A Humanoid Robot Named "Baxter" Could Revive US Manufacturing

fangmcgee writes "Rethink Robotics invented a $22,000 humanoid robot named "Baxter" that could give cheap offshore labor a run for its money and return manufacturing jobs to U.S. soil. Artificial intelligence expert Rodney Brooks is the brain behind Baxter. From the article: 'Brooks’s company, Rethink Robotics, says the robot will spark a “renaissance” in American manufacturing by helping small companies compete against low-wage offshore labor. Baxter will do that by accelerating a trend of factory efficiency that’s eliminated more jobs in the U.S. than overseas competition has. Of the approximately 5.8 million manufacturing jobs the U.S. lost between 2000 and 2010, according to McKinsey Global Institute, two-thirds were lost because of higher productivity and only 20 percent moved to places like China, Mexico, or Thailand.'"

Comments

Unclear on the Concept.

[rueger]

" a $22,000 humanoid robot named "Baxter" that could give cheap offshore labor a run for its money and return manufacturing jobs to U.S. soil.

Uh... seems like someone is unclear on the definition of "job."

Re:Unclear on the Concept.

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be modded up! I work for an embedded electronics manufacturer, although not in the USA or China. Things like pick and place machines and automated testing has enabled us to produce a much higher volume with less employees.

The choice is either not to do it, then become overpriced, lose contracts and then everybody loses their jobs, or automate, then the shittier jobs disappear (repetitive manual labor) but *loads* of more qualified jobs are created!

Sure, we have less people soldering and manually testing stuff. But with the higher volume of sales we now have lots more technicians to do debugging and service, way more programmers, people designing, maintaining and programming test equipment, more sales folks, a bigger IT staff, more managers and various other "desk jobs", etc. We also buy lots of stuff from local suppliers (including many custom made parts) which create a whole lot of jobs locally, we keep the local delivery drivers busy, etc. And we train a lot of people. They get a lot of very meaningful design and manufacturing experience.

There's a whole lot of good that comes from keeping *some* jobs locally vs outsourcing everything to a country with sweatshop like conditions.

Re:Guess where will it be cheapest to operate Baxt

[NJRoadfan]

Electrical service is much more reliable in the US compared to China/India. There is also an advantage of having your product manufacturing close to your marketplace... namely lower shipping costs.

This is the long term future

[rabtech]

This is the long term future for a lot of manual labor across the board. What that will mean for the future of human society is anyone's guess. Perhaps we'll all work 10 hour weeks. Or maybe most will be surfs, crushed under the boots of the aristocracy (robot owners).

How a consumer-driven economy can survive these changes is another huge question mark.