8 ms·

Manufacturing Jobs Aren’t Coming Back

54 points by SQL2219 10y ago

alyeulra 10y ago
Technology should enhance quality of life of people. when it replaces people, chaos ensue !
- Bombthecat 10y ago
  Uhhh? So what?
- andrewclunn 10y ago
  So no more dishwasher machines, forget self driving cars, bring back elevator operators, and have more laws like requiring gas station attendants in New Jersey... What a horrible notion that impeding progress to give people pointless work, which makes things less convenient and efficient, is somehow a fix. The population has gone from 1 to near 7 billion people in just over a hundred years. Economic incentives against just having more unskilled labor is not a flaw that needs fixing, it's or economic and environmental necessities coming into alignment, telling us that having 4+ kids is a bad idea in a world as overpopulated as this, and instead to have smaller families with more resources put into educating the one or two kids we do have
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    I don't see how this addresses the point that millions of people are suffering due to automation. Are you saying only the well off should be able to have kids?
    - andrewclunn 10y ago
      I'm saying that the solution to this problem won't come from creating fake work to trick people into thinking that they're productive members of society. And honestly everyone should be having fewer kids, but the well off already are. Turns out that evolutionary and economic forces of selection don't favor people reproducing beyond their means. People can mistake this emergent property for a planned eugenics program and blame the messenger whenever somebody speaks the truth, but better to realize that wanting all human life to have some intrinsic market value does not make it so and plan accordingly.
      - ethanbond 10y ago
        "everyone should be having fewer kids, but the well of already are" seems directly contradictory to "evolutionary and economic forces don't favor people reproducing beyond their means."
    - Jedd 10y ago
      The answer is not necessarily less automation, but more interesting conversations about how societies cater for less manual labour jobs in the future. It's not a particular new thought -- the mythical Ned Ludd (and band) were concerned about how the transition happened, not (as they are popular portrayed) simply committed to stopping any kind of progress. It's naive to imagine that we can will away any kind of technological progress, simply because our parents believed (and indoctrinated us into believing) that we are all entitled to work 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, 45 years of our lives ... and that any attempt to infringe on that ersatz freedom is a personal attack, and any discussion around alternatives is akin to calling someone's god(s) a fraud. Consider the ever erudite John Ralston Saul's comments from his fantastic work The Doubter's Companion: " 'Luddites' - Highly trained individuals whose careers were destroyed by technological progress. This progress was treated as inevitable and uncontrollable. The Luddites therefore occupied the only remaining intellectual position, which consisted of rejecting technological progress. "This reduction of attitudes to two extreme positions was accomplished between 1811 and 1830 when the introduction of Watt’s steam-engines and water-driven wool-finishing machines made hundreds of handicraftsmen redundant. "Industrialization was spreading from sector to sector and quickly eliminated most crafts along with tens of thousands of jobs. "The Luddites (named after an imaginary leader, Ned Lud) broke up and burnt factories. Their revolt ended in a group trial in 1813. Five were hanged. The attitude of society towards unrestrained technological progress was made perfectly clear. The judge said the Luddites’ actions were “one of the greatest atrocities that was ever committed in a civilized country.”1 "This was a classic case of provocation and order versus despair and disorder. Wilfrid Laurier described the nature of this type of conflict when he spoke in 1886 about the Riel Rebellion. “What is hateful…is not rebellion, but the despotism which induces that rebellion; not rebels but the men who, having the enjoyment of power, do not discharge the duties of power; the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone.”2 "What society misunderstood early in the nineteenth century when faced by the industrial revolution was the full nature of the change. The debate should not have been over whether there should be technological progress or not. It was more accurately a question of progress in what conditions: what progress, when, in what circumstances? Market extremists would argue that what happened was inevitable and eventually brought general prosperity. Their view ignores the social disorder, followed by suffering, followed by serious social disorder that this approach towards change brought on. Communism was the direct result. England, France, Germany and Sweden suffered recurring internal violence throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some of it expanding into civil wars. Most of these countries passed within a shadow of revolution. "The question is therefore not whether technological progress was necessary, but whether it was necessary to go about it in a barbaric manner. It can be argued that the Luddites were wrong in 1811. But society spent the next 150 years rendering progress civilized and thereby proving that the infuriated craftsmen had been right at least in spirit. Did these decades of wasted time, effort, lives and money represent an intelligent use of human talents?"
- Jedd 10y ago
  > Technology should enhance quality of > life of people. when it replaces people, > chaos ensue ! This doesn't make much sense. There's no 'should' with technology - it's merely a (set of) thing(s). Replacing people, in the sense of doing away with Bullshit Jobs <tm> is entirely the goal of new technology - so that those people can do something else. Ideally that something else is something they want to do (and that may (but not necessarily does) improve the world). I think your prediction that people will be replaced by technology is a little naive. The idea that the pointless activities of some people will be replaced by the vague category of 'technology' is entirely palatable to most people.
  - applecore 10y ago
    > There's no 'should' with technology. This is a common belief but it isn't true. Actually, government plays a huge role in deciding how technology is developed and broadly adopted by society. There is a should with technology: in the sense of achieving a desirable or expected state.
    - Jedd 10y ago
      I liked your original edit the most :) > Actually, government plays a huge > role in deciding how technology is > developed and broadly adopted by >society. I'm in Australia. Where do you live? Outside of Singapore, I don't know of (m)any governments where administrators are even passably proficient in matters of technology. Generally governments are hostile towards any new technology until they can work out how to turn them into a benefit to the state (water catchment tanks, internet, bitcoin, solar generators, uber, et cetera).. > There is a should with technology: > in the sense of achieving a desirable > or expected state. Intent is a lovely thing, but technology doesn't come shipped with intent, and that was my point. The other (bigger) part of my point was that we need to start having civilised discussions about how we integrate technology into our society now, rather than half-way through revolutions / civil wars.
- Symmetry 10y ago
  To a first approximation all improvements in people's standards of living come from reducing the amount of labor required to make stuff. In the long run the average consumption has to equal the average production. You can play around at the margin with varying distribution, imports and exports, or getting people to work longer hours. But those effects are all tiny compared to the effects of changes in worker productivity over the last 100 years.
a2tech 10y ago
Yup. This is what I was just arguing with my family about-they voted Trump because they want manufacturing jobs back. I pointed out that if the US imposes trade tariff's high enough to make manufacturing things like steel cost effective again in the US the people that build the plants will simply put in these kinds of robots-not people. Robots work Saturday and Sunday for the same cost as a week day and with far less bitching.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  That doesn't make it inevitable. We could create regulations about when and what automation is acceptable. That reality seems more likely to me in the present climate than a maybe more ideal solution like basic income - though I think the most likely outcome is huge (and increasing) swaths of the population languishing in permanent poverty.
  - chopin 10y ago
    > though I think the most likely outcome is huge (and increasing) swaths of the population languishing in permanent poverty I don't think so. You cannot only outsource manufacturing labor to robots. You can do with policing as well. So you don't have to worry for uprisings. These people will simply starve or being killed by robots.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Assume, hypothetically, that the rich use robots and form their own economy and wall themselves off from the rest. Why can't the remaining people form a non-automated economy amongst themselves? Economically, it's equivalent to those rich people and their robots just not existing at all and their estates being filled with impassible mountains.
    - wayn3 10y ago
      It is equivalent to one of those films where the poor have to live on earth in relative poverty while the rich live in a base in orbit that sustains itself and is basically heaven. Do you believe the "not rich" wouldn't want to cross the wall?
sfifs 10y ago
The question is what does $8 per Hour look like when factoring in capital costs, maintenance and flexibility and that's not addressed by the article. It's interesting that Apple and others closed ultra modern robotics factory in the US and now essentially assemble most stuff by hand in China. It argues that robotics is not always a no brainer choice under many circumstances (which admittedly would be difficult to create in the US)
- tanto 10y ago
  It might be that Apple did that but do you think American employees will be as "flexible" and cheap as Chinese? If American factory workers are willing to work for less then Chinese your argument definitely holds.
- cube00 10y ago
  This may be true today but the technology is evolving faster then humans are.
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-... (and other blog posts on the same blog) seems to disagree that Apple "essentially assembles most stuff by hand" - e.g. > Apple is the world's largest owner of CNC milling machines and swiss style lathes.
  - Inconel 10y ago
    You're correct in that Apple is one of, if not the largest owner of CNC machines, and that those machines are responsible for a large portion of their total manufacturing work, but I believe they still use a tremendous amount of human labor for final assembly.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 10y ago
One way is to lower the expense of hiring people in the US. An obvious one would be lowering payroll taxes for certain types of jobs. Another way is to simply lower the corporate tax rate, which would have the additional benefit of repatriating tons of money that is sitting offshore because of American tax rates.
- alexandros 10y ago
  And what when the robot goes to $4/hr? Eat less expensive food? Have fewer children? What when the robot goes to $0.02/hr?
- Inconel 10y ago
  I've never run a company so this may be naive or uninformed on my part, but I get the impression that hiring and firing people, at least here in California, can be a costly process with regards to unemployment insurance, litigation for wrongful termination, etc. Again, I may be overestimating this burden on businesses so please correct me if I'm wrong. One thing I've noticed over the years is that despite how good your interview/hiring process may be, you always end up with some hires that don't work out which lead me to believe that you probably turn away a near equal amount of applicants that would have been great employees. It's just very difficult to evaluate someone over the course of a few interviews. For entry level positions this is even harder since you may not have much professional experience or reputation to go by. I've always thought it would be interesting if companies would run a kind of tryout phase of employment, say 1-3 months, paid of course, at the end of which the top performers would be given permanent employment. This way a company might be willing to take on more marginal applicants with the knowledge that it will be very easy to terminate them. I'm sure there are negative aspects of such a system that I'm not considering, but as a person working in aerospace doing manufacturing/skilled labor and without any formal education beyond high school to fall back on, I always thought such a system might be a good way for someone like me to get their foot in the door.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    It is true that lowering the employment "friction" (i.e. cost of hiring and firing) means that employers will be more willing to take risks on new hires. Some european countries make it difficult to fire people, with the unintended consequence that companies become very reluctant to hire in the first place.
noahmbarr 10y ago
As much as I support higher minimal wages, I can't help but conclude that this will only accelerate capital expendures in human-replacing automation
- lisivka 10y ago
  Automation is good. Eventually, it will lead to shorter working day (e.g. 6 or even 4 hours), shorter working week (e.g. 4 days, or even 3.5 days), to longer vacations, to better health care, earlier retirement, and so on.
  - GFischer 10y ago
    I don't necessarily agree. That could be an outcome, but it would require policies or voluntary restraint to get there. At least in my country (Uruguay), the lower earning 8% have 30% of the children, placing a huge strain on society and services (I don't see robots replacing medical and social services anytime soon). So, to enable a sustainable society like you propose, something like a two children per couple rule should be enacted (hopefully nothing so harsh as the Chinese version).
  - bbctol 10y ago
    If these benefits are demanded, either by government action or organized labor. If it's up to those who control corporations, they have no reason to cut hours and increase benefits out of the goodness of their own hearts; they'll just fire people.
  - throwaway7767 10y ago
    It would be great if that were the result. But it remains to be seen. The requirement is that humans decide to change their economic system. If we don't do that (and human society is really good at staying on autopilot until problems have gotten truly severe), we'll just end up with a mostly-automated society where the robot owners have everything and everyone else lives in a ghetto.
    - GarvielLoken 10y ago
thro32 10y ago
> it costs barely $8 an hour to use a robot for spot welding in the auto industry, compared to $25 for a worker—and the gap is only going to widen. This is just wrong. Author does not know much about welding or car manufacturing. - Car welding is a best case for robots. Single task repeated many times exactly the same way. Try different case and you get $1M/hour. - $25/hour human cost is too low. With pauses, errors, delays... $100/hour would be more reasonable. - Germany is exactly in this situation, but does not have problem with unemployment.
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  Same thing with automated driving. Open interstate is fine, try to navigate Boston rush hour in a construction zone...
  - Fjolsvith 10y ago
    I am sure that Microsoft and Google are racing to have their AI be the first to do that.
- lujim 10y ago
  And here we see how news written by people without industry experience meant to be consumed by people without industry experience for the purpose of promoting a political idea can use pieces of real information to promote something less than the truth. Next time you want to see if you trust a certain source for any of your information, pay close attention when they report on a topic where you have a lot of experience. As someone with a professional aviation background, watching CNN cover any aviation topic causes me physical pain.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  It's quite likely they are quoting the actual costs from 2 different car plants. (that would make them highly task specific, but it would reflect the difference in welding costs for producing cars on a high volume line)
  - thro32 10y ago
maxerickson 10y ago
The plummeting cost of capital plant! Which to me raises an important question. Why aren't these huge cost reductions showing up in the prices of products from competitive industries like autos?
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Every year cars are required to have more and more safety features which raises the price.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  They aren't as competitive as they appear.
- GFischer 10y ago
  Cars ARE cheaper. However, as a sibling commenter mentions, consumers demand more features, so they're spending about the same (inflation adjusted). I took the time to investigate a few months ago and came up with this (UK-centric) example: Let's take a cheap car from the 1960s, an Austin Mini Cooper. A 1960s Mini Cooper was about 500 pounds. That's 10.000 pounds in today's money. Today you can buy a Dacia Sandero for 6.000 pounds. That's almost half of a Mini Cooper. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551017 http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2232885/Top-5-cheapest-brand-new-cars-buy-Britain.html http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2232885/Top-...
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    >consumers demand more features I don't think customers demand more features as much as governments mandate more [safety] features. Well, maybe some features are mostly market driven like power windows replacing crank windows and keyless entry. But I believe car companies would build bargain basement death machines if they were legally allowed to. Here's some inflation adjusted average car prices for the US - http://whnt.com/2016/04/25/the-average-car-now-costs-25449-how-much-was-a-car-the-year-you-were-born/ http://whnt.com/2016/04/25/the-average-car-now-costs-25449-h... Cars were the cheapest in the early 70s.
matt_s 10y ago
Does the US really have a problem with unemployment? Nationally it is at its lowest since like 2000 - around 5% now. Yes averages are not good to use, there are areas where it might be 0.5% and some where it is 10%. Bringing back things we used to do is looking in the rear view mirror. There should be investments in technology, education geared towards that and visionary things for us to accomplish for the future.
- fixxer 10y ago
  No, we have a problem with wage growth. That isn't to say that the types of jobs have a huge impact. If McD paid $25/hr with full benefits, nobody would give a shit. Kind of hard to make that sustainable without clawing back real jobs from the 3rd world. Germany seems to do a fine job with their auto industry, robots and all. I think this article is very flawed as that $8 task is but one of many and also one of the few perfect for a robot. "Spot welding isn't coming back to human manufacturing" is more accurate.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Workforce participation numbers are also rather low. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/labor-force-participation-improves-americans-not-labor-force http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/labor-force-...
  - moyta 10y ago
    And a problem with workers rights, our citizens are not fighting for a better working environment.
    - fixxer 10y ago
      Examples?
      - antisthenes 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta... Here's a good start.
kaa2102 10y ago
I like to tinker and build things. I still go to humans for value-added sheet-metal work and welding. However, downstream, mature manufacturing processes are ripe for replacement by automation.
GFischer 10y ago
A family member that works with industrial assembly lines purchased one, and it has been a huge boon for him, especially since he doesn't have to subcontract a welder so much. He does need a person to watch over the robot for theft and most especially sabotage, but even then, it's much cheaper than a trained welder (and welds more cleanly). The construction syndicate here in Uruguay is very big and very radicalized, making construction costs ridiculously expensive compared to average wages, I fear for the first person to bring the bricklaying robot here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a22082/watch-this-bricklaying-robot-build-a-house-in-two-days/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a22082/wat... Edit: the robot I'm talking about is a robotic orbital welder, something like this one: https://www.robots.com/articles/viewing/a-round-the-edge-orbital-welding https://www.robots.com/articles/viewing/a-round-the-edge-orb...
la6470 10y ago
Globalization was great for Americans until they faced competition from other countries. It was fine when the global multinationals mercilessly destroyed local industries and benefited Americans but somehow became unfair when the tables are turned. Well guess what America and UK can build a big wall and keep themselves out , the rest of the world will continue trade and business among themselves. And while the economies of U.K. and USA goes into recession they better not think of colonizing the rest of the world like it was done in the 18th Century. Because now other countries are stronger militarily as well for they have already learnt their lesson.
iamgopal 10y ago
With all being said, can a country without export or import can grow in terms of quality of live indefinitely??
Mc_Big_G 10y ago
Haha, yeah I said as much in a FB post to my Trump supporting friends. Do you really think Trump can stop self-driving cars from taking away your truck driving job? I doubt it.
rabboRubble 10y ago
Question for fellow Hackernewsers... my family is from middle America. One of my younger female relatives is going into the welding trade. She's one of the more talented young welders out there blending skill and artistry. My question is this: what would you suggest as a way to "robot proof" herself from the inevitable automation of the welding trade while staying true to her craft?
- TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
  Work on R&D and creating robots. And, like you said, the arts...
  - rabboRubble 10y ago
    The arts are notoriously bad at providing a living. She's planning on welding for a living wage, and art on the side.
- FiatLuxDave 10y ago
  Suggestion: Learn to do welding of vacuum chambers. Think A&N corp, Kurt J. Lesker, etc. The welds have to be done on the inside of the chamber, then cleaned, and I have yet to see a good robot for this. The market is small enough that it may cost more to develop a good robot than it is worth. It also pays higher than standard welding. /used to hire a vacuum welder
  - rabboRubble 10y ago
    Thanks FlatLuxDave! I'll pass this along.

54 points by SQL2219 10y ago

alyeulra 10y ago

Technology should enhance quality of life of people. when it replaces people, chaos ensue !

Bombthecat 10y ago
Uhhh? So what?
andrewclunn 10y ago
So no more dishwasher machines, forget self driving cars, bring back elevator operators, and have more laws like requiring gas station attendants in New Jersey... What a horrible notion that impeding progress to give people pointless work, which makes things less convenient and efficient, is somehow a fix. The population has gone from 1 to near 7 billion people in just over a hundred years. Economic incentives against just having more unskilled labor is not a flaw that needs fixing, it's or economic and environmental necessities coming into alignment, telling us that having 4+ kids is a bad idea in a world as overpopulated as this, and instead to have smaller families with more resources put into educating the one or two kids we do have
- ethanbond 10y ago
  I don't see how this addresses the point that millions of people are suffering due to automation. Are you saying only the well off should be able to have kids?
  - andrewclunn 10y ago
    I'm saying that the solution to this problem won't come from creating fake work to trick people into thinking that they're productive members of society. And honestly everyone should be having fewer kids, but the well off already are. Turns out that evolutionary and economic forces of selection don't favor people reproducing beyond their means. People can mistake this emergent property for a planned eugenics program and blame the messenger whenever somebody speaks the truth, but better to realize that wanting all human life to have some intrinsic market value does not make it so and plan accordingly.
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      "everyone should be having fewer kids, but the well of already are" seems directly contradictory to "evolutionary and economic forces don't favor people reproducing beyond their means."
  - Jedd 10y ago
    The answer is not necessarily less automation, but more interesting conversations about how societies cater for less manual labour jobs in the future. It's not a particular new thought -- the mythical Ned Ludd (and band) were concerned about how the transition happened, not (as they are popular portrayed) simply committed to stopping any kind of progress. It's naive to imagine that we can will away any kind of technological progress, simply because our parents believed (and indoctrinated us into believing) that we are all entitled to work 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, 45 years of our lives ... and that any attempt to infringe on that ersatz freedom is a personal attack, and any discussion around alternatives is akin to calling someone's god(s) a fraud. Consider the ever erudite John Ralston Saul's comments from his fantastic work The Doubter's Companion: " 'Luddites' - Highly trained individuals whose careers were destroyed by technological progress. This progress was treated as inevitable and uncontrollable. The Luddites therefore occupied the only remaining intellectual position, which consisted of rejecting technological progress. "This reduction of attitudes to two extreme positions was accomplished between 1811 and 1830 when the introduction of Watt’s steam-engines and water-driven wool-finishing machines made hundreds of handicraftsmen redundant. "Industrialization was spreading from sector to sector and quickly eliminated most crafts along with tens of thousands of jobs. "The Luddites (named after an imaginary leader, Ned Lud) broke up and burnt factories. Their revolt ended in a group trial in 1813. Five were hanged. The attitude of society towards unrestrained technological progress was made perfectly clear. The judge said the Luddites’ actions were “one of the greatest atrocities that was ever committed in a civilized country.”1 "This was a classic case of provocation and order versus despair and disorder. Wilfrid Laurier described the nature of this type of conflict when he spoke in 1886 about the Riel Rebellion. “What is hateful…is not rebellion, but the despotism which induces that rebellion; not rebels but the men who, having the enjoyment of power, do not discharge the duties of power; the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone.”2 "What society misunderstood early in the nineteenth century when faced by the industrial revolution was the full nature of the change. The debate should not have been over whether there should be technological progress or not. It was more accurately a question of progress in what conditions: what progress, when, in what circumstances? Market extremists would argue that what happened was inevitable and eventually brought general prosperity. Their view ignores the social disorder, followed by suffering, followed by serious social disorder that this approach towards change brought on. Communism was the direct result. England, France, Germany and Sweden suffered recurring internal violence throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some of it expanding into civil wars. Most of these countries passed within a shadow of revolution. "The question is therefore not whether technological progress was necessary, but whether it was necessary to go about it in a barbaric manner. It can be argued that the Luddites were wrong in 1811. But society spent the next 150 years rendering progress civilized and thereby proving that the infuriated craftsmen had been right at least in spirit. Did these decades of wasted time, effort, lives and money represent an intelligent use of human talents?"
Jedd 10y ago
> Technology should enhance quality of > life of people. when it replaces people, > chaos ensue ! This doesn't make much sense. There's no 'should' with technology - it's merely a (set of) thing(s). Replacing people, in the sense of doing away with Bullshit Jobs <tm> is entirely the goal of new technology - so that those people can do something else. Ideally that something else is something they want to do (and that may (but not necessarily does) improve the world). I think your prediction that people will be replaced by technology is a little naive. The idea that the pointless activities of some people will be replaced by the vague category of 'technology' is entirely palatable to most people.
- applecore 10y ago
  > There's no 'should' with technology. This is a common belief but it isn't true. Actually, government plays a huge role in deciding how technology is developed and broadly adopted by society. There is a should with technology: in the sense of achieving a desirable or expected state.
  - Jedd 10y ago
    I liked your original edit the most :) > Actually, government plays a huge > role in deciding how technology is > developed and broadly adopted by >society. I'm in Australia. Where do you live? Outside of Singapore, I don't know of (m)any governments where administrators are even passably proficient in matters of technology. Generally governments are hostile towards any new technology until they can work out how to turn them into a benefit to the state (water catchment tanks, internet, bitcoin, solar generators, uber, et cetera).. > There is a should with technology: > in the sense of achieving a desirable > or expected state. Intent is a lovely thing, but technology doesn't come shipped with intent, and that was my point. The other (bigger) part of my point was that we need to start having civilised discussions about how we integrate technology into our society now, rather than half-way through revolutions / civil wars.
Symmetry 10y ago
To a first approximation all improvements in people's standards of living come from reducing the amount of labor required to make stuff. In the long run the average consumption has to equal the average production. You can play around at the margin with varying distribution, imports and exports, or getting people to work longer hours. But those effects are all tiny compared to the effects of changes in worker productivity over the last 100 years.

a2tech 10y ago

Yup. This is what I was just arguing with my family about-they voted Trump because they want manufacturing jobs back. I pointed out that if the US imposes trade tariff's high enough to make manufacturing things like steel cost effective again in the US the people that build the plants will simply put in these kinds of robots-not people. Robots work Saturday and Sunday for the same cost as a week day and with far less bitching.

Amezarak 10y ago
That doesn't make it inevitable. We could create regulations about when and what automation is acceptable. That reality seems more likely to me in the present climate than a maybe more ideal solution like basic income - though I think the most likely outcome is huge (and increasing) swaths of the population languishing in permanent poverty.
- chopin 10y ago
  > though I think the most likely outcome is huge (and increasing) swaths of the population languishing in permanent poverty I don't think so. You cannot only outsource manufacturing labor to robots. You can do with policing as well. So you don't have to worry for uprisings. These people will simply starve or being killed by robots.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Assume, hypothetically, that the rich use robots and form their own economy and wall themselves off from the rest. Why can't the remaining people form a non-automated economy amongst themselves? Economically, it's equivalent to those rich people and their robots just not existing at all and their estates being filled with impassible mountains.
  - wayn3 10y ago
    It is equivalent to one of those films where the poor have to live on earth in relative poverty while the rich live in a base in orbit that sustains itself and is basically heaven. Do you believe the "not rich" wouldn't want to cross the wall?

sfifs 10y ago

The question is what does $8 per Hour look like when factoring in capital costs, maintenance and flexibility and that's not addressed by the article. It's interesting that Apple and others closed ultra modern robotics factory in the US and now essentially assemble most stuff by hand in China. It argues that robotics is not always a no brainer choice under many circumstances (which admittedly would be difficult to create in the US)

tanto 10y ago
It might be that Apple did that but do you think American employees will be as "flexible" and cheap as Chinese? If American factory workers are willing to work for less then Chinese your argument definitely holds.
cube00 10y ago
This may be true today but the technology is evolving faster then humans are.
zimpenfish 10y ago
http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-... (and other blog posts on the same blog) seems to disagree that Apple "essentially assembles most stuff by hand" - e.g. > Apple is the world's largest owner of CNC milling machines and swiss style lathes.
- Inconel 10y ago
  You're correct in that Apple is one of, if not the largest owner of CNC machines, and that those machines are responsible for a large portion of their total manufacturing work, but I believe they still use a tremendous amount of human labor for final assembly.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 10y ago

One way is to lower the expense of hiring people in the US. An obvious one would be lowering payroll taxes for certain types of jobs. Another way is to simply lower the corporate tax rate, which would have the additional benefit of repatriating tons of money that is sitting offshore because of American tax rates.

alexandros 10y ago
And what when the robot goes to $4/hr? Eat less expensive food? Have fewer children? What when the robot goes to $0.02/hr?
Inconel 10y ago
I've never run a company so this may be naive or uninformed on my part, but I get the impression that hiring and firing people, at least here in California, can be a costly process with regards to unemployment insurance, litigation for wrongful termination, etc. Again, I may be overestimating this burden on businesses so please correct me if I'm wrong. One thing I've noticed over the years is that despite how good your interview/hiring process may be, you always end up with some hires that don't work out which lead me to believe that you probably turn away a near equal amount of applicants that would have been great employees. It's just very difficult to evaluate someone over the course of a few interviews. For entry level positions this is even harder since you may not have much professional experience or reputation to go by. I've always thought it would be interesting if companies would run a kind of tryout phase of employment, say 1-3 months, paid of course, at the end of which the top performers would be given permanent employment. This way a company might be willing to take on more marginal applicants with the knowledge that it will be very easy to terminate them. I'm sure there are negative aspects of such a system that I'm not considering, but as a person working in aerospace doing manufacturing/skilled labor and without any formal education beyond high school to fall back on, I always thought such a system might be a good way for someone like me to get their foot in the door.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  It is true that lowering the employment "friction" (i.e. cost of hiring and firing) means that employers will be more willing to take risks on new hires. Some european countries make it difficult to fire people, with the unintended consequence that companies become very reluctant to hire in the first place.

noahmbarr 10y ago

As much as I support higher minimal wages, I can't help but conclude that this will only accelerate capital expendures in human-replacing automation

lisivka 10y ago
Automation is good. Eventually, it will lead to shorter working day (e.g. 6 or even 4 hours), shorter working week (e.g. 4 days, or even 3.5 days), to longer vacations, to better health care, earlier retirement, and so on.
- GFischer 10y ago
  I don't necessarily agree. That could be an outcome, but it would require policies or voluntary restraint to get there. At least in my country (Uruguay), the lower earning 8% have 30% of the children, placing a huge strain on society and services (I don't see robots replacing medical and social services anytime soon). So, to enable a sustainable society like you propose, something like a two children per couple rule should be enacted (hopefully nothing so harsh as the Chinese version).
- bbctol 10y ago
  If these benefits are demanded, either by government action or organized labor. If it's up to those who control corporations, they have no reason to cut hours and increase benefits out of the goodness of their own hearts; they'll just fire people.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  It would be great if that were the result. But it remains to be seen. The requirement is that humans decide to change their economic system. If we don't do that (and human society is really good at staying on autopilot until problems have gotten truly severe), we'll just end up with a mostly-automated society where the robot owners have everything and everyone else lives in a ghetto.
  - GarvielLoken 10y ago

thro32 10y ago

> it costs barely $8 an hour to use a robot for spot welding in the auto industry, compared to $25 for a worker—and the gap is only going to widen. This is just wrong. Author does not know much about welding or car manufacturing. - Car welding is a best case for robots. Single task repeated many times exactly the same way. Try different case and you get $1M/hour. - $25/hour human cost is too low. With pauses, errors, delays... $100/hour would be more reasonable. - Germany is exactly in this situation, but does not have problem with unemployment.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
Same thing with automated driving. Open interstate is fine, try to navigate Boston rush hour in a construction zone...
- Fjolsvith 10y ago
  I am sure that Microsoft and Google are racing to have their AI be the first to do that.
lujim 10y ago
And here we see how news written by people without industry experience meant to be consumed by people without industry experience for the purpose of promoting a political idea can use pieces of real information to promote something less than the truth. Next time you want to see if you trust a certain source for any of your information, pay close attention when they report on a topic where you have a lot of experience. As someone with a professional aviation background, watching CNN cover any aviation topic causes me physical pain.
maxerickson 10y ago
It's quite likely they are quoting the actual costs from 2 different car plants. (that would make them highly task specific, but it would reflect the difference in welding costs for producing cars on a high volume line)
- thro32 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

The plummeting cost of capital plant! Which to me raises an important question. Why aren't these huge cost reductions showing up in the prices of products from competitive industries like autos?

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Every year cars are required to have more and more safety features which raises the price.
cmdrfred 10y ago
They aren't as competitive as they appear.
GFischer 10y ago
Cars ARE cheaper. However, as a sibling commenter mentions, consumers demand more features, so they're spending about the same (inflation adjusted). I took the time to investigate a few months ago and came up with this (UK-centric) example: Let's take a cheap car from the 1960s, an Austin Mini Cooper. A 1960s Mini Cooper was about 500 pounds. That's 10.000 pounds in today's money. Today you can buy a Dacia Sandero for 6.000 pounds. That's almost half of a Mini Cooper. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551017 http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2232885/Top-5-cheapest-brand-new-cars-buy-Britain.html http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2232885/Top-...
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >consumers demand more features I don't think customers demand more features as much as governments mandate more [safety] features. Well, maybe some features are mostly market driven like power windows replacing crank windows and keyless entry. But I believe car companies would build bargain basement death machines if they were legally allowed to. Here's some inflation adjusted average car prices for the US - http://whnt.com/2016/04/25/the-average-car-now-costs-25449-how-much-was-a-car-the-year-you-were-born/ http://whnt.com/2016/04/25/the-average-car-now-costs-25449-h... Cars were the cheapest in the early 70s.

matt_s 10y ago

Does the US really have a problem with unemployment? Nationally it is at its lowest since like 2000 - around 5% now. Yes averages are not good to use, there are areas where it might be 0.5% and some where it is 10%. Bringing back things we used to do is looking in the rear view mirror. There should be investments in technology, education geared towards that and visionary things for us to accomplish for the future.

fixxer 10y ago
No, we have a problem with wage growth. That isn't to say that the types of jobs have a huge impact. If McD paid $25/hr with full benefits, nobody would give a shit. Kind of hard to make that sustainable without clawing back real jobs from the 3rd world. Germany seems to do a fine job with their auto industry, robots and all. I think this article is very flawed as that $8 task is but one of many and also one of the few perfect for a robot. "Spot welding isn't coming back to human manufacturing" is more accurate.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Workforce participation numbers are also rather low. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/labor-force-participation-improves-americans-not-labor-force http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/labor-force-...
- moyta 10y ago
  And a problem with workers rights, our citizens are not fighting for a better working environment.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    Examples?
    - antisthenes 10y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta... Here's a good start.

kaa2102 10y ago

I like to tinker and build things. I still go to humans for value-added sheet-metal work and welding. However, downstream, mature manufacturing processes are ripe for replacement by automation.

GFischer 10y ago

A family member that works with industrial assembly lines purchased one, and it has been a huge boon for him, especially since he doesn't have to subcontract a welder so much. He does need a person to watch over the robot for theft and most especially sabotage, but even then, it's much cheaper than a trained welder (and welds more cleanly). The construction syndicate here in Uruguay is very big and very radicalized, making construction costs ridiculously expensive compared to average wages, I fear for the first person to bring the bricklaying robot here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a22082/watch-this-bricklaying-robot-build-a-house-in-two-days/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a22082/wat... Edit: the robot I'm talking about is a robotic orbital welder, something like this one: https://www.robots.com/articles/viewing/a-round-the-edge-orbital-welding https://www.robots.com/articles/viewing/a-round-the-edge-orb...

la6470 10y ago

Globalization was great for Americans until they faced competition from other countries. It was fine when the global multinationals mercilessly destroyed local industries and benefited Americans but somehow became unfair when the tables are turned. Well guess what America and UK can build a big wall and keep themselves out , the rest of the world will continue trade and business among themselves. And while the economies of U.K. and USA goes into recession they better not think of colonizing the rest of the world like it was done in the 18th Century. Because now other countries are stronger militarily as well for they have already learnt their lesson.

iamgopal 10y ago

With all being said, can a country without export or import can grow in terms of quality of live indefinitely??

Mc_Big_G 10y ago

Haha, yeah I said as much in a FB post to my Trump supporting friends. Do you really think Trump can stop self-driving cars from taking away your truck driving job? I doubt it.

rabboRubble 10y ago

Question for fellow Hackernewsers... my family is from middle America. One of my younger female relatives is going into the welding trade. She's one of the more talented young welders out there blending skill and artistry. My question is this: what would you suggest as a way to "robot proof" herself from the inevitable automation of the welding trade while staying true to her craft?

TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
Work on R&D and creating robots. And, like you said, the arts...
- rabboRubble 10y ago
  The arts are notoriously bad at providing a living. She's planning on welding for a living wage, and art on the side.
FiatLuxDave 10y ago
Suggestion: Learn to do welding of vacuum chambers. Think A&N corp, Kurt J. Lesker, etc. The welds have to be done on the inside of the chamber, then cleaned, and I have yet to see a good robot for this. The market is small enough that it may cost more to develop a good robot than it is worth. It also pays higher than standard welding. /used to hire a vacuum welder
- rabboRubble 10y ago
  Thanks FlatLuxDave! I'll pass this along.