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Foxconn To Employ 1 Million Robots
hackingbear writes "Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn will replace some of its workers with 1 million robots in three years to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency. Foxconn, the world's largest maker of computer components, which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia, employing 1 million (human) laborers in mainland China, is in the spotlight after a string of suicides of workers at its massive Chinese plants. As labor regulations tighten up in China, human laborers demanding wage rises become replaceable."
You need to look a bit further back in history to see when we shot ourselves in the head. Back in the 70s and 80s when robotics first began to be introduced into manufacturing, there was considerable resistance to it in the West because it displaced blue collar workers. We prioritized their jobs over market efficiency. Consequently in the 90s and 00s when a certain country stepped forward who was willing to play hardball in the labor market, a lot of those jobs ended up moving over there.
If we'd opted for efficiency over jobs in the 70s and 80s and pressed full speed ahead with automated assembly lines, the cost of robotic labor in the West might have been low enough to compete with human labor in China. Those manufacturing industries might have been able to stay here, along with jobs operating and maintaining those automated manufacturing facilities. This is the risk you take when you prioritize anything over efficiency - that someone else will swoop in with a less costly and/or more efficient process and steal all your business from you.
Foxconn is now shielding themselves so another developing country cannot do to them what they did to the West. If they stuck with human labor as we did, as their wages rose another developing country could undercut their labor prices and steal business from them. To prevent this, they're getting the robots in place now. That'll make it difficult or impossible for another developing country to undercut their manufacturing costs, thus guaranteeing those manufacturing industries stay put in China.
They see the writing on the wall when it comes to mundane, repetitive tasks performed by humans. The inexorable march of progress in AI and robotics means that long-term, blue collar manufacturing jobs worldwide are a dead end. It may take 30 years, it may take 100+ years, but the inevitable outcome is that all manufacturing labor will be done by machines, not people. It's simply a waste of our time to be doing such mundane tasks. This should have been obvious in the 70s. We should have embraced automation back then and set up re-education programs to teach assembly line workers how to operate and maintain the robots. Then maybe those manufacturing industries might never have moved over to China in the first place.
Well considering the fact that NEVER in our history have we been at war and NOT raised taxes and we are currently in THREE wars...I think I know what the problem is! I'm not rocket scientist but 800 MILLION a day blown down rat holes shooting at brown people could be a large part of the problem me thinks.
Add to that money sinks like the Gerald Ford Aircraft carrier (uneeded, Enterprise was recently refit and is in good shape, not to mention we already have 11, more than quadruple what anyone else has) and the F35 which is insanely over budget and still isn't ready? The teabaggers may want to blame this on the poor but if we got rid of the 700+ overseas bases (uneeded, we can get to anywhere on the planet and drop bombs with our long range bombers and aircraft carriers) along with the three wars pissing money down a rathole and use our troops at home to deal with the giant leaking sieve of a border I think they'd see significant savings.
Of course that wouldn't fit into the ultimate right wing fantasy, the mantra of "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom" which they've been pushing like trickle upon for 30+ years and ran the country into the shitter with. Sadly studies along with common sense shows higher taxes on the wealthy increases employment and growth since if they get taxed if they kep it they are more likely to INVEST it into business rather than hoard, which takes it out of the economy and is "dead money". But instead we'll hear it all blamed on those dirty peasants and their little checks putting food into their dirty little mouths. The cure? Why "Give teh rich more MONIES! Nom nom nom" of course!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.