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Robophobia And The Future of Jobs: This Time It’s Not Different

Mechanical machines started displacing laborers two centuries ago. Thinking machines started displacing knowledge workers 70 years ago. In 1961, President Kennedy announced the creation of a new agency on employment precisely to address the problem of “automation … replacing men.” But despite the fact that jobs, productivity and wealth have all expanded over the long run, this time, we’re told, it’s different. Mills shows with examples and forecasts that the problem with job creation today is not robots but bureaucrats; if the latter will get out of the way, the former will continue to propel history’s long and positive trend.

The Future of Energy Is Not What You Think: Megatrends & The Pursuit of Magic

The world’s smartphones are on track to use more electricity than the country of Japan. Energy is not a discretionary purchase, but vital for everything from powering Cloud networks to cars, from growing food to growing silicon. Mills, co-author of the iconic energy book, “The Bottomless Well”, illuminates the intersections of technology trends and the surprising changes coming. The future is no longer about enough energy—supplies from all sources are practically unlimited—but about meeting the demand for reliability and security in the face of escalating physical and cyber threats. As Bill Gates once said about energy, the only thing that’s really different today is “software.”

Why The Technology Revolution Has Just Begun & The Next Big ‘Thing’ Is Everything

Economists say America is facing long-term stagnation with no prospect for repeating the kind of transformative economic growth that followed the industrial revolution. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs and innovators are actually in the midst of engineering the next revolution. We see the evidence in robots, drones, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, 3D printers, precision medicine, virtual reality and the Cloud. Mills reveals why the structure of the underlying technology changes are far-reaching, bullish for America and far more exciting than the anemic idea of a new “industrial revolution.”

The Future of Transportation: An Antidote To Tesla Derangement Syndrome

Forecasters claim the world is facing “peak driving” because of services like Uber and, soon, self-driving cars. Combine this with the rush to promote electric cars and, supposedly, “peak oil use” is in sight too. Mills maps out how technology does promise a future of hyper-personalized ‘mass’ transit with less congestion and pollution – but that future will use more barrels of oil, right along with more batteries. Mills also unbundles the technologies that now make real the prospect for fuel-hungry Jetson-type personal aircraft.

Oil: The Once And Future Fuel & The Emergence Of America As An Energy Superpower

Despite billions of dollars spent to find alternatives, global transportation and trade today are more dependent on petroleum than at any time in history. If oil didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. And now, despite serial predictions over the past century that petroleum supplies would soon be exhausted, technology has produced an era of serial gluts. Mills’ analysis reveals how America is at the center of that technological revolution, and has emerged as an energy superpower with far-reaching economic and geopolitical ramifications, causing ripples from Riyadh to Moscow.

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