Brian Merchant
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Why Self-Checkout Is And Has Always Been The Worst
Automation is often presented as an inexorably advancing force, whether it’s ushering in a threat to jobs or a promise of increased leisure or larger profits. We’re made to imagine the robots rising, increasingly mechanised systems of production, more streamlined modes of everyday living. But the truth is that automation technology and automated systems very…
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How Google, Microsoft, And Big Tech Are Automating The Climate Crisis
In a deal that made few ripples outside the energy industry, two very large but relatively obscure companies, Rockwell Automation and Schlumberger Limited, announced a joint venture called Sensia. The new company will “sell equipment and services to advance digital technology and automation in the oilfield,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Yet the partnership has…
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Someone Needs To Tell Trump About Automation
The first substantive claim President Donald Trump made in his second State of the Union address concerned what is perhaps his favourite non-Wallean topic: blue-collar jobs. If there are two professions that Trump has awkwardly and effusively embraced during his tenure as president, it’s coal and manufacturing — you know, salt-of-the-earth jobs. Manly jobs. American…
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Automation Software That Helped Consulting Firm Cut 40,000 Jobs Is Reportedly Now For Sale
Over the last five years, the global management consulting company Accenture has developed proprietary automation software called the SynOps platform that it says has helped it cut 40,000 jobs within the company.