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Robots everywhere are a good thing (tm). Why hire people when you can cut costs by 100x and deliver more stuff of higher build quality ? However nobody except

Robots everywhere are a good thing (tm). Why hire people when you can cut costs by 100x and deliver more stuff of higher build quality ? However nobody except the owners benefit from automation (savings are profits), while slowly generating a huge unemployment problem outside the factory walls. The governments or companies themselves should quickly step in - not just through some sort of universal income, but through making automation public. In other words, robot schematics and software should become public and open source and companies should be highly encouraged (tax benefits etc) to open source all their software and build schematics.

Shivetya 10y ago
sorry but implying this is all done in bad faith is ridiculous. unless you just the only producer of a widget your profits are dictated by how well your market your product, how good your product is, and how your pricing compares. robotics reduces your costs after the initial investment is accounted for. prices do drop or remain steady, rarely do prices go up and much of that can be accounted for in increased regulation or embedded taxes the only winners when government takes over an industry are politicians and those they choose to administer the industry.
- delegate 10y ago
  > government takes over an industry The coloured glasses that everyone wears these days is costing me karma... to hell with it. Please re-read my post. Open sourcing robot schematics and software has nothing to do with government taking over. It means that hackers everywhere will be able to study and improve said robots and maybe build a version of the factory in some poor place on the other side of the world or maybe on another planet. As far as finding the capital, building the things and running them - that's the responsibility of whoever wants to assume that risk, as always.
  - meanduck 10y ago
    Though this part does suggest some govt strong arming. > be highly encouraged (tax benefits etc) Also note that many (including me) believe that taxes are already non-consensual and extortion by Govts.
cr0sh 10y ago
I think more so that open sourcing everything (no problem here with that, though) - might be (somehow) incentivizing or requiring the ability for ordinary people to access automated manufacturing at extremely low cost. Increase the number of maker and hacker spaces. Co-working spaces. Co-industry spaces (shared manufacturing)? To an extent this is already happening (witness the rise and popularity of low cost PCB manufacturers - as well as 3D printing companies that take a model and make a widget for a small fee - similar for other CAD/CAM manufacturing - but the prices need to come down, especially in certain areas like injection molding and such).
nradov 10y ago
Government can't legitimately force robot designers to give away their IP. That would eliminate the economic incentive for designing new robots. And having an industrial robot would be useless outside the context of a fully-equipment modern factory anyway. How would you even define what the terms "robot" and "automation" mean in legal terms anyway? Almost everything man-made object around us is automation in some sense.
- deleted 10y ago
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Shivetya 10y ago

sorry but implying this is all done in bad faith is ridiculous. unless you just the only producer of a widget your profits are dictated by how well your market your product, how good your product is, and how your pricing compares. robotics reduces your costs after the initial investment is accounted for. prices do drop or remain steady, rarely do prices go up and much of that can be accounted for in increased regulation or embedded taxes the only winners when government takes over an industry are politicians and those they choose to administer the industry.

delegate 10y ago
> government takes over an industry The coloured glasses that everyone wears these days is costing me karma... to hell with it. Please re-read my post. Open sourcing robot schematics and software has nothing to do with government taking over. It means that hackers everywhere will be able to study and improve said robots and maybe build a version of the factory in some poor place on the other side of the world or maybe on another planet. As far as finding the capital, building the things and running them - that's the responsibility of whoever wants to assume that risk, as always.
- meanduck 10y ago
  Though this part does suggest some govt strong arming. > be highly encouraged (tax benefits etc) Also note that many (including me) believe that taxes are already non-consensual and extortion by Govts.

cr0sh 10y ago

I think more so that open sourcing everything (no problem here with that, though) - might be (somehow) incentivizing or requiring the ability for ordinary people to access automated manufacturing at extremely low cost. Increase the number of maker and hacker spaces. Co-working spaces. Co-industry spaces (shared manufacturing)? To an extent this is already happening (witness the rise and popularity of low cost PCB manufacturers - as well as 3D printing companies that take a model and make a widget for a small fee - similar for other CAD/CAM manufacturing - but the prices need to come down, especially in certain areas like injection molding and such).

nradov 10y ago

Government can't legitimately force robot designers to give away their IP. That would eliminate the economic incentive for designing new robots. And having an industrial robot would be useless outside the context of a fully-equipment modern factory anyway. How would you even define what the terms "robot" and "automation" mean in legal terms anyway? Almost everything man-made object around us is automation in some sense.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]