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Hogwash. Find me a “lights out” factory. They don’t exist. All your stuff is made by people. Often people with fancy machines, but people nonetheless. And the
by sevensor 10mo ago
Hogwash. Find me a “lights out” factory. They don’t exist.
All your stuff is made by people. Often people with fancy machines, but people nonetheless. And the higher the degree of automation, the more non fungible skills you require of those people.
The pump in a vat of yogurt is cavitating. You can’t slow it down without endangering food safety. You can’t adjust the mix without affecting the final product. Somebody who understands all that needs to install a new impeller.
Stamped aircraft parts are coming off the line 500 microns thick. Somebody has to recognize that there’s a problem with the hydraulic cushion and fix it.
I could go on and on and on. There are few things I get ranty about on the internet, but pretending that physical world problems are solved by automation is one of them. You’re replacing a hard problem with another hard problem, with a side effect of higher productivity. Pretending Morlocks don’t exist doesn’t make them go away.
- AbstractH24 10mo agoYour job won't be replaced by AI, it'll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI. There is still a whole market for clothing; its just not led by people who use a loom.
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoHuh? The facilities guy at the local nationally distributed yogurt based product company just swaps out impellers when told by the machine as it identifies there is an issue. He has less skill than your typical HVAC guy, and zero interests in the nuance and zero input about 'best yogurt cavitating' practices. The aircraft part is measured by Faro or some other tool. The person wielding the Faro just follows the QA instructions and marks if things are red/green. Another FARO type product measures the fixtures/etc for compliance. If they don't match, a fixtures consultant is brought in to make them match. Other than those that happened to do the initial setup/machine/fixture construction, the people in the actual plant don't really have much non-fungible skills in your example, and they definitely don't have power/permission to go tweaking things using their personal non-fungible skills.
- sevensor 10mo agoI’m confused about how you’ve characterized factory work. It’s nothing like the factories I’ve been in, so I’m assuming this is an imagined future state? Hope do you propose we get there?
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoMy experience if anything is dated and historical 2010s era.
- kevlened 10mo ago> Find me a “lights out” factory. They don’t exist. "Inside China's 'dark factories' where robots run the production lines" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw "China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBdcNA_FsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBdcNA_FsI
- sevensor 10mo agoSeriously? They show people on the floor within the first 30 seconds of the video. I guess it’s technically “lights out” if you make people work in the dark, but I meant, and the article implied, production without jobs.