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Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More Robots
jfruh writes: Foxconn, which supplies much of Apple's manufacturing muscle and has been criticized for various labor sins, is now moving to hire employees who won't complain because they're robots. The company expects 70 percent of its assembly line work to be robot-driven within three years.
Yes, and now that the rentiers will make even more money for no labor, the displaced workers are doubly fucked.
As a general rule, it's a good idea to have some compassion for your fellow members of the species.
It's about time that the average Chinese laborer had a high enough standard of living that robots are cheaper.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
so why is Foxconn always seen as some evil company doing Apple's bidding?
Mr. Tycho Brahe observes: We must, as conscious beings, observe when we are told things that are strategically lathed not to inform us but to make us fight with one another.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
what are we going to do with all these people that we don't need anymore. Sure, we can say that the economy will catch up, but that might take 50, 60 years.
The same thing we've been doing as this process has gone on for hundreds of years.
New generations train in other areas, make more money, and support the older generation. This isnt even unusual in China, whereas it would be in the US.
Actually, reviewing U6 and discouraged workers, we are at record levels of unemployment. Close to 25% of the working age population isn't working. They are going on disability early, retiring early- but many 16 to 54 year olds who worked in the past are not finding employment. I know several people in this category.
It is much rougher for 30 year olds than it was when I was 30. Some retrain and then the job they were training for is swamped by so many applicants that wages are supressed.
I was hoping retiring boomers would take up the slack but I read 80% of them have no under $20,000 savings and will not be able to voluntarily retire. Plus boomers in good slots are simply continuing to work and have no intention of retiring and letting those slots open up to younger people. By the time this group dies or retires at 77 to 82- the generation behind them is nearly at retirement age- never having had the good earnings years the generation before them had.
Advances in AI will make it possible to replace large swaths of 'smart' and 'creative' jobs by 2050. And they won't even consider that to be "real" AI by them. Whenever we get a real AI, it will be a massive paradigm shift. Robotics already have superhuman performance when "plugged" in . So an easily clonable AI combined with super human bodies obsolete humans overnight.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Oddly, we seem to have managed to get past the introduction of the assembly line without the sort of problems you're predicting - humanity is still here, its population is still growing, and technology is still advancing.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Oddly, we seem to have managed to get past the introduction of the assembly line without the sort of problems you're predicting
Have we?
humanity is still here, its population is still growing, and technology is still advancing.
Whee! But, with a tip of the cap to Greg Graffin, progress is not intelligently planned. If you're playing a strategy and you use up the resources in early play then you're going to have a bad time.
Granted, life is more complex than a game with a fixed tech tree. Who knows what technology we'll invent tomorrow, right?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Someone makes this complaint every time one of these stories happens. The answer is always the same: Apple posts the big profits, and everyone knows who Apple is. When you say that it seems to come from a desire to attack the company which is recently most successful, you're half right. That's a means to an end. Apple is most visible, so by attacking Apple, you're getting the most visibility. You could simply attack Foxconn directly — these days they actually sell stuff with their name on it — but statistically nobody has actually seen their logo and "connected" (ugh) with any of their products. So frankly, it's really smart to attack Apple as opposed to Foxconn or some other vendor which uses them, and it's really stupid to keep whining about it. (By extension, what does that make me?) But maybe this comment can be referred back to by posterity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"