Google Announces $1 Billion Initiative to Prepare Workers for Automation
10/16/2017
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Tucker Carlson has opined, “Google is the most powerful company in the history of the world” which sounds about right, yet the company’s leftist slant is noticeable in the speech it chooses to censor.

So it is a welcome change from the parade of bad behavior for Google to dip its corporate toe into the do-gooder field — or perhaps it is looking for some positive publicity for a change since America has fallen out of love with tech companies.

Whatever the reason, a major project to prepare people for the digitized automated workplace of the near-future is a very important thing to do, particularly when Washington remains asleep at the switch about the revolutionary changes to work.

The forecast of tech experts is rather dire: they have warned that the automated future will include massive job loss — why isn’t that a concern of the nation’s leaders? Oxford researchers forecast in 2013 that nearly half of American jobs were vulnerable to machine or software replacement within 20 years. Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi believes that in 30 years humans will become largely obsolete, and world joblessness will reach 50 percent. The Gartner tech advising company believes that one-third of jobs will be done by machines by 2025. The consultancy firm PwC published a report earlier this year that forecast robots could take 38 percent of US jobs by 2030. Forrester Research Inc. has a more optimistic view, that there will be a net job loss of 7 percent by 2025 from automation.

Bye bye, barista! Your next cappuccino may not be served by a human.

America certainly needs a tech-trained workforce. But there will be fewer jobs overall which indicates that Washington’s current policy of importing over a million legal immigrants annually needs to be retired as outdated. In fact,

Automation makes immigration obsolete.
For more info on the jobs program, check out Google’s thorough explanatory page Grow with Google.
Google to give $1 billion to nonprofits and help Americans get jobs in the new economy, USA Today, October 12, 2017

Woz U and Grow with Google both hope to make tech education more accessible. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

SAN FRANCISCO — Google will invest $1 billion over the next five years in nonprofit organizations helping people adjust to the changing nature of work, the largest philanthropic pledge to date from the Internet giant.

The announcement of the national digital skills initiative, made by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Pittsburgh, Pa. Thursday, is a tacit acknowledgment from one of the world’s most valuable companies that it bears some responsibility for rapid advances in technology that are radically reshaping industries and eliminating jobs in the U.S. and around the world.

Pichai’s pitstop in an old industrial hub that has reinvented itself as a technology and robotics center is the first on a “Grow with Google Tour.” The tour that will crisscross the country will work with libraries and community organizations to provide career advice and training. It heads next to Indianapolis in November.

“The nature of work is fundamentally changing. And that is shifting the link between education, training and opportunity,” Pichai said in prepared remarks at Google’s offices in Pittsburgh. “One-third of jobs in 2020 will require skills that aren’t common today. It’s a big problem.”

Google will make grants in its three core areas: education, economic opportunity and inclusion. Already in the last few months, it has handed out $100 million of the $1 billion to nonprofits, according to Pichai.

The largest single grant — $10 million, the largest Google’s ever made — is going to Goodwill, which is creating the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator. Over the next three years Goodwill, a major player in workforce development, aims to provide 1 million people with access to digital skills and career opportunities. Pichai says 1,000 Google employees will be available for career coaching.

In all, Google employees will donate 1 million volunteer hours to assist organizations like Goodwill trying to close the gap between the education and skills of the American workforce and the new demands of the 21st century workplace, Pichai said.

The announcements, which drew praise from state and local politicians including Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, come as Google scrambles to respond to revelations that accounts linked to the Russian government used its advertising system to interfere with the presidential election.

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