OPEC+ considers raising oil output by 550,000 bpd in August, sources say
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CNA
8 hours ago
- CNA
Commentary: Whose job is safe from AI?
LONDON: As artificial intelligence becomes ever more capable, is any job secure? 'I've sort of convinced myself that the safest job in the world is probably gardener,' the FT's chief economics commentator Martin Wolf recently confessed. That seemed right. There are some things the computers just can't do. The next morning the FT published The Gardens That AI Grew, describing intelligently automated drip irrigation, pest detectors, laser scarecrow systems and a solar-powered weeding robot. Oof. It's not entirely clear how much the laser scarecrow and the robot weeder really will threaten the jobs of human gardeners, but the prospect reminds us that there is a distinction between a job and a task. Most jobs are bundles of interconnected tasks. A gardener needs to do everything from mowing and weeding to diagnosing a pest infestation, designing an outdoor space, or – hardest of all – communicating with a difficult client. Different AI systems could well help with most of these tasks, although the likely outcome is not that the job of gardener disappears, but that it changes shape. The question is, how will each new AI application change the shape of what we do? And will we like the reworked jobs available to us on the other side of this transformation? TECHNOLOGY, BOTH OLD AND NEW Generative AI may be new but these questions are not. They run all the way back to the Luddite protests of the early 1800s, when highly skilled textile workers saw machines doing the hardest parts of their job, allowing them to be replaced by low-paid labourers with far less expertise. And the answers to those long-standing questions? They depend both on the technology and on the job. There's a lesson to be drawn from two contrasting precedents: the digital spreadsheet, and warehouse guidance earpieces such as the 'Jennifer unit'. The digital spreadsheet, which hit the market in 1979, instantly and flawlessly performed work previously done by accounting clerks, but the accounting profession simply moved on to more strategic and creative problems, modelling different scenarios and risks. Who doesn't want a creative accountant? The Jennifer unit is a headset to guide warehouse pickers as they scurry around grabbing merchandise off shelves, whispering in their ears as it tracks their last move and guides their next one. The unit removes the last vestige of cognitive load from a physically demanding job that was already mind-numbing. It is a stark contrast to the digital spreadsheet, which excised the most tedious part of a varied and highly skilled job. The lesson: AI can make a boring job even more boring and an interesting job even more interesting. New data and a new perspective on these questions come from MIT researchers David Autor and Neil Thompson. Autor and Thompson begin a new research paper titled 'Expertise' by posing a question: would we expect accounting clerks and inventory clerks to be similarly affected by automation? There are several well-established approaches to analysing this question, and all of them suggest that the answer is 'yes'. Back in the day, both types of clerk spent a lot of time performing routine intellectual tasks such as spotting discrepancies, compiling inventories or tables of data, and doing simple arithmetic on a large scale. All of these tasks were the kind of things that computers could do, and as computers became cheap enough they took over. Given the same tasks faced the same sort of automation, it seems logical that both jobs would change in similar ways. THE JOBS AI CAN DO, AND CAN'T But that is not what happened. In particular, say Autor and Thompson, wages for accounting clerks rose, while wages for inventory clerks fell. This is because most jobs are not random collections of unrelated tasks. They are bundles of tasks that are most efficiently done by the same person for a variety of unmysterious reasons. Remove some tasks from the bundle and the rest of the job changes. Inventory clerks lost the bit of the job requiring most education and training (the arithmetic) and became more like shelf-stackers. Accounting clerks also lost the arithmetic, but what remained required judgment, analysis and sophisticated problem solving. Although the same kind of tasks had been automated away, the effect was to make inventory clerking a job requiring less training and less expertise, while accounting clerks needed to be more expert than before. The natural worry for anyone hoping to have a job in five years' time is what AI might do to that job. And while there are few certainties, Autor and Thompson's framework does suggest a clarifying question: does AI look like it is going to do the most highly skilled part of your job or the low-skill rump that you've not been able to get rid of? The answer to that question may help to predict whether your job is about to get more fun or more annoying – and whether your salary is likely to rise, or fall as your expert work is devalued like the expert work of the Luddites. For example, generative AI systems are great brainstormers. They make unexpected connections and produce lots of varied ideas. When I'm running a role-playing game, that's great. They accelerate the preparation and let me get straight to the good stuff, which is sitting around the table with my friends pretending to be wizards. For someone whose job offers occasional oases of creative brainstorming in a desert of menial administration, the emergence of industrial brainstorming engines might be rather less liberating. Or consider that gardener. Perhaps the worst part of their job is trying to compose emails to desk-based clients who seem far more fluent in the medium than someone who spends most of their time outside. Laser scarecrows and robot weeders be damned. What the gardener needs is an AI secretary, scribe and editor. And the technology for that is already here.
CNA
20 hours ago
- CNA
OPEC+ speeds up oil output hikes, adds 548,000 bpd in August
LONDON :OPEC+ agreed on Saturday to raise production by 548,000 barrels per day in August, further accelerating output increases at its first meeting since oil prices jumped - and then retreated - following Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran. The group, which pumps about half of the world's oil, has been curtailing production since 2022 to support the market. But it has reversed course this year to regain market share and as U.S. President Donald Trump demanded the group pump more to help keep gasoline prices lower. The production boost will come from eight members of the group - Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Algeria. The eight started to unwind their most recent layer of cuts of 2.2 million bpd in April. The August increase represents a jump from monthly increases of 411,000 bpd OPEC+ had approved for May, June and July, and 138,000 bpd in April. OPEC+ cited a steady global economic outlook and healthy market fundamentals, including low oil inventories, as reasons for releasing more oil. The acceleration came after some OPEC+ members, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, produced above their targets, angering other members that were sticking to cuts, sources have said. Kazakh output returned to growth last month and matched an all-time high. OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, wants to expand market share amid growing supplies from rival producers like the United States, sources have said. With the August increase, OPEC+ will have released 1.918 million bpd since April, which leaves just 280,000 bpd to be released from the 2.2 million bpd cut. On top of that, OPEC+ allowed the UAE to increase output by 300,000 bpd. The group still has in place other layers of cuts amounting to 3.66 million bpd. The group of eight OPEC+ members will next meet on August 3.
CNA
a day ago
- CNA
OPEC+ set to further speed up output hikes, sources say
LONDON :OPEC+ will likely agree to further accelerate oil output increases on Saturday at its first meeting since oil prices jumped, and then retreated, following Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran. The group, which pumps about half of the world's oil, has been curtailing production since 2022 to support the market. But it has reversed course this year to regain market share and as U.S. President Donald Trump demanded the group pumped more to help keep gasoline prices lower. The group may agree to raise output by as much as 550,000 barrels per day in August, up from monthly increases of 411,000 bpd it approved for May, June and July, and 138,000 bpd in April, two sources familiar with the discussions said. Eight members of the group - Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Algeria - are due to meet online on Saturday at 0900 GMT to decide policy for August. The eight began unwinding their most recent output cut of 2.2 million bpd in April. They then accelerated the hikes in May, June and July, despite the extra supply weighing on crude prices. The acceleration came after some OPEC+ members, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, produced above their targets, angering other members that were sticking to cuts. Kazakh output returned to growth last month and matched an all-time high. OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, is looking to expand its market share against the backdrop of growing supplies from other producers like the United States, sources have said. So far, OPEC+ has announced production increases of 1.37 million bpd between April and July, representing 62 per cent of the production cut of 2.2 million bpd that it is unwinding.
