The Robots are Coming

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com's new 'Linux-powered Robots Quick Reference Guide' offers an interesting glimpse into of some Linux-powered robots currently available or near production, and provides an extensive reading list with further information on Linux in robotics. According to a fascinating article at TechNewsWorld, Linux is poised to play a centrol role in an emerging industry that many expect to overtake the PC industry in size: robotics. Japan is currently driving robot innovation, according to the article, impelled by a looming labor shortage. Consumer robots like the Sony Aibo and Honda Asimo make headlines, but ubiquitous, cheap, and practical utility robots are what most Japanese robot makers are focused on, and 'carmaker Honda believes that robots will become its most important business,' according to the TechNewsWorld article. Watch out -- the Linux-powered robots are on the march!"

Comments

yeesh...

[wrinkledshirt]

Japan is currently driving robot innovation, according to the article, impelled by a looming labor shortage.

Ugh. I get as excited about robots and Linux as much as anybody, but the semi-marxist in me gets a little freaked out by things like this.

How long before innovation that can take the role of a worker in a labor-shortage environment ends up being used to replace real people in a labor-glutted environment?

Re:yeesh...

[OtakuHawk]

but you have to remember, there will always be people needed to FIX the robots when they break down. and OTHER robots capable of doing this job won't be around for a long time.

Re:yeesh...

[JanneM]

A good question.

But, don't forget that the "robotics revolution" is really a pretty long-term thing, and long-term, demographics show that population - especially the work-age population - is or will be trending downwards in more and more countries. For most industrialized countries, "labour glut" is simply not happening thirty to fifty years down the line.

What is happening (and has really been happening for a long time already) is that automation tends to remove the jobs that are the most brainless, dangerous or repetitive, at the same time creating new (but fewer) jobs "higher up" in the organization - as somebody already said, you need people to design, deploy and manage the automation systems. It does mean that education and training is becoming steadily more important, however. We are already long gone fron the days when someone could attend just grammar school, then start a job and learn in place. Twenty or thirty years down the line, having a high school diploma only will likely be similarily useless.

Re:yeesh...

[Imperator]

Oh, but I'd love to live in a world where robots did all the work. Where I showed up to work one day a week to code the robots a bit, and spent the rest of my time in leisure pursuits. The only problem is that won't happen. We constantly want more. If we were happy with our current standard of living we could steadily reduce the workweek for decades to come. But instead Americans are working ever longer and harder.

No, right now we have solved the problem of scarcity at a level Marx never dreamed of. If we wanted to, we could eliminate (not just reduce) poverty, homelessness, and hunger in America. It would take a massive shift in values, but it would not be technically or economically difficult. If we aren't doing these things now, why should we think that robotics (or any other technological improvements) will change that? No, we'll just keep working our asses off so we can get shiny new cell phones every six months.

But all that will probably be denounced as socialism by some knee-jerk American. As far as I'm concerned, the advanced societies of this century are the ones being built in Western Europe. They are not perfect, but they are trying new things and consciously trying to leverage the economic and political successes of the last 55 years into better societies. America is falling behind, and that worries me.

Re:yeesh...

[Simonetta]

Japan's 'impending labor shortage' is nothing more than plain old-fashioned bushito bullshit. The world's population is exploding, which means that there is no labor shortage in real terms. When they say 'impending labor shortage' the Japanese mean not enough of 'our people' to do all the work that needs to be done.

This is an indicator of the overwhelming but subliminal racism that permeates Asian culture. It never occurs to the Japanese that there actually could real decent intelligent civilized human beings outside of Japan that could be encouraged to move to Japan, do the work, and eventually become Japanese citizens and even, over time, actually even become Japanese.

Contrast that frame of mind with the Americans. The Americans talk endlessly about the levels of racism, both overt and subliminal, between the various groups of people who move there and live there. But after a few generations of being part of American culture, everybody is accepted as part of the 'salad bowl' of American society.

This could never happen in Japan. There are families of Korean background who have lived in Japan since the Tokugawa era (1600's) and they are still marched down to the local police station every year to be registered as 'gaijin' (foreigners). The Japanese even practice racism against their own people. They created a social sub-class called 'buraku-min' which get treated a second-class citizens even though there is no disconcernable difference between these people and the mainstream.

It's all just accepted as the way that things are, have always been, and should always be. But do they actually have a real labor shortage in a world that doubles in population every twenty years?

No way.

Perhaps...

[Azureflare]

Perhaps our social labor structure needs some redesigning? Perhaps not everyone needs to work nearly as hard as we are?

I think the developments in robotics are going to force us to seriously reconsider our philosophy about life. If robots can do what we do now, better, what are we here for?

Personally, I'll welcome the day when robots can do all our work for us, and I can go and relax on the beach all day long.

Re:Perhaps...

[wrinkledshirt]

Personally, I'll welcome the day when robots can do all our work for us, and I can go and relax on the beach all day long.

But how are you going to be able to purchase the necessary commodities of life? Food/shelter/clothing and all that?

It's not like the people who have these robots are going to donate the fruits of their labour for free.

Re:Perhaps...

[Azureflare]

True... That would be really horrible if the corporations used the robots for all the work and then charged for the fruits of those labors. If those corporations in charge of the use of the robots decide to do such a thing (which is likely, given the fact that they want profits more than anything), there are going to be a lot of poor in the world...

I think now is a time when ethics and morals are really, really important in our capitalistic society. Without them, we are at the mercy of those who can develop such systems.

Re:Perhaps...

[JanneM]

But the companies will be paying taxes on their income, right? As will the people that do have a job (and those jobs are likely very highly paid; if they didn't need very qualified people for them, they would have automated as well, right?). So the government will still have quite a lot of income.

What would be needed is a social coverage system that does make allowances for having perhaps 50%-80% unemployment; in essence, "unemployment" would need to cease to be an abberration at all, and become the norm. In effect, you'd have everybody - having work or not - on a basic income (that may be purely monetary, or in a hybrid form) that gives you a basic but decent standard of living.

Now, I'm sure free-market people are busting a vein right now, but consider the alternative: having more than half the population with no money, no work, and no prospects of ever getting either? Can you spell "riots", "looting", "crime wave" and "insurgency"? I knew you could!

This is all of course contingent on the assumption of the parent posters that new work opportunities aren't opening up in sufficient numbers.

Also, there is a world of options in between our current 40h+ work week and "relax on the beach all day long". You have quite different amount of work being done in different parts of the world already; in Europe, we generally work quite a bit less than in the US for instance; valuing the extra hours of off time more than the added income. You could imagine a future where the normal work week could be an average of 10 hours or so (maybe as 20 hours per week for half the year).

Re:Perhaps...

[canajin56]

Lets just hope they realize that robots don't buy the products.

OT, but still...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Japan is currently driving robot innovation, according to the article, impelled by a looming labor shortage..."

Excuse me?? Japan, with a labor shortage? This is the same Japan w/ the huge unemployment rate, runaway deflation, and enormous national deficit, right? Or, is this some other Japan I haven't heard about yet?

Looming labor shortage, my ass - robotic workers can't form unions, don't need health insurance, don't go on strike, don't quit, don't disobey orders, yada yada yada.

Corporate Japan's fascination with robotic workers has nothing to do with a 'looming labor shortage', and everything to do with eliminating the blue-collar worker to increase the white-collar's income.

Bastards.

when governments no longer need citizens...

[LionKimbro]

There is a saying:

"What happens when goverments no longer need citizens?"

It applies just as much to the network of corporations as it does to the network of governments.