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Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...
- realize 15y agoyet
- molecule 15y agobut that would be a trivial instruction set to upload.
- geogra4 15y agoSo where will the low wage jobs run to? Perhaps African nations will pick up the slack. What happens to the unemployed chinese laborers then? Marx is still relevant after all these years....
- InclinedPlane 15y agoAutomation. Does NOT. Destroy. Jobs. Is the economy smaller today than in 1911? Are there fewer jobs today? Are there less worthwhile jobs today? Exactly the opposite in every case. Automation may eliminate A job in the near-term but in the long-term it creates and enhances wealth. Ultimately every dollar spent makes its way from one person to another person. Robots don't have bank accounts.
- realize 15y agoCan you imagine a future where most of the menial and factory tasks that are now jobs are performed by robots? In this case it certainly does eliminate jobs, with no guarantee that others will be created. The wealth created goes to the company that made the robot, and the one that utilizes the robot. The people who used to have jobs get left out of the wealth transfer. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, just that it will happen and maybe we need a new economic model to deal with this future.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoCompanies become more dependent on automation in order to increase efficiency. In the near-term this leads to higher profits. However, because automation reduces overhead, competition will result in lower prices. The end result is that increased profits are only temporary, ultimately the main result is merely cheaper goods. And cheaper goods mean increased amounts of discretionary income. That money ultimately goes elsewhere, creating new jobs that didn't exist before or causing growth for old jobs that used to be niche. Yes, I can imagine a future where most of the menial and factory jobs are performed by robots. Just as I can imagine a present where the majority of the population isn't farmers, or where "computers" are devices rather than people, or a present without elevator operators, switchboard operators, lamp lighters, or milkmen.
- natrius 15y agoI can imagine a future in which robots are cheaper and more capable than a broad swath of humanity at everything. Jobs will be lost.
- DannoHung 15y agoThis is assuming that there is no price collusion and that capital costs of market entry are generally negligible.
- ebiester 15y agoFine, but we're to the point, or almost there, where nearly every job that can be done by someone of IQ 85 or below will be automatable. Intelligent people will be in demand for a while. But what about below average intelligence people? People who are sub-literate and can't jump from job to job, learning skills quickly? Diligent, hard working people who just can't outwork a robot?
- vlisivka 15y agoWhat we do with homeless dogs? History says - convert them to eunuchs.
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- Hawramani 15y agoBuilding on Donald Knuth's definition of an artist (someone who does work that cannot yet be automated, such as a programmer), it seems like today the most efficient economy is one that automates everything that can be automated, so that all of its population work as artists. The argument that automation destroys jobs assumes that at least part of the population does not have the propensity to be artists. This is the crucial point that this whole debate rests on. In other words, are there people who are so un-creative that everything they could produce can be automated? If there are, then such people will lose jobs due to automation and will not gain back any alternative jobs. I think on a site like HN the debate is skewed because most of us are high IQ people who, so far, don't have any trouble competing with robots. If there were robots who could do everything I can do and do it cheaper than I, why would anybody hire me?
- ScottBurson 15y agoI think you've hit the nail on the head. We're getting to where it's all about creativity.
- protagonist_h 15y agoThe question here is -- which jobs will remain longest. Is that "high IQ" jobs? Computers are wonderful at solving well-defined "high IQ" problems, like playing chess or performing register allocation. And creativity is just an ability to generate original solutions to the problem. Computers are more than capable of doing that.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- lallysingh 15y agoWell, there is one fix to that: Automation does not destroy skilled jobs. Unskilled jobs, however, are hit by automation. For theUS, the problem is how off-track our education system has gotten in terms of job preparedness. We have lots of people who worked hard, got lots of student debt, and have no jobs. Which is actually still small (the unemployment rate for people with college degrees is what, 4-5%?). We have lots of unskilled labor who went through our public school system. That's a problem. We need to bring trade schools back. Also, did anyone else notice the use of the verb "hire" when talking about robots?
- zizee 15y agoHow does one define "skilled"? I suspect that the definition is something like "A job is skilled if it can't be automated". If we go with that definition then yes, by definition automation destroys unskilled jobs.
- lallysingh 15y agoRoughly: you have to apprentice or go to school (trade school, college, what-evs) to do it.
- reinhardt 15y agoRobots don't have bank accounts. But those who manufacture, sell and buy them do. And they won't be very eager to share the returns of their investment with the rest of the society, at least a capitalist society like the ones we have today.
- felipemnoa 15y agoAutomation gives you more bang for your money. Consider the wrist watch, only the rich could own one. Now is a throw away item. Even the poor can own such advanced technology. Except that instead of the wrist watch now is a smart phone.
- dmix 15y agoIf Foxconn is the "Apple" of chinese manufacturing - high value customers, largest workforce etc, I wonder if they will be trendsetting in their move to robotics. Many other companies in China will be watching very closely on how it works for them, and may do the same if it succeeds.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoI think people are looking at this the wrong way. Look at the history of manufacturing in any country, at any company. They may start off by taking advantage of lots and lots of inexpensive low-skill labor (even Ford did), but as they grow over time and become more successful they start taking in more and more revenue. And that revenue allows them to accelerate their capital investment, making increasing use of automation for example. It happened with manufacturers in America, and Japan, and Korea, and Taiwan, and it's happening again in China. I don't think it's necessary to invoke any other motivations.
- jacques_chester 15y agoAutomation is bad for the economy. Think of the tens of millions of phone operators put out of work by rotary pulse dialling exchanges. Where are they now? Those 100 or 200 million phones worldwide won't connect themselves!
- zizee 15y agoThis won't last forever though. Once true strong AI is created we will be able to automate everything. It might not happen for centuries but eventually we will be forced to rethink the way society functions. Perhaps people will pay a premium for a "human made" sticker on the side?
- mahyarm 15y agoSaying true strong AI is like saying once teleportation is available, we can live anywhere in the world! Or that if we use nuclear fission for our power production, it will be too cheap to meter. Reality is a bit more sticky, and strong AI is a long ways away.
- nTsplnk 15y agoIf strong AI exists. Humans think they can control everything. We can't. Even if Robots were to automate everything, what happens when a tsunami hits Japan? Destroys sources of power, robots, the power grid. What do they do then? We talk about all this "AI" as if it's close to fruition. It is not close to fruition. The "robots" Foxconn is getting aren't autonomous. They're just machines that do what they are told to do.
- pilgrim689 15y agoRodney Brooks stressed how the first nation that embraces new robot technology in their industries will have huge economic advantages over other nations. (he's a highly influential roboticist, MIT AI researcher, co-founder of the company that makes the Roomba and other robots (military mostly)). He stated in a conference (2009) that for robots to be successful in manufacturing, they needed : 1- object recognition skill of a 2 year old child 2- language capability of a 4 year old 3- manual dexterity of a 6 year old 4- social understanding of an 8 year old I guess Foxconn is eyeing robots that are close to reaching those numbers. ref. : conference I mentionned: http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/Rodney_Brooks_Remaking_Manufacturing_With_Robotics http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/Rodney_Brooks_Remaking_Manufacturi...
- burgerbrain 15y agoSurely robots are already successful in manufacturing. Just look at.. well.. just about anything you own that has a weld in it.. I guess that's not the cool sort of robotics though.
- pilgrim689 15y agoOh yes, definitely. The robots used, however, are still "first generation", so to speak. They do not adapt to the product. They are designed to build one thing, to automate one task, and they do that (insert screw of shape X into hole of shape Y). What Brooks speaks of is a new generation of robots. Robots that can be shipped from a factory that builds iPods to a factory that builds car wheels. They take way less space than the first generation, and they adapt. So if your product decides it's going to use nails instead of screws, you don't need to redesign your robot line. In the US, it's mostly behaviour-based AI that got a big push at MIT in the 90s and have been used in the US military for the passed decade... seems like they're ready for manufacturing now :D
- forensic 15y agoThis debate isn't about jobs. The question is this: will the powerful still value human life when robots are better than manual workers? Wealth keeps concentrating in the hands of a small minority. Unskilled workers increasingly look like nothing but a drain on resources, unable to produce anything valuable or afford education. Many many billionaires have little respect for unskilled human life and libertarians do not believe in free education or social services. When the bottom 50% of society finally ends up with no money, no marketable skills, and no military prowess, what is going to happen to them?
- zizee 15y agoWhen it eventually happens, society will have to change. viva la revolution baby!
- felipemnoa 15y agoThis. You do not want to have too many poor people or somebody will take advantage of this and use them to overthrow whomever is in power and put himself in power.
- ebiester 15y agoTanks make this a difficult proposition.
- zizee 15y agoOnly if you have brainwashed the tank crews (which admittedly does happen in the military).
- billywitchdr 15y agoIn this scenario, I'd imagine the tank crews to be automated too.
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- DannoHung 15y agoI know that the suggestion that these are going to eliminate human positions is an unpopular sentiment here at HN because economics. However, are we really so sure that there will always be a human labor demand to effectively meet the human labor supply? What do we do when there is an excess of human labor? Everyone here is opposed to make work for good reason. But a suggestion that solves the moral issue of what to do with an unemployed human who is not contributing due to a lack of labor demand has not been proposed in the general case. It is typically waved away by saying, "There will be a new industry." But can we really not imagine that this new industry will remain un-automated for long? What about the new industry that begins by being automated? I am not opposed to automation in the slightest. I think that if we can automate every task in the world, that would be the best thing. If anything I am just opposed to insisting that as technology changes, we must maintain the same social values and behaviors.
- OpenAmazing 15y agoWhat do we do when there is an excess of human labor? We get to work building some really awesome space ships and start colonizing other planets. Seriously.
- Joakal 15y agoUSA seems to have an excess of human labour and they're scaling back the space program in favour of private enterprise. From what I see of the private enterprise is that not much is happening as they seek those specialised in certain skills. You could put faith in several people groups like Copenhagen Suborbitals, CSTART, OSM and the like, but like above they seek those specialised in certain skills. That's to discount the paradox of technology efficiency: Food becomes cheaper but unemployed people can't pay for it.
- forensic 15y agoThe unemployed people are uneducated and unable to make space ships. The educated and skilled people will be busy working on military tech, farmville, and face recognition software. You know, technologies aimed at pacifying the masses.
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- natfriedman 15y agoAt Foxconn in the last five years there have been 17 reported suicides out of ~1 million workers. The US rate in 2007 was, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 11.5 suicides per 100,000 people, or ~35x higher than the Foxconn rate. Foxconners are not unusually predisposed to kill themselves. It's a jingoistic myth.
- Groxx 15y agoHow many of those 11.5/100k have been done at work, though? The 17 and this quote seem to imply those are just the ones happening at the buildings themselves: >To pacify its increasingly restive workers, Foxconn has repeatedly bumped up their wages, improved facilities, provided counselling and swathed its factories with nets to catch anyone leaping from a window. And, for comparison, the WHO gives numbers that are closer to each other, though still surprising individually: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/ http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicider...
- free 15y agoIIRC, foxconn provides on campus housing for the workers, so everything happens at the plant
- Groxx 15y agoThat rings a bell, thanks! I do wonder why the (relatively) extreme measures exist if there isn't a problem, though. Straight PR could explain, but I find it a bit unlikely.
- Groxx 15y agoThat rings a bell, thanks! I do wonder why the (relatively) extreme measures exist if there isn't a problem, though. Straight PR could explain, but I find it a bit unlikely.
- malkia 15y agoWanted to share this - Robot comes from the slavic (czech, russian, bulgarian and others) word - rabota - WORK.
- Jach 15y agoMy memory recalls it's not just work, but slavery. "Origin of ROBOT Czech, from robota compulsory labor; akin to Old High German arabeit trouble, Latin orbus orphaned — more at orphan First Known Use: 1922" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robot http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robot
- faboo 15y agoAnd created by Czech playwrite Karel Čapek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum%27s_Universal_Robots) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum%27s_Universal_Ro... Noteworthy, I think, because it'd seem natural for a technology to be named by the people who created it, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes its the people who dreamed of it.