Except that much of manufacturing isn't automated--building and maintaining the robots would be too expensive. Instead companies pay third-world workers next t

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.