Author: Philip

Categories
Nature of Work

What Jobs will be lost to AI/Robots?

A new Market Watch article spells out the results of a study that pulled data from an employment report from University of Oxford, processed into a visual chart by Visual Capitalist.

Not surprising, but retail service jobs are likely to do poorly, while high-touch occupations like nursing and teaching are likely to remain. Overall – and quite unfortunately for society – most of the job losses will be among relatively unskilled workers.

While there have been huge disruptions to employment in the past, there have been new jobs created, which is hard to foresee from this chart.

Consider the chart a career planning guide! I’m somewhat relieved that “Software Developers and Programmers” are relatively safe, although surprised as code is increasingly written by code! There is a surprising amount of creativity that goes into designing the software, that isn’t directly related to the code, so I guess that’s the safe part?

There isn’t a direct category that I could slot production and post production into, but since creativity in general will be valued, I think that creativity will continue to be valued. On the other hand, relatively routine tasks like organization and preparing for editing is likely to be vulnerable.

For an indication of when the jobs will disappear, consider this article about a paper: “When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts.” In this study, experts where asked their expectation as to when jobs would be eliminated. Bottom line, they could all be gone in 125 years.

Categories
Apple Machine Learning

A new, and dangerous, drinking game!

We were watching the WWDC keynote address last night and the term “Machine Learning” came up so ofter, that if you were taking a shot each time, it would have been very detrimental to your health. There were at least 12-15 references during the 2.25 hour keynote.

Apple have seriously embraced Machine Learning/Deep Learning across many apps and have introduced a Machine Learning framework for running developer designed learning algorithms, even providing conversion tools for migrating from other AI platforms.

Or course, this comes as no surprise, as I wrote about the many ways Apple were integrating machine learning back in October 2016.

UPDATE: Wired also noticed just how key Machine Learning has become to Apple.

Categories
Lumberjack

Lumberjack iOS Logger 3

Today we released a new version of the Lumberjack iOS Logger – version 3.

iOS Logger for iPhone and iPad has been completely rewritten for increased speed and stability. New features include a warning for logs not uploaded, the ability to add a note to a keyword range upon completion, the ability to review logged (but not uploaded) keywords and the ability to add or edit a note to logged keyword ranges.

Thanks to Robert Desauger.

Categories
Item of Interest Nature of Work

Preparing for the unknown ‘Jobs of the Future’

I’ve written here before, and Terry Curren and I have discussed repeated on The Terence and Philip Show, that many jobs are likely to be replaced by the combination of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics/Automation. It’s good to see people thinking and writing about these things, as does Caitlin Fitzsimmons of the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), in an article - How to prepare for the jobs of the future when you don’t know what they are – that features an interview with Pulitzer prize-winning author and New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, who writes about the age of acceleration in his new book, Thank You For Being Late.

The whole article (and likely the book, which I’m about to buy) are worth the read, but I loved this paragraph from Ms Fitzsimmons:

That’s because the only way to equip children for the future of work is to develop their imagination, creativity and emotional intelligence. If the world is changing, the best thing you can do is equip them for change. They need to be emotionally resilient with a habit of self-directed lifelong learning.

Categories
Business & Marketing Distribution Item of Interest New Media

Kids Just Want to be a YouTube Star

An article on Tubefilter caught my eye: The Most-Desired Career Among Young People Today Is ‘YouTuber’ (Study).

The top 10 jobs kids want, per the First Choice study, are as follows: YouTuber, blogger/vlogger, musician/singer, actor, filmmaker, doctor/nurse, TV presenter, athlete/teacher, writer, and lawyer.

The one thing that the top jobs have in common is fame!

The thing is, it works. Not for everyone but it works.

Continue reading “Kids Just Want to be a YouTube Star”

Categories
Intelligent Assistance Software Lumberjack

Software Product Updates

We’ve recently added new features to SendtoX – named Favorite ranges from Clips in a Sequence – and Lumberjack System where we developed a workflow for backLogger to support RED R3D media.

Continue reading “Software Product Updates”

Categories
General Interesting Technology

NAB 1998 in Retrospect

Because I am researching my journey through my earlier writings on metadata and interactive story telling I came across my ‘review’ of NAB 1998 thanks to the Wayback Machine. This was the year everyone was coming to terms with ATSC – digital broadcast – and how it was to be implemented. From my review it seems my attention was on interactivity and QuickTime 3, neither of which is surprising.

Continue reading “NAB 1998 in Retrospect”

Categories
Assisted Editing Interesting Technology Machine Learning

Transcription Services: State of Play

A few years ago, we considered supporting transcripts in Lumberjack System. At the time our goal was to quickly prepare for an edit, and transcriptions took days and cost serious money.

Two years ago we supported the alignment of time-stamped transcripts to Final Cut Pro X Clips and a year ago, introduced “magic” keywords, derived by a cognitive service. Since Lumberjack doesn’t (yet, I might emphasize) support a speech to text service internally, what are the options and what do they tell us about the state of play for transcription in April 2017?

Continue reading “Transcription Services: State of Play”

Categories
Business Video Technology

Resolve’s Threat to Media Composer

With the announcement of Resolve 14 today at NAB 2017, it seems that Blackmagic Design have their sites clearly on Avid’s Media Composer: intentionally or not.

I’ve long wondered what apps would be most threatened by Blackmagic’s rapid development of Resolve.

Adobe’s suite of tools and dynamic link makes a powerful argument for that platform. Although Resolve has improved integration with Fusion, it’s not yet at the level of Dynamic Link. Not that Dynamic Link is the most robust of Adobe tech. Despite being free, it’s hard to see Resolve directly threatening Premiere Pro, After Effects et. al.

Apple’s Final Cut Pro X/Motion combination features a new look at the editing interface – probably the reason it’s the most used professional NLE now –  and those who use it, love the Magnetic Timeline. The most common response to today’s Resolve announcements was “but it’s track based.”  Once you’re a fan of the Magnetic Timeline it’s hard to go back.

There are other players like Media 100, Edius and Vegas that will definitely be threatened by Resolve Free or the full version for just $299, but the one company that – mid term – is most threatened is Avid.

Resolve has already replaced Avid’s excellent (but left to die) Symphony grading and with major audio improvements – integrating their Fairlight purchase – and shared project upgrades directly threaten core focuses of Media Composer and ProTools.

Fortunate or not, while these are key parts of Avid’s current software lineup, there are a small percentage of Avid’s overall business.

Very interesting to see how the new features and pricing affect adoption, and who will be most threatened. If you’re looking for a modern, track-based NLE with good audio, great color grading, and excellent DIT tools and collaborative workflows gaining maturity, Resolve deserves a version 14 look.

Alex Gollner (aka Alex4D) has seen the same issues: Blackmagic Design has sights set on Avid with DaVinci Resolve 14

Categories
Apple Machine Learning

Machine Learning in practical terms

While researching the anecdotal history of some local property, I did what I’ve done previously: ask Siri. In this case, asking about actors dates of birth and death. In the past, these type of questions would have pulled up the relevant IMDB or Wikipedia page with Siri saying “I’ve found some links for you on the web” or similar.

It took several rounds before I realized that, while the pages were still being pulled up as before, Siri was parsing out the answer to the question I’d asked, and gave that to me directly. I never had to glance down or open my phone.

Similarly, in Mail, there is now a predictive mailbox making suggestions (usually accurate) into which email box I might want to move the selected email.

In Calendar, I find addresses being suggested for my events, based on whether I’ve been there or not, address book entries, or other information.

It’s clear to me that these are all improvements related directly the Apple’s increased use of Machine Learning across it’s software products.