Automation and COVID-19

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/20/us-economy-changes/


The same is true of the rise of automation during the pandemic. As companies looked for ways to reduce the number of people in an office, hotel or factory, they turned to robots and telework. They invested heavily in technology, which economists predict could result in one of the biggest boosts to worker productivity in years. This higher productivity forecast is one of the reasons the McKinsey Global Institute says the United States could see an economy that’s $3,500 per person bigger by 2024. But those gains are unlikely to be evenly distributed. Automation also has downsides, especially layoffs for workers without college degrees.






The global carbon incentive idea

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-carbon-incentive-for-reducing-emissions-by-raghuram-rajan-2021-05

The economic solution is simple: a global carbon incentive (GCI). Every country that emits more than the global average of around five tons per capita would pay annually into a global incentive fund, with the amount calculated by multiplying the excess emissions per capita by the population and the GCI. If the GCI started at $10 per ton, the US would pay around $36 billion, and Saudi Arabia would pay $4.6 billion.


Gerd Leonhard
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Humans and machines

https://www.wired.com/story/peanut-the-waiter-robot-is-proof-that-your-job-is-safe



Trying to automate a process from soup to nuts, it's just a lot harder than dividing the labor and finding places where the humans can play to their strengths, and the machines play to their strengths,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University. (For robots, that’s literal strength, plus their ability to handle repetitive tasks with extreme consistency. Humans are better at virtually everything else.) “If you have that kind of division of labor,” Brynjolfsson continues, “you're probably going to have a more nimble assembly line, more overall productivity, and more ability to be flexible.”

Managing extreme risks

  • A global treaty on risks to the future of humanity, modeled on earlier efforts around nuclear weapons and climate change, could at least raise the international profile of extreme risks.
  • Most importantly, the report calls for the creation of "chief risk officers" — officials empowered to examine government policy with an eye toward what could go very wrong.




Gerd Leonhard
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‘Change is Coming.’ Activists Just Scored Big Wins Against ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell

“And while many energy companies have been willing to reduce emissions in their own operations, they have avoided committing to reducing Scope 3 emissions because it could one day ultimately meaning selling less of their core product rather than just producing it more efficiently.”

‘Change is Coming.’ Activists Just Scored Big Wins Against ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell
https://time.com/6051404/exxonmobil-board-chevron-shell/
via Instapaper

Stakeholder capitalism

Previously a fringe view, the publication of a New York Times op-edby Milton Friedman in 1970 – “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” – moved this perspective toward the mainstream. It gained further momentum within academia following a number of articles by Harvard Business School’s Michael Jensen, who offered theoretical and empirical support for Friedman’s doctrine. For example, in one influential paper, Jensen and Kevin Murphy of the University of Southern California estimated that the average CEO’s pay increased by only $3.25 for every $1,000 of value he created, pointing to the need for an even tighter link between executive compensation and shareholder value.

Total decarbonisation

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/climate/climate-change-emissions-IEA.html

Nations around the world would need to immediately stop approving new coal-fired power plants and new oil and gas fields and quickly phase out gasoline-powered vehicles if they want to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change, the world’s leading energy agency said Tuesday.


Gerd Leonhard
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