers and natural scientist to achieve human-like features of robotics. The day to day newspaper reports shows some of the other inventions, which reduced the gap between human being and robots. From the conventional system of cognitive reasoning to an understanding of emotions and ability to discrete by robots is a huge leap. The only factor which defends the automation of low skill work was its human nature along with discretion, physical and mental skills. Now, with the above mentioned technological progress, it is seriously suspectable to think of automation in low skill works too... this will help us how to understand the industrial relations from a new perspective, yet to emerge in sweatshops and informal economy.

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Describe at least three of the text’s themes or topics that are of general interest to STS scholars.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:53am

       I.            The future theme on how robotics and artificial intelligence is modified to automate upon low skilled workers are pointed out in the study.  The last heaven for labour, as it is presumed according to polarisation theories, is also going to be automated in the future. The study of this theme will give the best understanding of how this process is happening. " A much-debated question is whether today’s non-routine labour tasks could soon be automated by ongoing advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI)—see Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2017)" ()

    II.            Labour and technological equilibrium, technology after an innovation tries to maintain equilibrium, and make stability to what it achieved, I want to look into what is the response of labour towards such actions and how they defend themselves in the process of automation and job loss.

 III.            This work gives glimpses of sub-theme such as uberization and its relation to ongoing technological progress. Will help me to navigate in the study of 'uberization, it helps to understand how technology attains equilibrium after the changes.

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Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:52am

       I.            The hypothesis of routine-biased technological change (RBTC): these conceptualisations are working hypothesis of Acemoglu and Autor (2011) gives a picture of how job polarisation is happening and ultimately leads to overcrowding at the low skill level of the labour market.  The author hugely draws from this hypothesis.

    II.             Second most important literature this paper can contribute to is regarding the gig economy and especially the process of 'uberization'.

 III.            The third part of the literature he already referred and going to contribute is upon the policy domains. He argues that there are several policy domains to be identified and explored and reviewed to get a better picture of the correlation between technological progress and labour... for example, An understanding of "first policy challenge is higher investment in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education but also in non-routine social, motivational, and interaction skills that will remain difficult to automate in the near future. Importantly, these non-routine skills exist across many different occupations requiring different levels of education, including a growing number of low-paid service jobs mainly done by unskilled workers.

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Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:51am

                   I.            The empirical change in the labour market of United States: Around 1970' when the initial booming of technology, works at sectors with high-paid cognitive and low-paid manual tasks increased, on the other hand, jobs in middle-paid routinized tasks which required such skills were hit by unemployment due to technological interventions. After a small period of initial boom, "the marginal productivity and therefore investments in new technologies decrease as capital accumulates" which lead to a decrease in the demand for high-paid cognitive and middle-paid routine tasks, and an increase in low paid manual tasks and unemployment. 

                II.            Impact on education, distribution and regulation policies: The technology also impacted the educational system due to its demand for the high - skilled employees to fill the voids and smooth running. It will be interesting to look at how bachelors in technology and engineering sector were booming around this change in economic policies. The income distribution and regulation of technology also lead to the equilibrium formulated between capital, labour and technology.

Equilibrium impact upon technological process: “It is intuitive to assume that technological progress not only changes relative labour demand but also impacts on other parts of the economy. For example, in 1930 John Maynard Keynes wrote: We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come—namely, technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour. But this is only a temporary phase of maladjustment. . . . If one believes at all in the real values of life, the prospect at least opens up the possibility of benefit. (Keynes, 1930)" This shows the importance of equilibrium to be achieved for redistributing the positive consequences of correlation between labour and technology.

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What is the main argument, narrative and affect of this text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:50am

The author is trying to look at two factors emerging due to the interplay between labour and technology or skill and digitalisation. The main argument put forward by the author is a transformation of technology is having a deep impact on the labour markets. The changes are also reflected back in the labour economy relations.  Autor's hypothesis of routine-biased technological change (RBTC) assumes that technology or ‘digital capital' can cause substitution for human labour power in the middling routine tasks, which leads to an excess supply of workers with medium-skills. Those medium-skilled workers, who are displaced or thrown out from the have to find an alternative one which asks different skill requirements in the complex digital job market. Which is a result,   job polarization across the economy. In other words, the author argues that today's availability of work or employment is highly defined by the complex interplay between worker skills and digital capital in doing certain tasks.

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What three (or more) quotes capture the critical import of the text?

Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 6:50am

"[T]he paper explains how the ongoing Digital Revolution is characterized by a complex interplay between worker skills and digital capital in the workplace, and consequent changes in job mobility for workers and in output prices affecting consumer demand for goods and services. In particular, it explains how current worker–technology interactions and the equilibrium effects they entail combine to create economy-wide job polarization with winners and losers from ongoing technological progress".

"[T]he final and most recent hypothesis is that of routine-biased technological change (RBTC), embedded in the task assignment model of Acemoglu and Autor (2011). Their model works to capture two forces that are central to understanding recent human-machine interactions.

(i) Technological progress is not increasing labour productivity (as in SBTC) or best captured by a decrease in the price of capital (as in CSC). Instead, the Digital Revolution is assumed to directly replace workers doing routine and therefore codable tasks. Hence the name routine-biased technological change.

(ii) There is self-selection of workers of different skill levels (low-, medium-, and high-skilled workers) across different tasks (least, middling, and most complex tasks) according to comparative advantage, as in Roy (1951)"

"[N]ote that RBTC predicts that the Digital Revolution will lead to job polarization in employment, rather than skill-upgrading as was the case for SBTC and CSC. The process of job polarization implies that there is a u-shaped relationship between employment share changes over time and jobs (e.g. occupations with different task contents) ranked by their wage or educational attainment."

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