Posts tagged robots
Do More Powerful Unions Generate Better Pro-Worker Outcomes?
May 15, 2025 // Unionization is generally associated with higher wages for lower-skilled unionized workers.[37] However, when unionized sectors set higher wages, excess workers shift to nonunionized sectors, increasing the labor supply and lowering wages for lower-skilled nonunion workers.
Commentary: The Hollywood Strikes Stopped AI From Taking Your Job. But for How Long?
December 28, 2023 // The “learn to code” crowd has all new ammo. Even Biden’s executive order was clear about the fact that the US government wanted to attract the best and brightest in the field. But that’s job creation, not job displacement. New technologies create jobs all the time, but with AI, some of those jobs pay pennies. What’s more, AI can also ask you to train it to do your job before picking up your tools. Going forward, the likelihood that AI will displace many entry-level jobs while creating a few highly skilled gigs seems high. The biggest questions in AI right now nearly all revolve around what these machines are learning from people, whether it’s human skill or human bias.
Chipotle testing robots to make bowls, salads
October 6, 2023 // Eventually, Namasivayam expects that a certain percentage of restaurants — maybe 30% — will continue to have human servers and be considered more luxurious, while the rest will lean more heavily on robots in the kitchen and in dining rooms. Economics are on the side of robots, he said; the cost of human labor will continue to rise, but technology costs will fall.
Will AI Benefit or Harm Workers?
August 25, 2023 // Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI)—particularly generative AI products such as ChatGPT, which had 100 million monthly active users in just two months—have resurfaced headlines of robots taking jobs. While the scale of disruption caused by the adoption of AI in the workplace remains unknown, the developers and users of AI should consider the impact this has on workers. Moreover, policymakers also have the capacity to shape the ways in which AI will affect workers—either through their action or inaction. Responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by AI, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently launched a SAFE Innovation Framework that named security, including worker security, a key component of his policy objectives. Alongside this, the Biden administration is also in the process of developing its National AI Strategy—which, as the Center for American Progress has previously called for, must contain a plan to address economic and job impacts from the use of AI.
Short-staffed hotels are hiring robots — and labor unions are pushing back
July 6, 2022 // A handful of hotels across the US – from the Mandarin Oriental in Boston to a Holiday Inn Express in Redwood City, Calif. – have begun turning to robots to provide guest services usually performed by human employees. Labor unions don’t find the idea of robots working at a hotel funny, much less robot jokes. Organizers fear the budding army of automatons, which currently numbers at least 200 nationwide, is threatening to grow and replace dues-paying members. The issue is bubbling up in the hospitality industry even as it has lately sparked division in other sectors amid a nationwide labor shortage. That includes talks between port operators and West Coast dock workers whose labor contract expired on July 1. army of automatons, Relay Robotics, American Hotel & Lodging Association, Vaughn Davis, Dream Hollywood, Bear Robotics, Luma Hotel, non-union hotels, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Boston, Hawaii, Rich Maroko,