Slashdot Mirror
Toyota to Employ Advanced Robots
olegalexandrov writes "Toyota Motor will introduce robots which can work as well or better than humans at all 12 of its factories in Japan to cut costs and deal with a looming labor shortage. The robots would be able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously with their two arms, achieving efficiency unseen in human workers and matching the cheap wages of Chinese laborers, a report said on Thursday." The Motley Fool has a humorous take, and Toyota emphasizes that goodlife, err, humans will continue to have a place in Toyota factories.
I think that just for my sake, and for the sake of all my fellow Star Wars fans, we should just start calling them Droids.
Labor shortage? How about outsourcing (insourcing?) some of those jobs to Detroit where there are surplus autoworkers?
Keep your eye on that one robot near the corner... he keeps mumbling something about Sarah Conner.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
TEHY TOOK OUR JOBS!!1111111
"...with humanoid robots jamming in a brass ensemble and performing hip-hop."
robot1: "you got e-served"
robot2: "oh, it's (ON)/OFF"
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
Yes. In Japan the population is expected to do just that.
2^5
It'll be difficult for a labor organizers to organize these robots. But I'll bet it'll also be difficult to get them to act as good consumers.
I for one, welcome our new two-armed manufacturing robotic friends.
All kidding aside, technological advancements not only displace jobs, but also create them as well. There is a small difference between paying 20 robotics engineers to develop, create, and maintain the robots exorbitant salaries as much as hiring 150 "guys off the street" to do the same stuff.
Yes, after the initial development, the costs go down, but not a whole lot. Someone needs to make sure the robots keep doing their jobs.
From TFA:
Japan has so far rejected calls to open up to large numbers of unskilled immigrants, fearing the effects on the country's social framework.
So instead of using "outsourced" labor, they remove jobs by having robots do them.... almost as bad.
http://www.fsckin.com/
I think you meant to say
"The population is always decreasing...in Japan"
Come on! Someone had to say that...
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Seastead this.
So the same robot could be the pusher robot and the shover robot at the same time, doubling their protection of us from the terrible secret of space.
I read a few years ago about Japanese car makers investing heavily in robotics, but then didn't hear much more about it. I assumed that with the opening up of markets like China and India research had dwindled due to such low labour costs. This will require jobs to maintain and of course develop the robots. Which really are going to be mechanical arms with some basic AI thrown in.
...I'm waiting for the 'our new robotic overlords' jokes to start flooding in.
Toyota can spend more on design and less on the actuall production of vehicles, which will likely improve safety and performance of the vehicles. I hope over manufacturers follow suit. This should funnel more money into R&D for AI.
Sorry, I just rambled on with thoughts there. hmmm...
I think that ``looming labor shortage'' refers to their looming demographic crisis.
Japan's population is aging fast. They're getting older at the rate of one year per year, of course, but they aren't breeding fast enough to replace themselves. That's going to have lots of effects on Japan, most of them bad. One of those bad effects will be a labor shortage. You see, the number of people who are both willing and physically able to work is going to fall off as the current generation of workers gets too old to work.
Europe is facing the same problem, and they're dealing with it via gastarbeiters. Apparently, Japan is going to deal with it using robots.
See what I've been reading.
Get off it. It's been done before. The people were called peasants or serfs or comrades. When the people are unable to contribute to the GDP, then society has no need for the people and they are marginalized.
The global economy abstracts the whole capitalist marketplace into two camps: producers and consumers. As long there is some population somewhere that can buy your product (maybe a tiny western European nation with a small, rich population) the rest of the world can go get bent. Crank out your product with robots or slaves or serfs or peasants and make a profit.
Rampant capitalism is known as the black market and it doesn't work very well in the long run. The global economy isn't far from rampant capitalism, but it will work to some extent right up until the point where everybody's job has been replaced by a robot. Then nobody will be able to afford a new television, and the system will be in trouble.
A little international labor law and careful import/export management would be help, but one thing is for certain - this is not the path to utopia where "societies are rearranged so that a decent living is provided for everyone". This is the path to peasantry, serfdom, servitude, and slavery through debt. This is the road to a life where a communist revolution starts to sound like a good idea.
But by using your same logic I could say that the Americans are more innovative and resourceful than the Japanese. Which country has 2 rovers currently on Mars that have by far exceeded all expectations? The EUs robot crashed in the atmosphere, Japan's didn't even come close to hitting Mars. You have some good points, but your examples are too narrow.
Americans and Japanese innovate in different ways. It's pretty much always been that way since Japan became an economic power after the occupation. Americans tend to neglect a lot of the little innovations like this that can make a big economic impact, but tend to excel in huge undertakings(Man on the Moon, the Internet etc). Japan seems to be the exact opposite. Their space programs have been an abysmal failure, and yet their consumer level technology is unrivaled. Interesting to see how different cultures react to similiar circumstances.
Monstar L
Building anthropomorphic robots for an assembly line is (in this engineers opinion) inefficient. The tool should be matched to do the job specifically at had. Hell, Toyota was one of the companies that started the buzz in Lean Manufacturing.
I work with robots. Robots are my friends. You, sir, are no robot. Wait, I mean you, sir, are not thinking of the right robot.
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky