{"id":24649,"date":"2014-03-12T19:33:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T00:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=24649"},"modified":"2014-03-12T19:33:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T00:33:13","slug":"march-12-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=24649","title":{"rendered":"March 12, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The robots are taking over<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When Minneapolis attorney William Greene faced the task of combing through 1.3 million electronic documents in a recent case, he turned to a so-called smart computer program. Three associates selected relevant documents from a smaller sample, \u201cteaching\u201d their reasoning to the computer. The software\u2019s algorithms then sorted the remaining material by importance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to get the information we needed after reviewing only 2.3 percent of the documents,\u201d said Greene, a Minneapolis-based partner at law firm Stinson Leonard Street LLP.
…<\/b>
The advances, coupled with mobile robots wired with this intelligence, make it likely that occupations employing almost half of today\u2019s U.S. workers, ranging from loan officers to cab drivers and real estate agents, become possible to automate in the next decade or two, according to a study done at the University of Oxford in the U.K.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese transitions have happened before,\u201d said Carl Benedikt Frey, co-author of the study and a research fellow at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. \u201cWhat\u2019s different this time is that technological change is happening even faster, and it may affect a greater variety of jobs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is exacerbated by the good old WASP work ethic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

About a dozen years ago, one of his biggest competitors started using undocumented Mexican laborers. At the time, the landscaper\u2019s firm suffered high turnover and low productivity, and finding employees to do the actual landscaping — his company’s bread and butter — was difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never had anyone come in here looking for work,\u201d he told me, on condition that I withhold his name. He found many of the Americans he has hired over the years to be unreliable and unwilling to work hard. Sometimes they quit; other times he has fired them.<\/p>\n

Gradually, he started hiring Mexican laborers. All of them were able to provide Social Security numbers, though he understood they were bogus. \u201cWe have to have paperwork on these guys,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just don\u2019t have to have it be legitimate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In not entirely unrelated news, Fischer is indicating continued expansionary monetary policy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Stanley Fischer, the nominee to be Federal Reserve vice chairman, said the world\u2019s largest economy still needs the central bank\u2019s unprecedented accommodation as joblessness remains elevated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 6.7 percent, the unemployment rate remains too high,\u201d Fischer, a former Bank of Israel governor and Citigroup Inc. vice chairman, said in remarks prepared for his confirmation hearing tomorrow before the Senate Banking Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAchievement of both maximum employment and price stability requires the continuation of an expansionary monetary policy — even though the degree of expansion is being gradually and cautiously cut back as the Fed reduces its monthly purchases\u201d of securities, said Fischer, 70.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m told I’m not employing enough regulators<\/a>, but that will change soon enough:<\/p>\n

Under NI 31-103, OBSI\u2019s membership will more than double to almost 1600 firms in the financial industry, including:<\/p>\n