David Wiegel

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Human-vs-robot

Jeopardy is “a quiz on the television in which players are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and mush phrase their responses in the form of questions” (Wikipedia, 2016). 5 years ago IBM’s supercomputer Watson triumphed over the two best Jeopardy players in the world. How did IBM win this challenge? Watson had access to more than 4 terabyte of data, including all information on Wikipedia. More challenging was the fact that Watson had to reveal patterns and relationships across this big amount of data. In addition, Watson had to be able to understand questions that humans ask and provide answers that humans can understand as well (Techrepublic, 2013).

How is this relevant to the future of work? For the past decades, robots have been used to perform simple work jobs. However, the future holds more promise for the evolution of robots. In matter of fact, robots are climbing up the corporate ladder and performing jobs we would have never expected them to perform. Think about Watson, if Watson could reveal the patterns and relationships within the Wikipedia, he can also reveal all the patterns and relationships within the law books and case laws. What does this mean for jobs of lawyers?

By the time you read this blog, you probably have read a news article that was written by a reporter-robot as well (Wired, 2015). Large players in the fast-food industry have already developed an automated ‘hamburger flipper’, that can put fast-food workers out of their jobs (Techsider, 2016). And in most supermarkets robots have already (partly) replaced cashiers. A study, conducted by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne (2013), puts 47% of the existing jobs in the United States at ‘high risk’ due to the robotization. Robotization is the automation of a system or process by use of a robotic device (Wikitionary, 2016)

What holds the future for us? Most likely, there will be much less work. Amazon is already experimenting with a 30-hours work week (CNBC, 2016). In the future, we must learn to deal with more leisure time and less work. This probably will result in people earning less money. Do you like the current developments? I do not know whether I should be hopeful or frightened about the future. What do you think?

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ibm-watson-the-inside-story-of-how-the-jeopardy-winning-supercomputer-was-born-and-what-it-wants-to-do-next/

https://www.wired.com/2015/03/future-news-robots-writing-audiences-one/

http://www.techinsider.io/momentum-machines-is-hiring-2016-6

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robotization

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/16/why-amazon-and-other-companies-are-trying-30-hour-workweeks.html

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Airbnb was launched in 2008 in the US and has grown extremely fast. At this moment the company is active in 192 countries, 33.000 cities and has more than 2 million listings (Airbnb.com, 2016). Ever since the release of Airbnb, there has been a lot of debate going on about the negative and positive impacts of the website. This blog will discuss some of the greatest advantages and disadvantages of Airbnb.

One of the greatest advantages Airbnb creates, is a way of saving money for travelers. Airbnb is in fact much cheaper than the average hotel and makes it much easier to travel to foreign cities (Busbud.com, 2016). Another great advantage is that house owners can make a little extra money by renting out their house. So far so good!

More and more often, there are terrifying stories on the news about owners and guests being attacked in unsafe Airbnb residences. Also complete houses have been destroyed by overnight guests. In a city in Canada a house got completely destroyed during a ‘drug-induced orgy’ with an estimated cost of damage of $50.000 (Mashable.com, 2015). Although Airbnb has covered the cost for this ‘orgy’, Airbnb has not found a proper solution to guarantee more safety for guest and hosts.

Furthermore, houses are being bought with the sole purpose of renting it out on the website and this is changing entire neighborhood dynamics. This also causes house prices to rise in certain parts of the city. Some house-owners even stated that they were forced out of their house by commercial Airbnb house-hosts, also called ‘super-hosts’. Even more frightening is that these “super-hosts” generate almost 40% of all revenue in certain cities (Skift.com, 2016). These type of hosts often ignore taxes. In fact, Airbnb is facing tax issues in almost every country and has not been able to solve this problem so far.

Airbnb has created many advantages for house owners and travelers, although some people might argue that the world was better off without Airbnb. What do you think, does the advantages created by Airbnb outweigh the disadvantages?

Sources:
https://www.airbnb.com/about/about-us
https://www.busbud.com/blog/airbnb-vs-hotel-rates/
http://mashable.com/2015/04/30/house-destroyed-airbnb-renters/#o2uCANCGQmqM

Study: Airbnb Super Hosts Generate 39% of Revenue in Major Markets

Rise of the robots

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The negative effects of Airbnb

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