Over time globalisation has allowed us to access many more goods and services, mainly through the deregulation of trade which led to increased competition and lower prices. Technology has become an increasingly more feasible, accessible and cost worthy investment for many companies, this has been facilitated by the decreasing cost of technology as transportation and manufacturing has overall became cheaper. Therefore, incentivising businesses to opt for technology instead of human labour.
Already in Australia businesses invest 216 million dollars yearly into automation, within the next three years this figure is expected to rise to 860 million dollars. Clearly using technology in business has numerous advantages, the most significant of
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Recently, many more Australians have found themselves jobless as robots and heartless machines replaced them, and it is predicted that this trend is set to continue. Research has shown that in a mere eight years, 40 percent of Australian jobs could be lost to machines, which equates to roughly 5 million jobs, it’s even been dubbed" a new kind of industrialisation". the effects of automation on the labour force are obviously large scale. Remote companies are most at risk in Australia as they have a high likelihood of experiencing a 60% job loss. Predictions state that in the next 10 to 15 years, 70% of companies are expected to go digital. This is already evident in some sectors such as banking, with the use of internet banking and ATM’s as well as in supermarkets using self-serve checkouts, and at airports with the vast majority of airlines switching to self-service check in kiosks. The high rates of productivity that machines have make them so much cheaper. One example of this is the fact that a bricklaying robot can lay 1000 bricks an hour, in comparison the average bricklayer can only achieve half of this amount in the same time
Rather success will go to those who innovate in the organization,optimization, and customization of the process of getting work done with bots and machines”(Kelly Page.310), therefore, big business will have to worl hard towards collaberating with robots in order to maintain a successful business and for those who are starting out will have to work as hard to become successful in the robot industry.
Advances in technology has brought many benefits but also problems. The use of new technology creates moral and ethical problems and conflicting attitudes in society. The complexity of the issues and the pace with which technology changes mean that legislators have difficulty making laws that can keep in control of these changes.
Technology is always changing and more than ten million tons of electronics are made each year. Each changing how the world and people think every single day. Multimedia has revolutionized the way from how we produce movies to making a home cooked meal, but there is also a bad side of multimedia. In Australia 1.6 million computers are thrown away, 1.8 million are in storage and 5.3 million are just sitting unused on shelves and gathering dust. In 2007, 26.9 million TV’s were thrown away and only 6.3 million of them were recycled.
Some of the key sectors in Australia is retail, fishing, education and training, construction and transport. In 2016, the retail market in Australia is currently in a downfall state with self-service checkouts taking over human workers due to them having a better return on investment whereas in the 1990s, it was a flourishing and rising employer due to the increases in the amount of shops being opened and because there were more spenders. This is shown by retail trades’ employment increase of approximately 18% from 1989-1999. Another example is in the transport sector; this sector is on the brink of being taken over by artificial intelligence (self-driving vehicles) within the next few years. Currently, there are already some cars on the road which are fully automated such as Google’s self-driving car which can drive relatively safely as shown in the many test trials for the car. Meanwhile, in the 1990s it was a fully manual service with human drivers driving the car; it was also a increasing employer (from 1989-1999 it increased
It is apparent that there have been significant advances in technology over the past thirty years. In the 1987 the first mobile phone was launched, with only 4% Australians actually owning one compared to 98% in 20162. It’s no secret that technology forever growing phenomenon however, during the 1980s it was not part of youth’s daily life. Rather teenagers passed time by “…going out to coffee shops with friends or participating in sporting activities” in comparison,”…97% of youths were using the internet/ soggcial media in their everyday lives – their lifestyle, their productivity and the ways they interact with their family, friends, education and their workplaces”2..
Not only is there internet, many companies also have intranet, which are a private information network within the company. The mix of telecommunicating and intranet increase communication and information knowledge between members of an organization to also increase productivity. Automation is the automatically controlled operation of a process, system, or equipment by mechanical or electronic devices. The two major reasons for automation is speed and better service. In some capital equipment items, Canada takes six to twelve months to make, where Japan takes six to twelve weeks. (Schwind, 2010, p. 10) This is a major challenge that Canada must face. The service factor is continuous. A machine is programed to do the same exact operation over and over to ensure quality and effectiveness, where as a human might make an error on one or more areas of the operation. Another challenge with technology and automation is cost. Machines are expensive and not all companies can afford the high-tech equipment, and therefore must rely on manual labour.
1. Describe what the reasons could be for Australia wanting to contribute to the development of CCS while developing countries such as India and China continue to build power stations but are not at the forefront of CCS.
It can’t be denied that the technological age has had a profound influence on essentially every industry and profession of the world, and while these developments have exponentially beneficial to industries such as modern medicine, fields such as the legal system are struggling to adequately adapt – and continue adapting- to the constantly advancing technological world. Consequently, Australian legal practitioners – new and old – are facing the question of whether the evolution of technology has become so far advanced that the current legislations regarding law, technology and how it is used have become inappropriate and inequitable. (Horten, 2014)
Disruptive technology brings about many opportunities for both innovation and productivity outputs, however it can also be a risk. It includes developments that create substantial change across the economy for most people and businesses, the impact of which causes significant costs to adjust to due to capital being made obsolete and workers becoming underutilised. Clayton Christensen is considered to be the world’s top expert on the concepts of disruption innovation and technology and according to him the ‘introduction of digital disruption offers a better alternative to the present approach for solving customer problems’. Digital disruption is redefining the norm, changing both markets and competitors around the world. Whilst it can be a positive change for
Over the past century we have seen a number of technological achievements that have improved the living standards in Australia. With inventions ranging from the television to the affordable car, all these achievements have come together to make the modern country Australia which many call "the lucky country". There are three main technological advancements that were pivotal during post WW2 in making the country that we know today.
Over time our lives seem to have become more and more integrated with our technology. Some may say that this is a very bad thing because this change may result in the loss of jobs for millions of people. Jobs such as, cashiers, bankers, legal assistants, and maybe even taxi drivers. The future may appear bleak at first, but the truth of the matter is that robots taking over our simple and automatable jobs just mean that our jobs can evolve with the technology. A very similar thing happened during the industrial revolution when technologies were developed that massively increased the efficiency and yield of farming. This in turn led to a vast increase of food in the country which led to a lesser need for everyone to be a farmer. With a massive amount of food, former farm workers, and advanced technology, a business of mass production and manufacturing began. The loss of jobs due to technology led to a
However, this study might help in determining improvement priority based on IT business value. It is likely that the automational might be the most prioritised business value, followed by informational and transformational. This can be seen from the Figure 19 that automational has the biggest number of companies in total of three lowest ranks of alignment maturity level. In order to improve automational business value, some studies (Mooney et al., 1996; Fox and Hietanen, 2007) suggest to utilise information technology as substitution of manual operation by labour. Indeed, they believe that this value might help in productivity improvements, labour savings and cost reductions.
In a recent study(pdf), economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They conclude that each additional robot reduced employment in a given commuting area by 3-6 workers, and lowered overall wages by 0.25-0.5%. (Kopf)
Technology as a whole increases productivity and allows for humans to accomplish more tasks while using an equal or less amount of time and energy. Technology lessens the energy consumption of tasks in both the workforce and the daily activities of the common man. Communication has been affected greatly by technology and is now more accessible and powerful. Information is stored and retrieved at exponentially growing rates. Workers are now able to accomplish their tasks much faster. Technology does not make people lazy, it instead allows for them to complete more tasks and allows for them to be more productive individuals.
In the field of education, there has also been a large increase in the use of technology. More and more colleges and universities are offering classes that are online and it is no longer unusual for students to take courses online. Some colleges even offer whole degrees that can be achieved solely online. Even in schools for younger students, there has been an increase in the use of technology. It is very common for students to be issued a tablet or an IPad for their classes (Ramey.)