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I'm really skeptical that it's easy to automate those assembly line jobs away, or to automate mining. For one thing, robots are expensive to build. For another,

I'm really skeptical that it's easy to automate those assembly line jobs away, or to automate mining. For one thing, robots are expensive to build. For another, while it's possible to make robots do tasks like that, there's a good chance they'll be less efficient at them than humans. And of course, if you're profit driven, given the choice between paying foreign sweatshop workers starvation wages on a high margin product and blowing billions on a risky R&D project that has a 50% chance of not working and a 50% chance of being copied by all your competitors if it does (assuming you develop something that's actually cheaper than cheap wage slave labor, which is far from a given) is pretty obvious... that said, if you can actually build an iPhone factory that doesn't need workers, I'm believe there are many big companies willing to pay you a small fortune for that.

lordnacho 3y ago
Well yeah, it's not easy right now, because we are doing precisely what you are saying, basically short term optimization. Not saying that hasn't served us well for a long time, but I think there are improvements we could make in our society.
v-erne 3y ago
>> I'm really skeptical that it's easy to automate those assembly line jobs away I think most people here on HN does not see this because they tend to do software related work, but this is happening faster that you may think. When I last time spoke with middle level manager of building company that specializes in constructing factories in Central Europe he said that change over last 20 years is almost magical - factory built at the start of millenium required hundreds people to operate. Projects finished two decades laters can easily operate with 20 people or less. And this is East/Central Europe - probably least automated part of developed world. If you look at Japan you can see things such as fully automated ps 4/5 production lines ( https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-secret-weapon-a-nearly-all-automated-factory https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-sec... )

lordnacho 3y ago

Well yeah, it's not easy right now, because we are doing precisely what you are saying, basically short term optimization. Not saying that hasn't served us well for a long time, but I think there are improvements we could make in our society.

v-erne 3y ago

>> I'm really skeptical that it's easy to automate those assembly line jobs away I think most people here on HN does not see this because they tend to do software related work, but this is happening faster that you may think. When I last time spoke with middle level manager of building company that specializes in constructing factories in Central Europe he said that change over last 20 years is almost magical - factory built at the start of millenium required hundreds people to operate. Projects finished two decades laters can easily operate with 20 people or less. And this is East/Central Europe - probably least automated part of developed world. If you look at Japan you can see things such as fully automated ps 4/5 production lines ( https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-secret-weapon-a-nearly-all-automated-factory https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-sec... )