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> The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China. They went to robots in China. There was a very good video documentary on this in (I
by rinze 11y ago
> The jobs did not go to robots in America, they went to workers in China.
They went to robots in China. There was a very good video documentary on this in (I think) The New York Times not long ago, but I haven't been able to find it. This is close, anyway, and provides context: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/chinese-unmanned-factory-replaces-humans-with-robots http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robot...
> The city of Dongguan plans to finish 1,000 to 1,500 “Robot Replace Human” programs by 2016, which (if done on a similar scale to the example above) would vastly increase production and improve quality while putting nearly a million people out of work.
- vijayr 11y agoThey went to robots in China. One interesting thing to watch in the next few decades would be this - if more and more robots are going to be used, then countries like China will no longer have the advantage of cheap labor. A robot in the US is more or less going to cost the same as a robot in China, so there are not many reasons to send jobs elsewhere.
- rinze 11y ago> A robot in the US is more or less going to cost the same as a robot in China I have no data to back this up, but my intuition tells me that a robot made in the US (with American workers) will still cost more to make than the same robot made in China. As I say, just a hunch (I don't know how much proportion of robotic work is involved in building a robot, though I imagine more and more every day), so let's wait and see.
- vijayr 11y agoIn that case, all the American companies have to do is make the robots in China but have the factories that use those robots in the U.S :p