Give your organisation an injection of inspiration on digitisation

As I give talks on future and technology—or rather before I give my talks—I often meet people saying they feel that we're entering a time of big changes, and yet they seem to have difficulties in defining exactly what this change is. They might refer to the fast uptake of smartphones, tablets and social media, but...

Jobs will go away… but not work!

With digitization and automation jobs will disappear, but we'll continue to work anyway. That is what several experts I have been talking to believe. They also think that distribution of wealth in society could become the biggest challenge ahead. None of the experts I have been talking to about jobs and the future is opposed to the picture that...

Google’s goal: To control the world’s data

In 2013, Google acquired eight companies specializing in robotics, and many have asked what Google will do with all those robots. The eighth company wa s Boston Dynamics, which through funding by DARPA has developed a couple of high-profile animal-like robots and the two-legged humanoid Atlas. A week after that acquisition, Google became the world's...

Exploring ethics for machines

“If we admit the animal should have moral consideration, we need to think seriously about the machine.” That's how Northern Illinois University Professor David Gunkel puts it, discussing whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines that we are devloping can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral treatment. In his new book The...

Will robots beat human champions in soccer by 2050?

As you might know,  the official goal of the robotics competition Robocup is to field a team of robots capable of winning against the human soccer World Cup champions by 2050. At Nyteknik.se we recently made a poll among our readers – most of them professional engineers – whether this is likely to happen or not....

Five industries where 2 billion jobs will be lost

Most people have understood that the music and the movie industries have been profoundly changed by the internet. Fewer realize that this was just the beginning. Futurist Thomas Frey recently talked on how 2 billion jobs will disappear by 2030 and also outlined five areas in which this will happen: 1. Power Industry 2. Automobile transportation 3. Education...

Humanoids getting recent mainstream interest

"Frank & Robot" is a new movie at the Sundance Film Festival 2012 in Park City, Utah. It's directed by Jake Schreier and is about an old ex-thief being taken care of by a robot nurse. And a couple of days ago the first episode of the Science Fiction TV Series "Äkta människor" (Real People), produced...