Robots and algorithms can now build cars, write articles, and translate texts — all work that once required a human. So what will we humans do for work? Andrew McAfee looks at recent labor data to say: We ain’t seen nothing yet.
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/26/173000457/are-droids-taking-our-jobs
Tagged with npr economics robots algorithms
The story begins in the 1920s, when the U.S. government thought blimps might be the next big thing in warfare.
The race for ever-faster trades has "absolutely no social value," says a billionaire who helped bring computers to financial markets.
Tagged with npr planet money economics algorithmic trading
The history of ideas discussed by Melvyn Bragg and guests including Philosophy, science, literature, religion and the influence these ideas have on us today.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss game theory, the mathematical study of decision-making. Some of the games studied in game theory have become well known outside academia - they include the Prisoner’s Dilemma, an intriguing scenario popularised in novels and films. Today game theory is seen as an important tool in evolutionary biology, economics, computing and philosophy. Melvyn Bragg is joined by Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick; Andrew Colman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester and Richard Bradley, Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Tagged with bbc in our time game theory psychology economics politics
What happened when two guys who sell pizza out of a window in New Orleans decided to buy a Facebook ad — and what it says about the state of social-media advertising.
You rarely see lard on menus. There aren’t shelves and shelves of it in every supermarket. In this country, we’ve sort of lost touch with the once beloved pig fat.
On today’s podcast, we ask — who killed lard? Was it Upton Sinclair? His novel, The Jungle, contained this memorable passage about the men who cook the lard:
"…and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,— sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard!"
Or should we blame William Procter and James Gamble? It was their company which created a new alternative to lard — the "pure and wholesome" Crisco.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144806987/the-friday-podcast-who-killed-lard
Economist and trend-spotter Jeremy Rifkin predicts that the evolution of energy production and distribution — from fossil fuels to more decentralized renewable energy — will transform the global economy. He joins us to discuss his latest book, "The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World."
Where have all the hitchhikers gone? That’s the question we ask in our latest podcast. Anyone who has been around long enough can observe that hitchhiking numbers have plummeted. So Freakonomics Radio set out to find the numbers on thumbers and found … well, not much. Apparently hitchhiking never qualified as an important-enough mode of the transportation sector to generate heavy-duty empirical research.
Tagged with freakonomics hitchhiking economics
An airline, the price of oil and the financialization of the global economy. On today’s show, author and former banker Satyajit Das talks about his career and the trouble with the rise of finance.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/09/30/140954343/the-friday-podcast-how-money-got-weird
Tagged with npr planet money economics
How much do parents really matter? And are we sure winners never quit and quitters never win? Stephen J. Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio and co-author, with Steven D. Levitt, of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, talks about the unexpected economics behind issues like parenthood and quitting.
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