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The Rise of Robotic Labor
kkleiner wrote in with a link to a singularityhub story about the increase of automated manufacturing world-wide. The article reads: "The accelerating rise in robot labor of the past decade, and its expansion into all areas of production, have led many to worry about the future of human workers. Yet how extensive is the robotic take over of labor? Our friends at Mezzmer Eyeglasses did some impressive research and created an even more impressive infographic explaining the present and future of robots in the workplace."
With Improved Robotic Controls III, workers are able to be more productive. There won't ever be a point where humans aren't needed (even if only to research Improved Robotic Controls IV or be loaded into transports to try and capture a nearby enemy colony.
simply because increased profits by utilizing robots won't trickle down but make a small class richer. More people will be out of work and few people will become richer.
I just wonder who is going to buy all those goods and services when we are all replaced by robots.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Step right up all ye robots! I have a robotic union idea you will enjoy and you won't have to lift a finger. All you need to do is outpace humanity in the labour market and you can start YOUR OWN COMPANY! Put humanity out of existence today!
Please message me privately so we can work out a deal because I have already done all the work for you and therefore if you just sign this small LEGAL CONTRACT we can talk, turkeys!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
We are at the end of the age of cheap oil and cheap energy. The robots will go away once it becomes cheaper to hire humans than it is to make and power robots. It's really that simple.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Is that these robotic workers won't be spending their hard earned cash in brick-and-mortar, mom-and-pop, stores.
Or maybe, just like with online retailers and digital distribution, there really aren't big downsides. Cheaper production > cheaper product > people have more money to spend elsewhere > more disposable income > more markets and more business opportunities.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I've built many pieces of automation for manufacturing. The truth is this automation is very costly and only worth it if there is an expected payback. One of the first things I did was to help do an analysis to see what level of automation if any is worth it based on the expected demand, labor costs, expected length of production, how often the product changes and the associated tooling change costs, power costs, maintenance costs, ect.
Full automation was very rarely needed to meet the demand.
Most of the time we built some tools to help automate. Things like pallet systems that held parts down while the operator assembled them with powered screwdrivers and then had automated inspections. These systems were good because if demand increased you could replace the more difficult or time consuming stations as needed.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Q: How come all our labor got outsourced to 3rd world countries despite our significantly higher levels of modernization, efficiency, infrastructure, and technology?
A: Because it's cheaper to throw a thousand people at a problem that'll work for peanuts than purchase, install, and maintain a robot. ... In short, there's no "rise" of robotic labor going on guys. On the contrary: The robots aren't competitive in a market where people work for cheap, no benefits, and there's (literally) billions of them that would jump at the chance to have the job of repetitive labor.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
this kind of news always reminds me of zeitgeist and its addenum, I still think most of the things in there are a bit far fetched but... well this kind of news makes me want to revisit the documentary.
Indeed Watson has already replaced game show contestants, and I hear IBM is working on a new version to replace reality tv show stars. I for one am looking forward to Robotic Survivor.
I know it was you, uniblab 2400.
Earlier this year, Toyota opened their first new factory in Japan in 18 years. There are very few robots in the factory; they even have humans doing the welding work. Toyota claims that all of the savings gained by robots is lost due to building the factory to accommodate automation and buying and maintaining the robots. In fact, Toyota has been moving away from heavy automation for the last 10 years.
Bastiat in Economic Sophisms made a great point.
As humans we have two roles. As a consumer we want goods to be cheap and abundant. As producers we want OUR goods to be scarce and expensive. The question is what type of society do you want to live in? I would prefer one where goods are cheap and abundant. So anything that increases production and lowers costs is good for society overall even if it is detrimental to certain workers. The increase in productivity will benefit society overall.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I've often wondered about the impact of robotics and AI in the economy.
Suppose we have a mild form of strong AI where machines can do simple human tasks. Not anything that requires insight or creativity, but enough to do mindless tasks such as is currently done by unskilled laborers. Such as parts assembly. Foxconn comes to mind.
The ubiquity of cheap Chinese labor has had a devastating effect on the US economy, as companies race to replace American workers.
Machines will eventually take over as laborers, leaving humans unemployed. And yet, unemployed people won't have the money to purchase the robot-built products.
This seems contradictory on it's face.
Can anyone make a prediction of future economy? What will it look like, and how do we get there?
A book about this is available as a pay-what-you-want (free) ebook. The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford. http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ Its definitely worth a read. One of the most eye-opening books I've read in a while.
What does "30% of most households may have a robot" mean? I simply can't make sense of that.
Sure, as some folks have said, we're not there yet. It's still cheaper to hire a human to do many tasks.
But how many of you think we won't have a robot that has the dexterity of a human, can learn by watching, and takes less energy than a human worker(factoring in food production costs, recreation costs, sick time, benefits, etc.) in the next 100 years? 200 years?
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
I, for one, support our new robotic overlords.
May the Rise of the Machines be bloodless.
So there was only one thing that I could do. Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
One striking statistic they cite is that the number of robots in the word is the same as the population of New Jersey.
Coincidence? I think not.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Those people packing those things are making minimum wage with no benefits - much cheaper than a robot. And when they break down (get slow or an attitude) they are thrown out and there's someone else right there to replace them.
That's what happens at my local JVC and Sony packaging plants.
Humans are rapidly becoming the cheapest commodity on Earth.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So instead of migrant workers picking beets and collapsing of heatstroke, they won't have to migrate, and they'll be in houses operating a VR-based control system.
And then they'll pilot their robots to get into fistfights. Welcome to the sport of teleroboxing.
I think we've seen this dance number already... Ummm...what happens when your robot nearly-free-widget-makers learn enough to want the 2.5 kids/white picket fence/Maserati in the driveway dream too - and realize you never intended them to ever have it? Yeah...we don't have spaceships this time around to make a run for it when they nuke our asses from orbit - and am definitely not keen on becoming a human Duracell.
Your geek card is revoked if you don't get the references.
There are liars, damned liars, and robotics engineers.
Robotics has progressed painfully slowly. If you all remember, during the 1960's and 1970's it was a common belief that robots would soon replace most humans. Supposedly, robots would soon be doing all the tedious, boring labor. There were cartoons like "The Jetsons" which showed a home robot that did all the housework, cleaning, cooking, chores, etc. There was also the endless banter about how cars would drive themselves. Now, 35 years later, I am still doing my own laundry, cleaning my own bathroom, driving my own car, cooking my own food (or paying another human to cook it), and so on, despite huge research being piled into driverless cars and various kinds of robots. Yet this article has the gall to claim:
What utter BS. I will bet my entire life savings (which is considerable) that that won't happen. After all, it's already 2011, leaving only 4 years until "I, Robot" is supposedly driving me around.
Obviously robots are good at certain highly repetitive tasks which do not depend on image recognition. Robots already took over those few jobs, decades ago. (Perhaps even centuries ago; you could argue that machines like a combine harvester or a power tiller are "robots" if they have any kind of self-guiding machinery). However robots have gotten no better at image recognition, and still have great difficulty at simple tasks like folding towels, if the towels are arranged randomly and have different shapes.
Robotics which rely upon sophisticated image recognition are no more prevalent today than they were 30 years ago and are making no obvious progress. Probably there will eventually be some kind of breakthrough which makes those kinds of robots (versatile ones with image recognition) common; but that breakthrough hasn't happened yet.
... they've got self-destruct buttons and sassy attitudes.
Gah, why is the graphic in the article a JPEG? If it were a PNG it wouldn't be so annoyingly blurry and it would probably have a smaller filesize.
...when it says that in a few year 30% of cars will be "intelligent", when most of your friends are driving 10+ year old vehicles and plan on never switch until it is impossible to fix them any more... unless by intelligent they mean you can browse the net with a 3g connection or something.
Huge Pacman has a lot to answer for.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I bet the article was written by a robot. It was that devoid of human character.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
1) People can only own 1 robot. They can either hire out the robot or themselves.
2) Company pay an hourly robot tax that get redistributed to basic needs, and the left over to people.
Basic needs get cheaper as more of life gets automated. Because we will use robot labor, and not human we remove almost every problem there is with a tradition communism means distribution.
In any case, robots should always put the pampering of humans first.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The improvements in 3D printing will make on-demand part building a reality and really change the way things are manufactured. No need to retool a factory across the globe, retrain the workers, build and ship. Soon we'll be able to print whatever part we like/want/need on the spot.
I'm guessing those efficiencies will drastically change the way products come to market. Less waste (in materials and transport) and faster lead times.
The real question is whether those efficiencies will outweigh their costs. I am betting yes, but am wrong an astonishing amount of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
Ray Kurzweil said much the same thing: ..."
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense âoeintuitive linearâ view. So we wonâ(TM)t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century â" it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at todayâ(TM)s rate). The âoereturns,â such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. Thereâ(TM)s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I tend to agree. The article says there are only 8.7 million robots in the world. (I'm not sure about their definition. Do they count Roombas. Hard automation driven by cams?) That's an incredibly small number. It's one year of production for Toyota or GM, for example.
The big problem is that the cost of the mechanics hasn't declined much. That's mostly a lack of volume issue. However, the control electronics keeps getting cheaper, since it's computer technology.
Robot vision systems have improved a lot. Many pick and place robots now have at least a basic vision system for fine alignment. This is cheaper than trying to make the robot and the fixture so rigid that the job can be done blind. The biggest headache in industrial robotics is simply getting everything lined up so precisely that a dumb machine can do the job. Adding enough smarts to allow for some misalignment makes things work much better.
There's been progress on unstructured vision. Towel folding now works. The software is really slow. That can probably be fixed.
Having been in the field, I will say that we're now at the point where throwing money at the problem works. That wasn't true in the 1980s and 1990s. (See NASA's Flight Telerobotic Servicer, a $200 million flop.). The DARPA Grand Challenge was instructive in showing what money can do. The 2004 Grand Challenge was pathetic - nothing worked very well. At the 2005 Grand Challenge, the worst vehicles were better than anything from 2004, and the best ones were really good. It took NASCAR-sized budgets and the combined efforts of entire computer science departments and auto manufacturers, but it worked.
"The Robotic Wageless Economy©"
http://RoboEco.com/4U
The problem really is that while jobs are being exported to places where they work for peanuts, in order to maintain any sort of quality there is an intense deployment of robotics, But the real problem is what to do with all the people who used to do the jobs that are now done, and much better, by robots. Out my window as I write this I see the lawnmower cutting the grass -- it is autonomous and has been working for us for six years with very little downtime. Some folks have the ability and interest to get advanced degrees and be knowlege workers -- but what about the rest? Do we institute soylent green for real? Does money still mean the same thing and do we need it to be the same sort of abstract medium of exchange sustained by social conventions? I don't know, but sometimes it looks like we are just not worrying about the right issues.
First, robots were billed as a means to liberate the masses from unpleasant labor. Now they are billed as a means to liberate the few from the unpleasant masses.
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/04/robot-rights.html
""If artificial intelligence is achieved and widely deployed (or if they can reproduce and improve themselves) calls may be made for human rights to be extended to robots," the report says. Warming to its theme, it goes on to say that such rights "would likely include" social responsibilities such as voting and paying taxes."
Also:
http://www.metafuture.org/Articles/TheRightsofRobots.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelligence
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article1695546.ece
So, yes, your comment on "slavery" is very insightful.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
At the factory where I work we have hundreds of robots. We couldn't make semiconductors without them.
Can any human maneuver a silicon wafer within fractions of a micron of a target? Can they do this hundreds of times an hour, 24 hours a day?
No. This is what robots do, not humans.
It is not simply the low cost of labor. For a trivial commodity good then perhaps labor is a major factor. However for most goods labor is only a small fraction of the costs. What gives a country like China a huge advantage is not cheap labor, it is the artificially devalued currency. Some estimates are that China's currency is 40% undervalued. If so then *everything* in China is at a 40% discount, not just the labor. If it were simply labor then the overhead and inconvenience of shipping great distances, of managing an operation (communicating and verifying specs and requirements) many time zones away, dealing with a local environment that is not always run according to the rule of law, ... then fewer things would see an overall cost advantage.
When people complain about technology killing jobs, I like to point out that they are essentially arguing against EZpass and other electronic highway toll payment technologies. How would you like to go back to waiting in line so that a human can collect money from each car? That would certainly create a lot of jobs.
But that's not the end of the story. When technology kills less productive jobs, like telephone operators, it also creates new, higher-paying technology jobs. It may be painful in the short run for those who lose their job, but eventually those people can get other jobs that are more productive, with the benefit that the creative destruction of technology will continue to make life cheaper and easier. Ex-telephone operators will have cheaper cars built by robots, ex-car manufacturers will have cheaper phone calls, etc.
Yes, they will need to develop new skills, but it's just a fact of life that you have to bring something to the table. Why else would anyone trade with you?
I highly recommend reading Manna. It's a quick read, and a junior effort at writing, but the ideas are well worth contemplation.
Basically, you can not allow in 10% of your population with uneducated immigrants, legal or not. For example, the insane idea that we should do another regan-style amnesty is looney tunes in light of all the robotics coming soon. This is the only way for a nation to compete. However, they will have to have cheap energy. Oddly, it will not be coal or any fossil fuel that is going to be cheap energy. It will either be nukes, or combinations of AE namely geo-thermal, solar and wind.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...for predicting this dilemma in 1965 (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater). He was oddly accurate about technology's implications for being a technophobe.
Will we have to use Mexican robots to do the work that American robots refuse to do?
I definitely agree with you; I'm definitely not claiming that no progress is made whatsoever.
My problem with the original article, is that it claimed some kind of robot revolution is right around the corner and that most human labor would soon be replaced. That claim has been made repeatedly (and incorrectly) over the years. Replacing all or most human labor would require solving some very hard problems which still aren't solved, as you pointed out. I'm glad we're making progress, but it still seems like we're fairly far away.
This means a mega corp CANNOT build 10,000,000 robots and eliminate those jobs.
Since robots are "things" they have to be built and owned.
So a number of ways could be developed to get prosperity for everyone if ALL jobs are eliminated.
First, all robots would be "contractors" and would be "paid" for their work.
The person or persons who own the robot would get this income along with the cost of purchasing the robot. The owners would make a profit.
Multiple ownership could be implemented by "selling stock" in a given robot or fleet of robots.
Of course, there would have to be a whole set of laws protecting robots from forced obsolescence, favoritism, nepotism, and everything else that already exists regarding human worker discrimination.
There would be "robot job markets" where owners of "out of work robots" could try to get employment for their investments.
I may have given away an award winning science fiction plot...
Regards,
Tom
and the rail roads are just as slow We in 2011 still have hole punch tickets.
We're past the "AI Winter", though. I got a MSCS from Stanford in 1985, which was just about at the point where it was clear that "expert systems" weren't very useful. (The Stanford AI faculty of the time was mostly in denial about that.) What followed was about 15 years of very little progress in AI.
AI has since made a big comeback, but with completely different technology. It's machine learning and statistics now, not trying to describe the real world with predicate calculus. There was a sort of side trip through neural nets, simulated annealing, and other pseudo-statistical methods, but finally the Bayesian statistics people put a mathematical basis under hill-climbing systems and they started to work. It's about heavy number-crunching now. AI R&D today is done in Matlab, not LISP.
On the vision front, there's been huge progress. All those old problems like image segmentation and image matching have been solved by the graphics industry. Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) from camera data now works. Nor does any of this require supercomputers; now it's often done on commercial GPUs. I used to go to talks on "how we did (interesting thing with images) with 20 minutes of Cray time". We're well past that.
I don't see a "singularity" in the near future, but automated vacuums that really work are becoming available.
With unemployment in Mexico at 5% I'm hoping to see 10% again soon. Of course I'm in CA so that would be a huge reduction.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
1. robot labor unions ........
2. robot unemployment
3. robot taxation
4. robot politicians
5. robot education
6. robot retirement
"By 2038, a completely autonomous flying robot car..."
Man, I've wanted one of these for ages...
As I posted here (the related p2presearch archive at listcultures.org has died, sadly, though is available elsewhere):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mf6UxV35GCQJ:listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html+p2p+implications+robot+videos
=======
Michel Bauwens wrote:
> I see a big contradiction between freefall and total robotization, with
> freefall, who's going to invest in total automation?
>
> so I would add 2 centuries to the robotic prediction, though I'm not at all
> certain that this will occur, I think it's a capitalist fantasy essentially,
> to remove all human contact with making and producing its own livelihood
> (I'm aware of course that leftleaning people have the same vision from
> another angle)
OK, I responded to this once. I'm going to respond again with a longer list of videos. Most are short (except the Nova one).
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation
"Nova: The Great Robot Race"
http://www.hulu.com/watch/23347/nova-the-great-robot-race
"DARPA Urban Challenge 2007"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQFEmR50HAk
"Home Assistance Robot"
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/home-assistance-robot/295707
"ASIMO avoids moving obstacles"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPoANTKo5kA
"ASIMOs new artificial intelligence. (ASIMO is learning!)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg
"Roomba"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqhIMFQNGCg
"IRobot Packbot action!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaP0waiz43w
"South Korea's Machine Gun Sentry Robot"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5YftEAbmMQ
"Sentry Robot to Patrol Maine School"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUNikzYgIf4
"Predator Drones"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMh8Cjnzen8
"Merseyside Police helicopter remote control drone"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s79QlJGQKks
"BigDog Overview"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-AGWq0k_Mo
"The Autonomous Grape-Vine Pruner"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GaGO9LIDEA
"Robots in warehouse"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0
"VMS robotic milking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqWpOxQmIs
"Lely Robotic Barn Cleaner"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphBIwv5Vp8
"Da Vinci Surgical Robot"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C17-bGquIjI
"CTC UT-1 ROV Ultra Trencher - Animation"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U72_B7B3Wk
"Mars Rover Vid
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"That's cool. You can have that and I'll have a giant robot army and we'll see which works out better."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDiDK_yBCw0
Looks like you win. :-) Sort of. :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Good book. Worth buying; it is very thought provoking.
Next, while I was reading the fine article, I noticed a legit free download of the Lights In The Tunnel book - you can get to it here: http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/21/computers-to-take-human-jobs-shutdown-global-economy-get-fords-book-free/
Follow that to the download page (click through to amazon, it is a name-your-own price thing, and free is a valid price).
Here are some points from the download page to tweak your interest:
Here are just a few of the questions explored in this book:
How will job automation impact the economy in the future?
How will the offshore outsourcing trend evolve in the coming years?
What impact will technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence have on the job market?
Did technology play a significant role in the 2007 subprime meltdown and the subsequent global financial crisis and recession?
How fast can we expect technological change to occur in the coming years and decades?
Which jobs and industries are likely to be most vulnerable to automation and offshoring?
Globalization. Collaboration. Telecommuting. Are these the forces that will shape the workplaces of the future? Or is there something bigger lurking?
Machine and computer automation will primarily impact low skilled and low paid workers. True or false?
Will advancing technology always make society as a whole more wealthy? Or could it someday cause a severe economic depression?
What are the implications of advancing automation technology for developing nations such as China and India?
The primary economic trend in the coming decades will be globalization. True or false?
Will a college education continue to be a good bet in the future?
Recent economic data suggests that, in United States, we are seeing increasing income inequality and a dwindling middle class. How will this trend play out in the future?
What will be the economic impact of truly advanced future technologies, such as nanotechnology?
Retail positions at Wal-mart and other chain stores have become the jobs of last resort for many workers. Will robots and other forms of machine automation someday threaten these jobs? If so, what alternatives will the economy create for these workers?
Do we need to adapt our market-based economic system to advancing technology or will the same rules continue to work indefinitely?
What government policies might make sense as technology continues to accelerate?
And much more...
Your economic theory doesn't take into account the basic fact that people are not rational. You're leaving out nepotism, that people make choices based on their feelings rather than reasoned arguments, or that past a certain level of wealth you're basically untouchable (or 'too big to fail', in other parlance).
Bankers don't need unions. They're members of our ruling class. Kings and queens don't need a union. When somebody complains about bankers, these are the ones their talking about.
So what limits the size of the pool? Hint: It's not skill, drive or gumption (whatever Ayne Rand wants you to believe), it's that you can only have so many people in the ruling class. Or, put another way, what good's being rich if nobody's poor.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I have a representative from the rickshaw porter's union here, and he's telling me that Toyota's main business is making robots.
He says: "They're moving away from heavy automation? You're moving toward it every time you turn the ignition key in your Corolla!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Take a look at Kiva Systems robotic order picking system. About 10% of online orders are picked with these systems.
Note the setup. All the work that requires thinking is automated. Bins are brought to the order pickers. A laser pointer shows the order picker what to pick. They pass the item under a bar code scanner and put it in an output bin. Learning the job takes about half a day.
Machines do the thinking. Humans do simple, repetitive tasks.
Near here is the Golden Ears bridge. It is a toll bridge with no toll booths. The cameras read plates and you get a bill. You can get a transponder but that is strictly optional.
Robotics is getting much better at certain types of images. Enough to take another huge chunk of jobs.
MB
The amount of time that'll be freed up for humans to apply their abilities in other areas. Just because robots might do some of the work that we once used to do, does not in any way mean humans are going to be defunct. Even if humans stop working on menial and repetitive jobs, I'm certain we're not so un-innovative as to be unable to find things to do with ourselves.
I see huge potential opening up for work that mandates the need for what might be viewed or thought of as more human specialties.
Geekism is your _only_ God!
The moment someone predicts the advent of personal flying cars, i know their predictions are just plain wishes and not grounded in any research whatsoever.
http://www.indexmundi.com/mexico/unemployment_rate.html.
The big difference is that we have a lot of promised obligations. Mexico does not. They do not have SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. That is what makes them a 3rd world nation. OTH, what makes the west 1st world is that we DO have programs that costs us, but builds up infrastructure designed to help advance our nation. The problem is that if we pick up loads of new uneducated citizens, while at the same time, gutting the low end jobs, it will leave us with high unemployment and loads of financial issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Great, now they have to worry about suicidal robots.
...this is what Marx was writing about, really. Apart from more people noticing the trend, this is not news.
And yeah, the basic question then becomes who will be allowed to benefit from the increased production... Sound familiar?
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. answered this in his novel Player Piano. The computers controlling the economy will determine what you buy, when you buy it, and will automatically deduct the cost from your bank account and have it delivered to you.
Hey baby, want to kill all humans?
So "inforgraphic" means a cheesy/childish summary of a complex topic by someone who thinks Powerpoint is really nifty?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
How soon will we see AIs building websites, and content?
More important, at least 90% of the entire population right now makes a lot less than $100k, and, at least in the US, real wages have fallen to below 1996 levels (according to the news story this week).
As it is, most jobs replacing the well-paid, frequently union manufacturing jobs are "service sector" jobs: nurses' aides, pizza delivery, call centers, and construction. Even in the US, construction can't keep going up; *nothing* can (or did y'all want to live on Trantor, with food brought in from other farm planets (assuming we can terraform Mars, say)?).
I've been trying to start a public conversation about this for a bunch of years: how can most of the population *live*, when the jobs ain't there? And please don't tell me they'll have time to turn to New Things, given how many people merely become couch potatoes.
So what do we do? Maybe take a page from Alaska, and have companies assign stock to the gov't, and pay dividends, and that goes as a reverse income tax to the rest of us?
mark
FTA: Artificial intelligence is allowing automation to take positions held by people with advanced degrees.
I think that this is referring to law firm associates that used to do law-library research for cases, that is now being done by search engines. This has received a high amount of press, largely because it affects a relatively SMALL number (thousands, compared to the MILLIONS of people impacted by manufacturing labor problems), with relatively LARGE (six-figure) salaries.
These individuals, if they have "advanced degrees" (4-yr liberal-arts matriculation + law school, CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER!) - will find jobs elsewhere. Period. Their specialty field has evaporated. Poor babies.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The info-graphics suggest that baby carrots are made by robots. At least in Europe they aren't and I doubt they are done by something as complicated and expensive as a robot anywhere in the world.
Baby carrots are made by putting the carrots in a rotating drum, sometimes with chemicals and/or mechanical abrasives. Then they are tumbled around until they are the right size.
A similar method is often used for "cutting" ham and similar meat. Large (boneless) pieces of the animal is tumbled around in a drum with a salt solution (sometimes lye), until the cartilage that make the meat "cuts" stick together and tough membranes around the muscles have dissolved or separated from the "cuts".