5 ms·

I think many of the jobs will return, but fewer than before. With each economic cycle the amount of work which can be automated increases. This is a long term

by motters 16y ago

I think many of the jobs will return, but fewer than before. With each economic cycle the amount of work which can be automated increases. This is a long term trend which began a couple of centuries ago, and eventually I expect it to culminate in campaigns to divorce income from jobs, with the introduction of a "Citizens Income" based upon taxing mostly automated companies (each citizen assigned some percentage of GDP per capita). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend

api 16y ago
But then the Morlocks will eat us!
jtbigwoo 16y ago
Except that much of manufacturing isn't automated--building and maintaining the robots would be too expensive. Instead companies pay third-world workers next to nothing to assemble products by hand. Go and read Bunnie Huang's blog posts about manufacturing the Chumby in China. (bunniestudios.com) The Chumby is assembled almost completely by hand. Even big things like industrial equipment are often welded and assembled by hand. The problem is this: Say a company is going to sell 1,000 of a particular heavy assembly per year and profit $1,000 from each. There's no way they can afford to build and maintain an automated assembly line to support that product. Each individual robot might cost $50,000+. Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products, or where one line can make several closely related products (e.g. a tractor plant that makes front loaders and dozers.) I know this doesn't fit with the techno-futurist ethos around here. Maybe in another 50 years robots will be cheap and flexible enough to truly automate manufacturing.
- motters 16y ago
  "Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products" Untrue. Many low profit consumer products are made using robots. Currently human labour can still compete with automation, and companies seek the cheapest labour costs by outsourcing. But there will come a point, which has already been reached in a few niche areas of manufacturing and agriculture, where no human labour, however cheap, can compete against automation in terms of productivity per unit cost.

by motters 16y ago

api 16y ago

But then the Morlocks will eat us!

jtbigwoo 16y ago

Except that much of manufacturing isn't automated--building and maintaining the robots would be too expensive. Instead companies pay third-world workers next to nothing to assemble products by hand. Go and read Bunnie Huang's blog posts about manufacturing the Chumby in China. (bunniestudios.com) The Chumby is assembled almost completely by hand. Even big things like industrial equipment are often welded and assembled by hand. The problem is this: Say a company is going to sell 1,000 of a particular heavy assembly per year and profit $1,000 from each. There's no way they can afford to build and maintain an automated assembly line to support that product. Each individual robot might cost $50,000+. Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products, or where one line can make several closely related products (e.g. a tractor plant that makes front loaders and dozers.) I know this doesn't fit with the techno-futurist ethos around here. Maybe in another 50 years robots will be cheap and flexible enough to truly automate manufacturing.

motters 16y ago
"Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products" Untrue. Many low profit consumer products are made using robots. Currently human labour can still compete with automation, and companies seek the cheapest labour costs by outsourcing. But there will come a point, which has already been reached in a few niche areas of manufacturing and agriculture, where no human labour, however cheap, can compete against automation in terms of productivity per unit cost.