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> I believe you're misharacterising the issue. The trouble with technology is that well, you either have it or you don't. Technology is always a matter of degr

> I believe you're misharacterising the issue. The trouble with technology is that well, you either have it or you don't. Technology is always a matter of degree. Let's say I have a handloom barn making fabric and clothing. Is that already "technology"? If not, then what if I install a diesel generator to power the looms? Then I get some treadle sewing machines to replace hand-stitching? Then I get a laptop to replace hand-accounting? Do I "have technology" yet? As a handloom barn owner, I certainly couldn't have developed or manufactured a diesel generator, a sewing machine, or a laptop, yet I can buy and maintain (or just replace) them quite easily. Doing the same with robots is just a matter of degree and difficulty. Compared with getting humans to do the same work, is it worth it or not?

sqeaky 9y ago
I think it is a matter of competition. The unpowered loom does not enable you to compete, but some amount of powering it and accepting a lower wage does allow you to compete with shops that have slightly more tech. Accepting lower wages is how these shops came into existence in the first place. This is the first production quality version of this robot the next one could be twice as fast. How do you compete with that? The only way to compete is to build another machine that is cheaper or better. This is not something Bangladesh is able to do.
- snrplfth 9y ago
  The point is that if the robot really is that fast, and that cheap, then you don't compete - you start doing something else where the robot cannot compete at that price. Textile workers aren't robots - they have the capacity to shift to other work, and there's an enormous amount of work to be done. This objection to automation has been brought up every time anything's been invented, for hundreds of years - if we do something with less human labour, then humans won't have work or incomes. But actually, they just end up finding other useful things to do that weren't getting done before.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    I don't think this is the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. That argument is about the west. Here in the USA we could in theory train our coal miners to write software or build build bridges or do some other useful task. China has way more people and much less ability to train them, but that is not 0 ability to train them. But Bangladesh... They are pretty fucked. This will cut them out of a huge swath of the economy they were participating in yesterday. You can't efficiently make roboticists in Bangladesh today. EDIT - I also think complete automation is fundamentally different than performance enhancing tools. Clearly Bangladesh has sewing machines, but that is an entirely different price and profit category than a full blown sewing robot.
    - snrplfth 9y ago
      This is exactly the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. "Oh, they're simple peasants now and forever, they can't work in factories, they'll never learn to read, they can't invent productive industries" and so on. You seem to be implying that training for jobs is somehow something that's done mainly by the governments of countries - that people are just passive receptors of whatever training and education the state can provide, and can't seek it out, or create it for themselves. This is of course wholly wrong, and almost none of the specialized skills developed by people in the course of industrialization are gained through formal education. You don't have to make lots of roboticists in Bangaldesh anyways (and there aren't many of those in industrialized economies either) - people can and will move into the sectors that have been small simply because labour was more valuable elsewhere - services, like health care, education, retail, et cetera. These are useful tasks no less than textile work, and largely don't require a massive "training program".
zdkl 9y ago
I'm all for rhetorical points, but surely you realise the magnitude of difference in complexity of operation-maintenance between 19th century looms and motors versus non-analog assets. Not only there's a major difference in degree of difficulty as you note but also the question of support ecosystem.
- snrplfth 9y ago
  I disagree. Literally billions of people, many of them living on $4 to $10 dollars a day, without indoor running water or reliable electricity, have cellphones - compact computers connecting to a massive global telecommunications infrastructure. Computing capacities (and hence, productivities) which would have had their own floors of buildings and dedicated staff in the 1950s are now semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better. How do they operate them? Well, through the relatively simple, user-friendly interfaces. How do they maintain them? Well, they're modular and inexpensive - if a single component, like a battery, breaks, you replace it. If too many components break, you just get another one. Of course this does require a certain level of local support and expertise, but no, I absolutely don't think it's that much more difficult than maintaining 19th C. industrial assets, especially because of how fast and affordable modern telecommunications and transportation are. Is it broken? Call an expert on another continent, or have one fly in. Do you need new parts? Already ordered, and they'll be here next week, for a low freight charge. Sure beats waiting for the steamship to come in, or the telegraph boy to bring a message from head office reading "Could not replicate the engine malfunction, please try halting and re-starting the steam boiler."
  - zdkl 9y ago
    > [...] semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better. In my humble opinion this is the flawed assumption in the line of thought you advance. Technology isn't universally disposable, that depends on the replacability and support structure around any specific source of complexity (edit: and purchasing power) You haven't solved much of anything with automation if the final word is "don't worry how it works, we'll come over and bill you to fix it"

sqeaky 9y ago

I think it is a matter of competition. The unpowered loom does not enable you to compete, but some amount of powering it and accepting a lower wage does allow you to compete with shops that have slightly more tech. Accepting lower wages is how these shops came into existence in the first place. This is the first production quality version of this robot the next one could be twice as fast. How do you compete with that? The only way to compete is to build another machine that is cheaper or better. This is not something Bangladesh is able to do.

snrplfth 9y ago
The point is that if the robot really is that fast, and that cheap, then you don't compete - you start doing something else where the robot cannot compete at that price. Textile workers aren't robots - they have the capacity to shift to other work, and there's an enormous amount of work to be done. This objection to automation has been brought up every time anything's been invented, for hundreds of years - if we do something with less human labour, then humans won't have work or incomes. But actually, they just end up finding other useful things to do that weren't getting done before.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  I don't think this is the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. That argument is about the west. Here in the USA we could in theory train our coal miners to write software or build build bridges or do some other useful task. China has way more people and much less ability to train them, but that is not 0 ability to train them. But Bangladesh... They are pretty fucked. This will cut them out of a huge swath of the economy they were participating in yesterday. You can't efficiently make roboticists in Bangladesh today. EDIT - I also think complete automation is fundamentally different than performance enhancing tools. Clearly Bangladesh has sewing machines, but that is an entirely different price and profit category than a full blown sewing robot.
  - snrplfth 9y ago
    This is exactly the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. "Oh, they're simple peasants now and forever, they can't work in factories, they'll never learn to read, they can't invent productive industries" and so on. You seem to be implying that training for jobs is somehow something that's done mainly by the governments of countries - that people are just passive receptors of whatever training and education the state can provide, and can't seek it out, or create it for themselves. This is of course wholly wrong, and almost none of the specialized skills developed by people in the course of industrialization are gained through formal education. You don't have to make lots of roboticists in Bangaldesh anyways (and there aren't many of those in industrialized economies either) - people can and will move into the sectors that have been small simply because labour was more valuable elsewhere - services, like health care, education, retail, et cetera. These are useful tasks no less than textile work, and largely don't require a massive "training program".

zdkl 9y ago

I'm all for rhetorical points, but surely you realise the magnitude of difference in complexity of operation-maintenance between 19th century looms and motors versus non-analog assets. Not only there's a major difference in degree of difficulty as you note but also the question of support ecosystem.

snrplfth 9y ago
I disagree. Literally billions of people, many of them living on $4 to $10 dollars a day, without indoor running water or reliable electricity, have cellphones - compact computers connecting to a massive global telecommunications infrastructure. Computing capacities (and hence, productivities) which would have had their own floors of buildings and dedicated staff in the 1950s are now semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better. How do they operate them? Well, through the relatively simple, user-friendly interfaces. How do they maintain them? Well, they're modular and inexpensive - if a single component, like a battery, breaks, you replace it. If too many components break, you just get another one. Of course this does require a certain level of local support and expertise, but no, I absolutely don't think it's that much more difficult than maintaining 19th C. industrial assets, especially because of how fast and affordable modern telecommunications and transportation are. Is it broken? Call an expert on another continent, or have one fly in. Do you need new parts? Already ordered, and they'll be here next week, for a low freight charge. Sure beats waiting for the steamship to come in, or the telegraph boy to bring a message from head office reading "Could not replicate the engine malfunction, please try halting and re-starting the steam boiler."
- zdkl 9y ago
  > [...] semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better. In my humble opinion this is the flawed assumption in the line of thought you advance. Technology isn't universally disposable, that depends on the replacability and support structure around any specific source of complexity (edit: and purchasing power) You haven't solved much of anything with automation if the final word is "don't worry how it works, we'll come over and bill you to fix it"