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gravitas-ai · 4 years

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How is AI Changing the Global Economy?

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to deliver exponential growth to business firms embracing the technology. A significant segment of business firms, individuals and government bodies have already been reaping the benefits of AI and machine learning. It is evident, that AI is changing the global economy, leveraging productivity and efficiency to a substantial extent.

With most of the larger economies announcing their respective AI initiatives in the last couple of years, the global economy is yet to undergo a major change. It is necessary for these countries to plan a future, where technological, military and economic superiority largely relies on AI supremacy.

The McKinsey study, carried out to understand the role of AI in global economy, states that the AI impact may not be linear. However, it is likely to gain acceleration over time. This indicates that the early AI adopters can benefit from disproportionate rewards.

Will AI adoption create larger gaps between countries, workers and business firms?

Experts reveal that the adoption of AI will widen the digital divide in the coming years. By 2030, countries embracing AI will enjoy a strategic advantage over others. In terms of net economic benefits, these countries may be capturing an additional 20% to 25% share. This figure, for the developing nations, may be only 5% to 15%.

The early adopters of AI can enjoy double cash flow, increasing their net growth of cash flow by 6%. Presently, the countries can be categorized into four groups in terms of AI readiness.

· World leaders: The US and China are among the frontrunners in terms of activities related to AI. They are leading the industry in terms of talent, patent, investments and publications.

· Countries with strong foundations: It is evident that the developed countries are in such a position, that they can enjoy the advantages of AI. Integrating AI can help them pacify the growth in productivity. Countries like the UK, Germany, Japan, Canada, South Korea and France comes in this category. Some of the smaller yet globally connected countries like Finland, Sweden and Singapore also make their way into this list.

· Countries with moderate foundations: In these countries, the technologies lag behind that of the developed nations. Italy, Malaysia, and India, along with some other countries fall in this category. Although they lack a good foundation, they have got the power in particular aspects, around which the AI capabilities can be developed. For instance, in India, 17 million people graduates pass out each year with STEM degrees.

· Developing economies: The foundations in these economies are relatively underdeveloped. They lack infrastructure in terms of investment, capacity, digital structure and talent. Since these countries are not likely to benefit from AI, they are further likely to fall behind the developed nations.

Division of economies in terms of AI adoption rates

By 2030, AI is expected to generate an additional worldwide economic activity of $13 billion. Compared to the present day, the cumulative GDP is likely to be higher by 16% at that stage.

However, this outcome may be affected by various factors. The micro factors include the pace at which AI is adopted and the macro factors include the structure of labour market in a particular nation or global connectedness.

In terms of AI adoption and implementation, the countries can be divided into three categories:

· Front-runners: The front-runners comprise around 10% of the companies and form the early adopters. Over the next five to seven years, these countries are likely to embrace a wide range of AI applications and technologies. These countries may be capturing most of the benefits in terms of economic growth.

· Followers: The next 20% to 30% of the companies will be cautious while incorporating AI technologies. They will proceed with caution, as they will watch the front-runners benefiting from AI. However, they will exercise restraint in the process, but the companies would like to catch up.

· Laggards: Around 60% to 70% of the global business firms are not serious about AI. In the coming years, they will be unable to embrace AI. In the process, the firms will be forced to cut investments and reduce costs in order to thrive in the industry.

The economic impact of AI may be perceived only after some time

According to McKinsey’s models, the adoption of AI in the marketplace will be following the ‘S’ curve pattern. This indicates that the adoption process will have a slow start, and then a steep acceleration is likely to follow up, as technological advancements continue to take place.

Business firms, too, need to learn the incorporation process. The pattern will taper off at the late stages of the technology. As compared to the present stage and 2023, the contribution of AI will be higher by 3 to 5 times by 2030.

Artificial Intelligence, over time, will become historically transformative. However, most of the companies are in the early stages of adoption, apart from a few leading firms. Contemporary innovations, such as machine learning, have evolved in the last few years.

As a result, companies are finally implementing AI, transforming the ideas from the lab. In future, a wider deployment of AI awaits the world, in terms of self-driving cars, robotics, intelligent assistants and smart health care.

AI: A concentration of power and resource

AI has the power to automate systems and solve complicated problems. Evidently, it appears that the technology can fundamentally change the dynamics of societies and economies.

AI may have its impact on a wide range of issues. It might take years to tap the full benefits of AI. Even when the benefits come into view, AI will still continue adjusting to the world and shaping its surroundings.

It would not be wrong to consider AI to be concentration of power and resource for the future. While the world economy will see differences in the degree of adoption of AI, eventually the landscape is bound to change for the good.

This might determine the future of our civilizations. The future is likely to be largely dominated by AI, resulting in the concentration of authority in the companies and nations embracing the technology.

Aarsh, Co- Founder & COO, Gravitas AI

www.gravitas.ai

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124globalsociology · 4 years

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Saara Särmä: Art as Public Scholarship

By: Aleks Matthews

Saara Särmä:

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Saara Särmä is an activist, feminist, artist, and scholar. She has received her doctorate degree from Tampere University located in Tampere, Finland and is currently working on her postdoctoral project at the same university. She is most well known for her works; Congrats, You Have an All Male Panel, as well as her collages that tackle important global issues.

Art as a form of Scholarship:

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Särmä’s work has been particularly important in transforming the way the world views public scholarship. She produces a type of scholarship, in the form of collages and memes, that allows people to experience academia in new and more diversified ways. In fact, Särmä, herself, explains, “I think that if we want our work to be accessible to a wide audience, we need to work with issues and materials that are familiar in the everyday (e.g. various pop culture artifacts) and we need to experiment with modes of expression which could draw in different audiences” (Collage…).

Saara’s Specific Style:

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Särmä has created and expanded upon a particular style of public scholarship. She writes, “…I focus here on internet parody images as a source for studying laughter in world politics and an art-inspired methodology – collaging – I have developed for this purpose. The circulation of internet stuff and the seeming randomness of our encounters with such stuff makes it challenging to engage with such material with standard social scientific methods of inquiry” (Collage…).

Särmä uses creative forms of art to engage the world in learning about global news and politics. Particularly, in regard to her use of memes as a form of scholarship, she elaborates, “By paying attention to laughter and internet parody images and wondering what they might have to do with world politics, I have noticed that because everything circulates so fast and memes are born instantaneously, we sometimes come by a parody first and then find out what actually happened” (Collage…).

All Male Panel:

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Art as a form of scholarship allows individuals to critically think about what they are learning. Särmä’s goal is for her scholarship to function as an easy entry point to her work for those who are not familiar with academic theorizing (Junk Feminism 95). This is becoming increasingly important because most people do not have access to the academic journals that house many types of scholarship.

Through her use of memes and art to create scholarship, Särmä is able to circulate her work by relying on the spread of her graphics through the internet. For example, Särmä uses a sticker of actor, David Hasselhoff, giving a thumbs up, in her collection “Congrats, You Have an All Male Panel”. This sticker can then be circulated across the internet in order for various individuals to highlight examples of all male panels under a common tag. This is both a comedic and artistic way in which she highlights gender inequality throughout the world.

Saara’s Symbol:

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Throughout most of her works, Särmä has been working to reclaim a Finnish symbol that usually signifies female genitalia. Särmä explains, “It [the symbol] has a few names that translate directly as ‘church boat’ or ‘a spider upside down’. This figure is something that most likely young boys would rebelliously draw in their school books or as tags in various public places. In a sense, the figure I use as a prominent feature in my work can be read as a feminist symbol also to denote the communal and co-operative nature of feminist thinking and scholarship. Or rather, I have assigned it this kind of meaning through reclaiming the figure for my own use as discussed below” (Junk Feminism 92).

Särmä has been working to reclaim the meaning of this symbol (pictured above) for almost 20 years. Särmä elaborates that, “This project is similar to some feminists reclaiming the word bitch or cunt” (Junk Feminism 93). The symbol is usually the final touch that Särmä adds to her pieces and has basically become synonymous with her signature.

The Power of Laughter:

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Särmä believes that laughter is important because parody images can circulate quickly and people often come by a parody first, which leads them later to discover the true significance and meaning behind an image. Artwork acts as an avenue for access. Laughter, in particular, plays a key role in accessibility and in Särmä’s work. In fact, she states, “Laughter in its multimodal manifestations frames and constitutes the relations of ‘us’ and ‘them’. While there can be no universal definition of what is funny, it is important to pay attention to what we laugh at and how laughter is always tied up with power. Laughter can both invert and sustain power relations. Treating laughter as a political sentiment…directs attention to power hierarchies among and between political bodies in those moments when we laugh at something/someone” (Collage… 3).

Utilizing laughter, as a means of comprehending subjects (that are usually very serious), is a revolutionary technique that Särmä is legitimizing through her work. Särmä’s work contributes to a more accessible and understandable form of public scholarship. Her ideas and style embrace modern trends and help keep public scholarship relevant in today’s ever-evolving world.

Conclusion:

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Global public-scholarship can come in an array of forms and mediums. Oftentimes, when people hear the word scholarship, they automatically envision lengthy documents written by professionals that are published in peer reviewed journals. However, this is not always the case. These forms of scholarship can be inaccessible and unapproachable to a wide portion of the population.

Public scholarship encapsulates a wide range of diverse methods that can be employed to spread information through communities across the globe. Saara Särmä is a perfect example of how public scholarship can take shape through an array of forms.

#saarasärma #art #collages #allmalepanel #finland #globalsociology #publicscholarship #globalissues #accessibility

Bibliography and Additional Readings:

Adkins, Lisa and Dever Maryanne. “All Male Panel: Interview with Saara Särmä”. Australian Feminist Studies 30 (15) 2015. Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2015.1107943

Särmä, Saara. “Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics”. E-International Relations. Internet. 2015. Available: https://www.e-ir.info/2015/06/06/collage-an-art-inspired-methodology-for-studying-laughter-in-world-politics/#_ftn1

Särmä, Saara. “Congrats You Have an All Mail Final”. tumblr. Internet. Available: https://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/

Särmä, Saara. “Junk Feminism and Nuclear Wannabes”. Tampere University 2014. Available: https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/95961/978-951-44-9535-9.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

#publicscholarship #global sociology #submission #saarasarma #collages #allmalepanel #finland #art #feminism #accessibility #international relations #global issues

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Only silver lining: Carbon emissions down 25% in China as flights, industries bear coronavirus brunt - india news

China has recorded around 25% drop in Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions since the first week of February amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The spread of COVID-19 to the United States (US) and Europe has led to a significant reduction to both airline capacity utilisation and global oil demand.Experts believe that the health care crisis, which is likely to result in a significant slump in the economy but may also lead to a marginal bend in the global CO2 emissions curve, albeit briefly. The CO2 emission reduction in China is mainly due to coal consumption in the world’s most populous country’s power plants falling by 36%; coal throughput at the largest coal port declining by 29%, oil refinery utilisation capacity reducing by 34% and low output among major industrial sectors which may have decreased by a range of 15% to 40% during the same period, said the analysis published in Carbon Brief, a United Kingdom-based portal on climate change.

Every year during the Chinese New Year in February, China closes major installations, construction sites for a week leading to a reduction in energy demand but this year the usual fall in energy use has been prolonged amid no sign of a rebound.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) pollution monitoring satellites also showed a significant decrease in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations over China between February 10 and 25. “There is evidence that the change is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus,” a NASA Earth observatory analysis said. The NASA maps with NO2 values across China from January 1-20, 2020 and February 10-25 show a perceptible reduction. According to the analysis, the reduction in NO2 pollution was first recorded near Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in central China, but eventually spread across the country.“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop over such a wide area for a specific event,” Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted saying in the analysis. Similar drop in NO2 over several countries was recorded during the global economic recession in 2008. There may be a reduction in CO2 emissions globally because of the massive impact of COVID-19 on the aviation sector and business in general. According to OAG, a UK-based travel data provider, the scheduled airline capacity globally between January and April as compared to last year was 40.8 million fewer seats. OAG data also shows that scheduled air line capacity more than halved between January 20 and February 10 but it has recovered by 50% from February 24 to March 2. But Hong Kong and South Korea continue to record steep declines.According to the International Energy Agency’s oil market report for February, global oil demand has been hit hard amid the widespread shutdown of China’s economy. Demand is now expected to fall for the first time in over 10 years. “We have cut our 2020 growth forecast by 365 kilo barrels per day (kb/d) to 825 kb/d, the lowest since 2011. Lower-than-expected consumption in OECD trimmed last year’s growth to 885 kb/d,” the report has said.Data shows that the steep rise in CO2 emissions is likely to be curbed and may also bend the curve, albeit briefly. A graph by the Global Carbon Project shows CO2 emissions dropped leading to brief bends in the emissions curve during the oil crisis in the mid-19070’s and 1980, after the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 1990, during the SARs (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008.The global crises have thrown up a pattern: travel can be optimised and underlined the importance of maintaining local supply chains which can reduce global CO2 emissions. “Many of the travel restrictions in place in China have come at a tremendous human and economic cost -- people not being able to access health care, go to work among others. However, there has also been impressive adoption of video conferencing, remote working and other modern solutions in businesses, which are a real alternative to commuting and business travel. There is a possibility that once the crisis is over, we will see a permanent change in using these solutions to reduce the need to spend time, money and fossil fuels on travel,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a Finland-based lead analyst of CREA. But it is difficult to assess how the COVID-19 outbreak has impacted emissions in the US and Europe because the restrictions in these countries are nowhere close to China. “Besides the impact on flights and freight ships to and from China, the impact in the EU and the US isn’t anywhere near on the same level. Global supply chains have been affected but most of the emissions from those are in China and in countries supplying commodities to China. The measures implemented elsewhere, with the exception of those five cities in Italy, aren’t anywhere near as dramatic as those affected in China, with factories, construction sites, freight lines etc shut for weeks,” Myllvyirta added.In terms of reducing air pollution, there is a lesson, said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment. “These are crisis induced changes that people have made. The cumulative impact of economic slowdown and travel restrictions on air quality can be seen. The lesson is in the long run where we need policies to reduce travel intensity and distances to have a similar effect. The way of connecting with each other and work will have to change,” she said.“If we want a respite from the climate change mess... we need net zero emissions by the middle of this century. This is for a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius... even if we have a temporary, minor dip in CO2 emissions due to the current epidemic, it will not help,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, senior climate scientist at Climate Research Lab, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.Most analysts worry that once Beijing has weathered through the current crisis, a round of “retaliatory emissions” will follow. “So, for China, the story is: significant short term emission decline [at the expense of economic growth’, with many medium-to-long-term uncertainties, and a potential of further embracing heavy industries,” said Li Shuo, senior climate and energy policy officer at Greenpeace East Asia who is based in Beijing. Read the full article

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yverocher · 7 years

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I was tagged by @moonwich - thank you ♥

THE LAST:

1. Drink: water

2. Phone call: my dad

3. Text message: my friend

4. Song you listened to: Misfits - Descending Angel

5. Time you cried: I actually can’t remember

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: no

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: yes

8. Been cheated on: no

9. Lost someone special: yes

10. Been depressed: who knows

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: yes, unfortunately

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLORS:

12. blue

13. green

14. black

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: yes

16. Fallen out of love: no

17. Laughed until you cried: yes

18. Found out someone was talking about you: no

19. Met someone who changed you: yes

20. Found out who your friends are: yes

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: no

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: 99% of them, the other 1% consists of tumblr friends I added on fb and haven’t met IRL (yet)

23. Do you have any pets: half a cat, since my neighbour’s cat has basically moved in with us :P

24. Do you want to change your name: no

25. What did you do for your last Birthday: I went out for drinks with my brother and @bruellpferd

26. What time did you wake up: too late

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: sleeping

28. Name something you can’t wait for: the sweet embrace of death

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: last weekend

30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: to be less anxious about everything

31. What are you listening right now: my own thoughts that are revolving around tomorrow’s archaeology exam

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yep, one of the students I was tutoring is called Tom

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: myself

34. Most visited Website: tumblr

LOST QUESTIONS. I JUST PUT IN RANDOM INFO ABOUT ME

35. Mole/s: several

36. Mark/s: several, for example a scar on my forehead

37. Childhood dream: becoming an astronaut

38. Haircolour: blonde

39. Long or short hair: long

40. Do you have a crush on someone: no

41. What do you like about yourself: that I’m not backing down from a challenge when I really want something even when it’s stressful af

42. Piercings: no

43. Bloodtype: no idea

44. Nickname: Yve

45. Relationship status: forever alone

46. Zodiac: scorpio

47. Pronouns: she

48. Favourite TV Show: Bleach

49. Tattoos: no

50. Right or left hand: right

51. Surgery: no

52. Hair dyed in different color: no

53. Sport: Sport ist Mord und Klassensport ist Massenmord

55. Vacation: this year I’ll be off to Worms and several other cities along the Rhine with my parents, and in the last years I visited Denmark, Finland, Austria, NYC...

56. Pair of trainers: ??

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: (my fave dish?) pasta

58. Drinking: water

59. I’m about to: finish studying and go to bed early

61. Waiting for: exams to be over

62. Want: to get rid of my period and sleep for a month

63. Get married: no

64. Career: working on my Master’s degree

65. Hugs or kisses: hugs

66. Lips or eyes: eyes

67. Shorter or taller: taller

68. Older or younger: older

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: nice stomach

71. Sensitive or loud: sensitive

72. Hook up or relationship: relationship

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. Kissed a stranger: no

75. Drank hard liquor: whiskey ftw

76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: no

77. Turned someone down: yes

78. Sex in the first date: no

79. Broken someone’s heart: no

80. Had your heart broken: no

81. Been arrested: no

82. Cried when someone died: yes

83. Fallen for a friend: no

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. Yourself: sometimes

85. Miracles: sometimes

86. Love at first sight: no

87. Santa Claus: no

88. Kiss on the first date: depends

89. Angels: maybe

OTHER:

90. Current best friends: I’m not a fan of the “best friend” label but @bruellpferd comes to my mind right away

91. Eyecolour: green

92. Favourite movie: The Return of the King

And I’m tagging everyone who wants to do this

#about me #moonwich #hehe guess who should actually study some more but chooses to procrastinate instead :P

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rollinbrigittenv8 · 6 years

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Tourism Boards Used New Platforms to Woo Connected Travelers in 2017

Tourism boards made strides with adopting new technology in 2017. Visit NH

Skift Take: Tourism boards have their critics who say destinations don't drive as much innovation as other travel sectors. But destination marketers are increasingly proving their naysayers wrong, and in some cases they are changing the tech landscape in their communities.

— Dan Peltier

From Facebook advertising to 360-degrees photos and video to outfitting visitor centers with more interactive exhibits and devices, 2017 was a year of experimentation and growth for tourism boards learning new platforms and technology.

As quasi-governmental organizations that often have a lot of red tape to cut through, tourism boards have been stereotyped as not driving as much innovation as other travel industry sectors such as booking sites or hotel chains.

But that reputation is slowly eroding as more destination marketers accept that new technology is one of the only ways they can stay relevant in an era when travelers have more resources at their fingertips than just a tourism website.

Tourism boards also have unique challenges when it comes to testing new technology on consumers. Destination marketers don’t have a product in the way that hotels and airlines have buildings and planes, nor do they have loyalty programs.

Despite those challenges, many destination marketers have become technology trailblazers and have become models of how developing more public-private partnerships can spur innovation.

Here’s a look at what tourism boards were saying about various kinds of technology in 2017, and what to pay attention to in 2018.

Launching Mobile Apps

Atlanta’s Convention & Visitor’s Bureau launched its Discover Atlanta mobile app in November, but not because anyone was asking for one, said Andrew Wilson, its executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Wilson said he’d been fundamentally against tourism board apps for some time. “People aren’t looking to install an app for one destination for one trip,” he said. “However, technology has evolved. We started off with the meeting planner in mind but not only the meeting planner. We want to provide each meeting planner in Atlanta a customized experience for their attendees.”

Tourism boards need to think hard about how they use technology, said Wilson. “We can’t be in the game of competing with Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor,” he said. “We need to add value beyond those services. This app gives us the agility to pump out the right kind of content to not compete but fill in those gaps with those other platforms.”

The app shows travelers special promotions, insider guides to Atlanta’s neighborhoods and nearby dining options, for example. Helping a group plan a girlfriend getaway weekend is one niche, said Wilson. “It remains to be seen if consumers will be flocking to these kinds of products, but in the interim, this is how we’ll be serving the convention attendee,” he said. “We can alert people to an ice storm or power outage and use the app to get messages to people in a timely fashion.”

Wilson said the app had about 7,500 installs mainly from locals and leisure travelers during its pilot phase and the tourism board plans to roll it out to meeting planners early this year.

While meeting planners eventually will be the app’s primary target, the organization understands the needs of local residents. More than half of the tourism board’s website traffic comes from the local community, Wilson said.

“When you install the app, you choose if you’re a local, visitor, or meeting attendee and we send out deep links which allow the app to know who’s installing it,” he said. “It allows us to see who’s accessing what type of content. So far, locals are really consuming content about what to do this weekend and nightlife on the app.”

Using Big Data

Turismo de Portugal, Portugal’s national destination marketing organization, said maximizing Big Data’s potential will be key to managing overtourism.

But Sérgio Guerreiro, director of knowledge management and corporate affairs at Turismo de Portugal, also said Big Data isn’t the only answer to creating smart tourism growth strategies.

“We have a national, broader perspective, but then decision-making is more local,” said Guerreiro. “There’s been no framework until now with how to deal with pressure at the local level. That broad, national plan gave us the idea to start working with startups all over the country to understand how technology can be an enabler in terms of generating new sources of information.”

Social Media as a Crisis Response Tool

Last year was filled with examples of tourism boards that had to respond to natural disasters, and many were faced with extreme weather or disasters. But they had new tools – namely social media – that weren’t around during previous extreme weather events. They used social media to respond to travelers’ questions and convey updates on which attractions and hotels were affected.

The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau kept active on its social channels during Hurricane Irma in September and had time to tell travelers about the storm and how local hotels and attractions were preparing.

“Technology was the bane and beauty of all this,” said Rolando Aedo, chief marketing officer of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. “As good as we’ve become with technology and predictions, hurricane tracks still change.”

Technology Companies as Partners

At Skift Global Forum in September, Tourism Australia CMO Lisa Ronson acknowledged many tourism boards don’t have big budgets to work with when integrating new technology into their strategies.

Tourism boards also need to justify money they spend on platforms and how that will benefit their local economies. “We have to be really mindful that everything we do influences the economic impact back on Australia,” said Ronson. “For us, it’s about doing fewer, bigger, better partnerships, whether it’s with media owners or technology companies because, for us, the partnership component is a really, really big part of it.”

“It’s about having a deeper partnership to work more strategically together to capture additional value outside of that transaction,” Ronson added.

Marketing Local Tech Industries

Besides marketing to travelers, many tourism boards are also working to persuade tech companies and skilled workers that their destination is the ideal location for a company’s headquarters and a great place to live and work.

Orlando, Florida is one destination trying to get that message out but it must contend with its theme park reputation. “It’s a little bit of a detriment for us on the business side of things because when you’re thought of just as a vacation capital, people don’t realize that your tech industry is actually 20 or 30 years older than your tourism industry,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “It makes it a more difficult challenge to attract business and to attract millennials that you want to have in the community.”

Helsinki, Finland has also embraced its tech community and has used it to its advantage as it builds its presence on platforms like WeChat.

Visitor Centers Keeping a Pulse With New Tech

Recently, Visit Scotland announced it’s closing two-thirds of its visitor centers in the coming years due to decline in foot traffic. Instead, it’s trying other strategies. The organization hosted a pop-up visitor center in London in October to show travelers Instagram photos of Scotland to inspire them to visit and to test how people responded to a mobile visitor center concept.

However, Skift spoke to Discover Los Angeles about its strategy and found nearly the opposite – the organization is expanding its number of visitor centers because of their popularity and the tech and resources available at different locations.

Tourism Websites as Tech Labs

Destinations know their websites aren’t the only digital trip-planning option anymore, so they are increasingly using their sites to test which marketing strategies and campaigns stick and which fizzle out.

In August, Skift looked at the world’s 25 best tourism websites and found a variety of ways destinations used their websites in 2017 but one of the overarching themes was experimentation.

“Our site gives us an idea of what travelers are interested in,” said Stephen England-Hall, CEO of Tourism New Zealand. “It’s less about an individual traveler’s interest and more about the blob of individuals that visit our site and what they’re like.”

Still Early For 360-Degree Videos

Travelers saw more 360-degree photos and videos on their social media news feeds in 2017 and much of that content required a significant amount of resources and manpower. Many destinations aren’t convinced these videos actually get travelers to book trips, but some are still trying them.

Destination British Columbia said its 360-degree videos tend to be longer than traditional videos which average 30 seconds to one minute. “Part of that is the user experience needs to be longer so that you have a moment to glance around you to see what’s happening because there’s still a learning curve with the technology,” Janice Fraser, managing editor of Destination British Columbia.

Atlanta’s visitors’ bureau created a 360-degree tour of the city on its website and launched a companion mobile app in 2016. Wilson said the 360-degree experience has helped energize the tourism board’s sales department at trade shows.

“We’ve built an entire content management system around our 360 platform,” said Wilson. “When we take meeting planners on tours of the convention center and surrounding areas, sometimes that’s a lot to take in. What we can do after is send them a link to our 360 platform and recreate the tour they just did.”

Tourism Boards Test out Facebook Ads

As one of the largest platforms in the world that allows businesses to target specific demographics and populations, Facebook is one of the safest bets tourism boards can make.

Many travel brands boosted their Facebook advertising in 2017 and while Facebook’s ad analytics and targeting have been criticized, Facebook remains one of the world’s largest platforms where travelers already share many of their trip photos and recommendations.

Tourisme Montreal ran a marketing campaign on Facebook in 2017 that featured William Shatner and celebrated the city’s 375th anniversary. “Often we spend a lot of money on millennials and that’s great, but [now] we’re also trying to appeal to the 40, 50 and 60-plus travelers,” said Yves Lalumière, Tourisme Montreal’s president and CEO. “We find millennials will spend more on food and beverage and older travelers will spend more on hotels, concerts, and museums.”

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jccamus · 6 years

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The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine

Eighty percent of Swedes express positive views about robots and artificial intelligence, according to a survey this year by the European Commission. By contrast, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of Americans were “worried” about a future in which robots and computers substitute for humans.

In the United States, where most people depend on employers for health insurance, losing a job can trigger a descent to catastrophic depths. It makes workers reluctant to leave jobs to forge potentially more lucrative careers. It makes unions inclined to protect jobs above all else.

Yet in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia, governments provide health care along with free education. They pay generous unemployment benefits, while employers finance extensive job training programs. Unions generally embrace automation as a competitive advantage that makes jobs more secure.

Making the United States more like Scandinavia would entail costs that collide with the tax-cutting fervor that has dominated American politics in recent decades.

Sweden, Denmark and Finland all spend more than 27 percent of their annual economic output on government services to help jobless people and other vulnerable groups, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The United States devotes less than 20 percent of its economy to such programs.

Safety Nets Compared

Scandinavian countries are among the biggest spenders on unemployment benefits, health care and parental leave, whereas the United States spends less than the average on its social safety nets.

Public social spending as a share of G.D.P.

For Swedish businesses, these outlays yield a key dividend: Employees have proved receptive to absorbing new technology.

This is especially crucial in mining, a major industry in Sweden. Wages are high, with pay and working conditions set through national contracts negotiated by unions and employers’ associations. Boliden’s mines have some of the world’s lowest-grade ore, meaning it contains minute quantities of valuable minerals. The prices are set by global markets.

“We have every reason not to be competitive,” says Boliden’s chief executive, Lennart Evrell.

The only way for the company to ensure profit is to continually increase efficiency. This is why Mr. Persson and his co-workers in the control room will soon be operating as many as four loaders at once via joysticks.

Photo

The Garpenberg mine in 1966. It has been in operation more or less since 1257. Credit Boliden

The company is pressing ahead with plans to deploy self-driving trucks, testing a system with AB Volvo, the Swedish automotive giant, at a mine in the town of Kristineberg. There, Boliden has expanded annual production to close to 600,000 tons from about 350,000 tons three decades ago — while the work force has remained about 200.

“If we don’t move forward with the technology and making money, well, then we are out of business,” says Magnus Westerlund, 35, vice chairman of a local union chapter representing laborers at two Boliden mines. “You don’t need a degree in math to do the calculation.”

At the mine below the frigid pine forests in Garpenberg, 110 miles northwest of Stockholm, Mr. Persson and his co-workers earn about 500,000 krona per year (nearly $60,000). They get five weeks of vacation. Under Swedish law, when a child arrives, the parents have 480 days of family leave to apportion between them. No robot is going to change any of that, Mr. Persson says.

“It’s a Swedish kind of thinking,” says Erik Lundstrom, a 41-year-old father of two who works alongside Mr. Persson. “If you do something for the company, the company gives something back.”

Daunting Job Projections

That proposition now confronts a formidable test. No one knows how many jobs are threatened by robots and other forms of automation, but projections suggest a potential shock.

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