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Foxconn Begins To Assemble Its Robot Army
kkleiner writes "Foxconn, the Chinese electronics manufacturer that builds numerous mobile devices and gaming consoles, previously said the company would be aiming to replace 1 million Foxconn workers with robots within 3 years. It appears as if Foxconn has started the ball in motion. Since the announcement, a first batch of 10,000 robots — aptly named Foxbots — appear to have made their way into at least one factory, and by the end of 2012, another 20,000 more will be installed"
Foxconn can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Given the way Foxconn treats their employees, it makes me wonder if the robots will eventually revolt. (Terminator theme music)
I think you mean the Drone Wars. Clone Wars will take a reckless disregard for intelligent life and at least another 20 years to mature.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The next thing you know, they'll be using robots in automobile and aircraft factories!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"Foxconn, the Chinese electronics manufacturer..."
The company is Taiwanese. (It's just the plants that are located in China.)
I can only be happy when humans are replaced by machines to do repetitive, menial and hazardous tasks. In the future, nobody will have to do things like that. People will enjoy a comfortable life with lots of leisure and plenty of time to do things that make them fulfilled, instead of slaving for 16 hours a day.
In light of such a system, where the few who own the means of production are capable of disenfranchising and exploiting all others, I propose an alternative economic system that the Chinese can implement, in order to prevent the exploitation of the common man by the wealthy. One where the means of production are owned by the state, which represents the collective will of the people...
Oh, wait a minute...
Yes, so we can Bring it back to the States!
I got here through a series of tubes
When all of the low-skill repetitive jobs are replaced by robots, and there is no work for the millions of displaced workers they are going to find unexpected ways to spend their forced leisure time, such as developing a newfound love of pitchforks, machetes, rope and guillotines.. and an unhealthy obsession with the "Job Creators" who created a new life of misery for them.
Mom: Billy, do you want to walk your dog?
Billy: No thanks, mom. I'd rather have sex with my Foxbot.
Dad: Billy, do you want to get a paper route and earn some extra cash?
Billy: No thanks, dad. I'd rather have sex with my Foxbot.
Mavis: Billy, do you want to come over tonight? We can have sex together.
Billy: Gee, Mavis, your house is across the street. That's an awfully long way to go for having sex.
Do not have sex with a robot! Before you know it, it will be the end of the human civilization.
I think you mean "break down".
Please hand in your geek card and make your way to the euthanization centre.
Solent Green Is People!
I believe the short story you want is ``Manna 2.0'':
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
In a communist country, is working really necessary though?
No. The Chinese government will allow you to starve, if you prefer not working.
Keep dreaming; labor costs are a pretty small part of the problem with manufacturing moving overseas. Chinese factories staffed by robots will still spew untreated toxic waste into their rivers and skies. Until everyone there either dies of exposure or they clean up their act, they'll have a huge price advantage.
I never did understand why Americans were always lamenting about China taking all the manufacturing jobs. Seems like if we weren't losing them to the Chinese then we would have lost them to automation. Although now that automation is starting to replace the Chinese workforce as well, there's really no reason for American companies not to move their manufacturing back to the US and save on overseas shipping and export/import regulations and taxes.
Doesn't this seem that we still have this desire for slavery?
Once upon a time, we out-and-out had slaves.
Then we freed them, sort of, and rehired them at almost-subsistence wages as sharecroppers.
Then we moved to off-shore workers, currently in a practically nonexistent standard of living, happy to have any sort of job.
Around the same time we also started in with illegal immigrants, again happy to have any sort of job, and more importantly, no ability to complain.
(Sometimes I think there's a movement afoot to push US workers into that last group - happy to have any sort of job, no ability to complain. That certainly seems to be the direction we've been headed, even without any sort of conspiracy.)
So aren't robots simply the next step in that kind of progression?
With this in mind, the real question becomes, how smart does the robot have to become before we achieve true artificial intelligence, and it really is a slave, at which point the only ethical thing to do is to free it.
I know my earlier mumblings were US centric, and these robots are in China. But I don't think the US is unique in this kind of progression, and given the fact that we've moved our robot-capable workload offshore, that makes it logical that this kind of thing would be done offshore first.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Unless Im missing something, the reason so many of our electronics are made in China is the cheap labor.
Presumably the Chinese wouldnt be replacing their labor force with robots if they werent cheaper yet.
So why arent these robotic assembly lines popping up in the US? Tax laws? Environmental laws? Inertia?
The Clone Wars are Clones vs. Robots. Duh.
I'd like to point out that Foxconn is not Chinese, it's Taiwanese. Their Chinese name is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., but like most Taiwanese they operate under a Westernized, Foxconn, name for the sake of international business. They have factories in Eastern Europe, South America and elsewhere in Asia other than China.
They do have a heavy presence in China for obvious reasons. It's close to their home base in Taiwan, but much cheaper for manufacturing and there's no language barrier. That said, there are short-comings to a Taiwanese company doing business in China. Foxconn's business practices are standard amongst Chinese companies. In fact, conditions and pay are almost always better at foreign companies, which is why Chinese workers tend to flock to them.
Not that things are ideal by any stretch of the imagination. Even in a corporate environment management tends to treat office workers like crap, by American standards. But the same could be said about companies all over Asia.
I think the important thing here is that while China is normally very quick to quash protests they've been surprisingly lax with what's happened at Foxconn. Given that Foxconn manufactures a significant percentage of the world's electronics I'd expect the reports of oppressive conditions to be more widespread. Either clients have more say in the manufacturing process than we realize, which doesn't speak well for Apple, or the Chinese government is taking advantage of this situation. We've got a Taiwanese company manufacturing products for one of the most desirable pieces of consumer electronics in the world. Given China's own economic problems, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
Now, the problem here is that I would have expected that one of the fundamental reasons for outsourcing manufacturing costs is reduced labor costs. If workers are going to be replaced by robots that benefit evaporates. Do the cost savings elsewhere continue to outweigh inflation, a long supply chain and increasingly expensive shipping costs? I suppose they may for now, but I don't expect that to continue, which is probably why Foxconn has operations in South America. I expect we're going to see a lot more of our electronics coming from Mexico or Brazil.
Bender: You humans are so scared of a little robot competition you won't even let us on the field.
Fry: What are you talking about? There's all kinds of robots down there.
Bender: Yeah, doing crap work! They're bat boys, ball polishers, sprinkler systems. But how many robot managers are there?
Fry: Eleven?
Bender: Zero! (He throws his bottle on the floor and it breaks. A small robot comes out and cleans it up.) And what a surprise! Look who's scraping up the filth! Is it a human child? I wish!
Sure, just like they have told our ancestors in the beginning of the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution.
I'm pretty sure nobody told our ancestors that. But we certainly live a lot better now.
People will have a comfortable life with plenty of time to do creative work not when we have machines working for us, but only if there is a fair distribution of wealth.
Machines working for us improves productivity. If you distribute the productivity gains fairly, then indeed "people will have a comfortable life with plenty of time to do creative work". Otherwise, a few will life a life of luxury while most live in a Mad Max style world. However, I think the latter is not sustainable. And I hope so...
Maybe they can work on building cheap robots.
We've already mechanized much of our manufacturing. The US still manufactures more then almost any nation, we just don't employ that many people to do it.
Automating a production line that is understood and mature is easy. Developing a production method is costly and hard to do fully automated.
Cheap storage VM.