Even the most expensively educated - Lawyers, radiologists and software designers, among others - have seen their work evaporate to India or China. Tasks that would seem to require a distinctively human capacity for nuance are increasingly assigned to algorithms, like the ones currently being introduced to grade essays on college exams.
Reader Comments - Obama and the TPP; Stop-and-Frisk; White Americans and Police Accountability; Vietnam and Anti-War History and the Ongoing Debate; Remembering Jackson State Murders; Greece, Organizing New York; Those Who Work in Customer Call Centers;
Announcements - Immigration, Work and Wages - Washington - May 21; Film Showing and Discussion - Blood Fruit - New York - May 22
The Patriot Act is a nightmare for immigrants without papers already living precarious lives of dead-end jobs, zero-hour contracts, squats, and physical danger. When a young Asian woman, alone in the U.S., meets an ex-serviceman, himself traumatized by three tours in Iraq and living in a basement flat , the two bond in a tough but brilliant first novel absent stock characters or cartoon emotionality but with a profound and intimate knowledge of life on the margins.
All of life's hopes and aggravations contained in that eight hour stretch when you don't belong to yourself
Quantum Entanglement: A Poem. Why Do We Sleep? Buffy Sainte-Marie - The Universal Soldier. Meet Jibo, a Social Robot for the Home. Immigrant America: The Worst Job In New York.
John Oliver: Dr. Oz and Nutritional Supplements. "Waiting." Morning Mood in a Copenhagen Subway. America's Koch Problem.
Thadra Sheridan narrates the experience of waiting morning restaurant tables. Filmed by Jamie DeWolf. Score courtesy of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Driverless cars are safer than human-driven ones. Computers can predict Supreme Court decisions better than legal scholars. What’s next?
"The Second Machine Age," by MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, has gotten a lot of attention for its bold predictions of a forthcoming giant leap forward in the kinds of tasks that smart machines (robots) will be capable of performing. This could have a major impact on the nature of work, the number of jobs, the kinds of jobs, and the kind of society we will have in the future.
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