Foxconn's Robot Workforce Now 20,000 Strong

itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will recall Foxconn's plans to staff its factories with an army of 1 million robot workers to offset rising labor costs. Well, now we have an update on those plans. Speaking at the company's shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou said that there are 20,000 robotic machines currently at work in Foxconn factories. Ultimately, these robots will replace human assembly workers and 'our [human] workers will then become technicians and engineers,' Gou said."

Comments

Technicians and engineers, really?

[RealTime]

'our [human] workers will then become unemployed ,' Gou said.

FTFY

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[Dutchmaan]

" but why should Foxconn worry that they will be unemployed?" ...because it shows Foxconn for what it is, a completely apathetic company who only views it's workforce as meat robots, and because those meat robots have real human traits like the need dignity and hope for a semi-decent life, we're going to throw them on the scrap heap. I mean lets face it, when you're working conditions are so bad that a percentage of your workers view death as a plausible means of escape and you're putting up nets to stop them from killing themselves, then maybe it's time to reflect on how your business is treating it's workers. Personally speaking I'd like to see Foxconn execs live for one year; hell, one month under the conditions they force everyone else to endure... but strip away their fortunes first so they can't escape to that magical place of "I'll have my old life of ease to go back to once this hell is done."

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[rtb61]

Not really. China had a ruthlessly exploited work force not seen since the early industrial age. Basically people doing the most unimaginably routine monotonous work, with extended hours, little time off up to the point of failure and then replaced. Things like sticking keys on a keyboard by hand, packing playing cards in boxes manually etc. the sort of work that was automated in the early 20th century in the west.

Gou and Foxcon might be using the word robot but in the majority of instances it is not what most people would consider a robot. Simply an electro-mechanical device design to complete a pre-defined task, rather than be multitasking to complete a range of variable actions.

Honestly and realistically the work was unfit for human beings, soulless demeaning, requiring no craftsmanship, something only psychopaths could have invented in the industrial age, something someone else does or we starve them and their family.

Catch with automation and robotics it places the whole world upon an equal playing field, with the difference being land and building cost and most important of all, distance and cost to get it to the end user point of delivery. We are now pushing to the age of micro-manufacturing plants, small flexible plants capable of producing a broad range of products very close to the point of demand, minimising transport, warehousing and handling costs. 3D printing is just the start, along with already introduced generic parts and components. Think ceramics vs metals.

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[xelah]

He didn't actually say it doesn't matter, just that Foxconn won't worry. Of course, being a purely mental concept, Foxconn doesn't have the neurons to worry, but its management might feel uncomfortable depending on their level of psychopathy. Not that that stops anyone. But Chinese politicians will worry if it threatens to cause mass unemployment, because they're already worried that poorer economic conditions will lead to unrest and dissatisfaction with the whole one-party thing. And when the Chinese government is worrying, they have a tendency to pass it on.

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[wienerschnizzel]

Do you also care as much about all the people that lost their work when agricultural automation became wide spread? Do you cry for the thousands of workers that might have been tilling the land manually instead of just one guy riding a tractor - when you eat your morning cereals/bread/whatever? And don't tell me you only eat stuff from your local farmer's market, because those people use automation too. How is factory automation any different?

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[TheSync]

China had a ruthlessly exploited work force not seen since the early industrial age.

That is because China never had an industrial age due to a mixture of foreign imperialism, warlord battles, and Communist Party control. Instead tens of millions to people starved to death during the Great Leap Forward, and most people in China were barely eeking out an existence in communal farming until the 1980's. Rather than live on the edge with no hope in the countryside, rural Chinese quickly moved to the cities to work in the factories. The early factories were very capital-poor and had low productivity, thus the only way they could compete for world trade was to have low labor costs. Now Chinese factory capital investment is rising, productivity is rising, along with wages.

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[clarkkent09]

Foxconn has no choice. If another company's cost of manufacturing a gadget are lower, then that's where the production will go. Anyway, increasing production efficiency is always a good thing. That's where all human progress comes from. The biggest improvements in population, lifespan, quality of life and human condition in general, the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, were both based on the ability to have fewer people do the work that used to take many.

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[Daemonik]

Is increasing production efficiency always a good thing? We are quickly reaching the point where the only way to increase efficiency is to remove humans completely. So where do those humans go then?

Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing? How about 10 million, once all of Foxconn's partners and competitors have done the same robot transition to compete? Look at the US, we can't create enough jobs here to meet demands, and there are only so many STEM jobs available folks.

Are we prepared for a day when 50% of the world or more has to be on welfare simply because there are no jobs available to humans anymore?

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[Dogtanian]

China had a ruthlessly exploited work force not seen since the early industrial age. Basically people doing the most unimaginably routine monotonous work, with extended hours, little time off up to the point of failure and then replaced. Things like sticking keys on a keyboard by hand, packing playing cards in boxes manually etc. the sort of work that was automated in the early 20th century in the west.

Thirty years ago or so, robots and computerised automation were supposed to be the future, and people from back then might have been quite surprised that a generation down the line *people* are still doing work like this.

It could be argued that the ultra-cheap labour brought about by the delayed industrialisation of China distorted this otherwise likely path, with dirt-cheap, no-investment and very flexible humans working out cheaper than expensive machinery- at least in the short term. It looks, however, like we're now returning to the predicted path...?

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[khallow]

Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing?

I don't know, but it happened throughout the Industrial Age. It's worth noting here that probably all of those jobs that are being replaced, didn't exist one or two decades ago.

Look at the US, we can't create enough jobs here to meet demands, and there are only so many STEM jobs available folks.

Bad example. The US (as also in much of the developed world) is punishing businesses for hiring people. There are substantial costs associated with employing people (especially when an additional employee would push the business over a bureaucratic threshold, like 50 full time employees). And it's worth noting that minimum wage prevents a lot of people from being employed simply because their labor is worth less than minimum wage at present.

Look at the US, we can't create enough jobs here to meet demands, and there are only so many STEM jobs available folks.

My approach is to get rid of the "demands". Less demands on job creators, more jobs get created.

Are we prepared for a day when 50% of the world or more has to be on welfare simply because there are no jobs available to humans anymore?

Change labor policy before that happens. I already mentioned minimum wage as an example of a policy that creates unemployment. A second one is usual welfare policy where you get less, if you work more.

Consider an alternate welfare policy to those two. Pay everyone a fixed stipend (if you still want to avoid paying rich people, just set the income cut off at a rather high level) and completely do away with minimum wage. I'd also get rid of most health care mandates (the US style ones are particularly bad), regulatory burdens, and pensions. Someone can choose to get by on that stipend, or they can work, even a little, and get more without issue.

Re:Technicians and engineers, really?

[Grishnakh]

Gou and Foxcon might be using the word robot but in the majority of instances it is not what most people would consider a robot.

What "most people" (or at least, most ignorant Americans) consider a "robot" is something that doesn't exist, except maybe Honda's Asimo robot (which doesn't even do anything really useful). The Roomba wouldn't be considered a "robot" by these people either, but it certainly is.

In the industrial sector, a "robot" is a machine that completes tasks automatically. A CNC machine is a robot, for instance, even though it's just a fancy milling machine that operates according to a program. A pick-and-place machine (which places electronic components on circuit boards) is a commonly-used robot in the electronics industry. If you look at the manufacturer's plate on many of these machines, they say "industrial robot".

Kurt Vonnegut considered this problem more than 60

[Kartu]

Kurt Vonnegut considered this problem more than 60 years ago in his novel "Player Piano".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)

Out of all imaginable scenarios of going robotic, Foxconn doing it is the worst I could come up with. Even North Korea doing it would be less evil in my humble opinion.

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

If the number on man hours per year needed to produce the products I use decreases, then I should get to work less right? Less work for everyone, more free time and the same amount of Chinese electronics! A higher percent of the money then goes to research and development, where most of the people can be employed, but work less hours. I'm looking forward to working 10 hours a week!

More free time for everyone means more cool projects, more web comics, more opens source software, more political involvement, more educated people, and even time to really think! More time to make you own food, raise your own kids, and other things that add even more efficiency and thus further reductions in hours to work!

How I wish that were true. I'd gladly work 1/2 time for 1/3 pay as it is (I'd love to share my job with the unemployed, but I can't). If stuff gets more affordable, working 40 hours a week is going to be even more overkill. If it didn't suck so much to be unemployed in the US (say we provided at least what we give the prisoners: food, shelter, and healthcare), I'd be happy to take time off work without fear I'd get stuck jobless. Our economy is kinda messed up.

Re:First India, now China...

[Your.Master]

If you're not in the top 1%, you're in the bottom third

You are hurting math.

Time to Support Google

[tuppe666]

I am in shock and awe. Apple apologists have been arguing that Chinese workers(Foxconn) are cheaper than robots for forever, while Apple have smugly told the president that iphone manufacture will not return to America(They only argue to the Tax Man they are Irish...not the Irish tax Man obviously), because their workforce is does anything for biscuits. They have promised with must gusto to move the the less complicated parts of (one of its products) for PC manufacture(seriously) to the states to great fanfair...and failed to deliver.

Apples instance and investment in what accounts to slave labour (ironically now simply redundant) has cost the company its cutting edge products to long refresh cycles, and heavy dependences on its rivals technology, which actually manufacture products, and have thousands of patents on touch-screen technology and update there phones every three months. Its profits dropping now its devices are considered Mid-range at best...At least they proudly pay no profits on those ever shrinking profit margins. At least it to Collect a Billion for its few design patents...Sorry 400Million...Less.

I notice Google is getting Motorola to manufacture the cool named Xphone in the United States. I think its a good strategy. It would have been a better one for Apple...they chose to give the money back to shareholders instead...while avoiding paying tax again with ibonds.

Apples Apologists continued defence of Android is only winning because of cheap Chinese Phones ignoring its where the cheap (with high margin) iPhone is made, is coming true only they unlike the iPhone are "Great Value" Look at the Neo N003;iOcean;X7;UMi X2;JiaYu G4 http://www.gizchina.com/2013/03/05/poll-neo-n003-vs-iocean-x7-vs-umi-x2-vs-jiayu-g4/ all phones that destroy the iPhone a a fraction of cost, sporting (1.5ghz now)Quad cores and 2GB of Memory and 13 Mega-Pixel cameras and full-hd 1080P (and Multiple Simslots ;) They are incredibly tempting.

I think the bottom line is you can have buildings full of robots *anywhere*.

Re:This will be very interesting

[jmhobrien]

College is increasingly becoming a waste of time and money. This is increasingly the case in our global economy, where everyone is racing each other to the bottom and everything you need to know, can be learned online as required. This is especially true for technical fields. If you can afford to go to college, the chances are you don't need the money as much as your future competition.

Re:This will be very interesting

[xelah]

With China pushing people out of rural areas and into ever larger cities [nytimes.com], it will be very interesting over the next few years to see how all of those people will earn a living.

There's no shortage of things worth doing in the world, and especially not in a middle income country with a huge population still in poverty. It's a shorter-term problem, though - economies can't jump from one state to another, nor can people jump in to jobs needing different skills. And in a country like China, the state can always use those people to build a new high speed railway in the wrong place or a new ghost city nobody lives in. They could even do something shocking, like use them to make their food supply safe or clean their environment. A recession like that in the west is a pure economic problem - a problem in the control system, not the physical reality - and the Chinese government is a lot more able to meddle in it.

Automation means millions out of poverty

[sjbe]

Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing?

I don't mean to be trite but the answer is, with other companies doing other things. Believe it or not seeing China beginning to automate production is a very positive sign for Chinese workers because it means that pay rates are increasing. If you have unlimited low cost labor there is no point in automating many tasks. But wages in China have been steadily rising to the point where China is now sometimes not competitive with other places. That means they will have to begin to automate some work to remain competitive. Automation being installed is an indicator of rising wages. I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say it means that millions of people are being pulled out of poverty.

I see this logical fallacy again and again that replacing labor with automation is a zero sum game. It demonstrably is not. The computer you are reading this on has replaced millions of clerical workers who now do other things. Automation replaces some labor but frees it to do more than it could before. Washing clothes used to be a hugely time consuming task but we developed tools (automation) to wash for us and we spend our time on other things. Is it better that we spend our time having people type things repeatedly on typewriters or should we use a word processor and print it once? It isn't that there is suddenly no work, it's that now people have time to accomplish tasks that there wasn't time to accomplish before.

Re:This will be very interesting

[khallow]

A recession like that in the west is a pure economic problem - a problem in the control system, not the physical reality - and the Chinese government is a lot more able to meddle in it.

I disagree. A recession is not a problem. It is a consequence of a problem, here, that whatever society is doing is simply out of whack with reality to the point that when the illusion falls apart and society attempts to return to a more reasonable approach, it results in considerable economic harm in the form of a recession. Such a problem can be as simple as a mistaken perception of what is valuable.

I suppose you can view the avoiding of recession as a control problem, though the usual means of control (such as altering the money supply) aren't particularly powerful unless one is capable of deeply interfering with peoples' choices. But even with that power, attempting to avoid recession is poor strategy.

The difficulty is that recessions are natural corrections of problems, not the actual problems themselves. And trying to prevent for decades on end, societies from fixing inherent problems just ends up with really large recessions in the end when your control systems are overwhelmed.

For example, a lot of people have noted that businesses have collectively grown very short-sighted in how they operate. This wasn't always the case. I believe it to be a direct result of the various attempts to evade recessions and such. When you remove a vast amount of future risk, you also remove the need to plan against that risk.

Humans are the best tool there is

[sjbe]

Because these workers are human being

Which is their greatest asset. Humans are the most flexible, trainable and adaptable tool we know of. I run a factory which does a lot of manual assembly and we employ people to do things that tools either cannot or cost too much for. I can teach even a relatively uneducated person in about 30 minutes how to assemble one of our products. A machine to assemble the same product would easily cost over a million dollars and take over a year to develop. With enough volume automation makes sense but human's flexibility ensures there is plenty of work that cannot reasonably be automated. Do you really want to waste your best and most flexible asset on boring repetitive jobs that automation can do more cheaply?

I think you greatly underestimate how adaptable people really are. I think that companies who need remove someone from the payroll (for reasons other than firing for-cause) have an obligation to do what they can to make the transition gentle if they can. But there is a limit to that obligation. Ultimately it is up to the person to find their path in life, not the company to find it for them. I'm hugely optimistic about people and frankly am mystified by those who seem to think that people need to be treated like children. We don't owe them a specific job or a paycheck, we owe them opportunities to show what they can do.

Furthermore automation is a sign that wages in China are rising. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating. The fact that companies are finding it financially sensible to do so is an unambiguous indicator that millions of people are being lifted out of poverty.

Automation = Rising wages

[sjbe]

Think of the Chinese factory workers as robots doing repetitive tasks. How well has that worked out for the workers in the USA?

Considering that workers in the US enjoy among the highest wages in the world I'd say pretty good. The US has a manufacturing sector that brings in about $4 TRILLION per year. The percent of jobs in manufacturing has declined (like in agriculture earlier) but those that remain in the sector are generally doing quite well and should continue to do so.

In any case you are looking at the situation backwards. Companies only automate for two reasons. The first is if there is a task that cannot be done manually - either requiring precision or due to the job being dangerous. The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high. The fact that Chinese firms are finding it viable to automate means that millions of people are being pulled from poverty. Wages in China are rising and rising fast. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating a great many tasks. Increasing automation means that labor costs are rising which is a very good thing unless your perspective is that Chinese workers should always be dirt poor. Personally I'm cheered to see lots of people able to enjoy a better standard of living.

Re:Automation = Rising wages

[Kjella]

In any case you are looking at the situation backwards. Companies only automate for two reasons. The first is if there is a task that cannot be done manually - either requiring precision or due to the job being dangerous. The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high.

The third reason is if the automation costs are declining, companies won't mind replacing a low wage job if a robot still undercuts it by half. And the labor market can't really adjust because humans have a living wage floor while robots don't. If rising labor costs were the prime driver we'd see more companies leaving China for poorer countries by now.

Re:Automation = Rising wages

[Shajenko42]

Automation doesn't occur unless labor costs are higher than the cost of automating away that job

FTFY. Lots of things can be automated that would pay a human only minimum wage, but it's even cheaper for a machine to do it.
Just because automation is happening doesn't mean people are paid well. Cost of automation goes down all the time.

On-shoring already happening

[sjbe]

Automation also means we can bring it back to the USA.

Already happening. My company is able to compete on some products that were made in China but as labor costs have gone up so have the prices. The so called China price isn't as low as it used to be.

After all, if we're not manufacturing in China because of cheap labor anymore, why don't they have their automated factory in the USA again?

Production didn't move to China overnight and it won't move back to the US overnight either. We're talking about millions and billions of dollars of capital investment and that sort of thing doesn't relocate instantly.