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.

Comments

Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More Robo

[ganjadude]

Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More Robots

Manufacturing Future: Fewer Humans, More Robots

this, is pretty much what we have all known for quite a long time. as tech gets better, menial jobs become useless to humans because robots do it better.

Also water is wet. news at 11

Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R

[rsilvergun]

Right, but the conversation that's being had around this is 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. In the meantime we'll have 2 or 3 lost generations who live in terrifying abject poverty. It'd be nice if this time around we did something about that...

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

There's no stopping them

[Marginal Coward]

I bet these robots won't stop at replacing humans. Pretty soon, even the pick-and-place and wave-soldering machines will be out of a job.

Re:Foxconn is so much more than Apple

[phantomfive]

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.

Automation is Dependent on Design for Manufacture

[mtippett]

I've been to Foxconn factories in Shenzen, and there are clearly opportunities for deeper automation. However, this will only be possible when the underlying hardware design has been designed for automation.

At the PCB level, pick and place achieves amazing automation and performance with smaller than rice-grain size components used in modern electronics. That is a given.

At the assembly level it isn't so easy to automate with a lot of the designs. There are flex cables, adhesive, torque sensitive screws that all rely on a human to be able to manipulate and then quickly respond to misalignment. To automate this, the design constraints placed on the Industrial Designs need to change. For low and mid-range products where form is not at the level of Apple integration, this will probably increase the automation. For the high end where every mm counts it's unlikely that there will be a high level of assembly automation.

Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R

[Maxo-Texas]

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.

Re: Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More

[CrimsonAvenger]

Weren't people saying the same sort of things when the "assembly line" was first invented? After all, the main purpose of the "assembly line" was to make the same amount of stuff with fa fewer workers than had been needed previously.

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.

Re:Automation is Dependent on Design for Manufactu

[Kjella]

At the assembly level it isn't so easy to automate with a lot of the designs. There are flex cables, adhesive, torque sensitive screws that all rely on a human to be able to manipulate and then quickly respond to misalignment. To automate this, the design constraints placed on the Industrial Designs need to change.

I think you underestimate how far sensor technology has come and will go, here for example is an example of automated salmon processing. Obviously there's a lot of natural variation, do we need to bioengineer a more robot-friendly salmon? No. They're measured out by a laser and intelligently cut. Head/tail/other cuts are dropped out to go on another processing line. Each cut is grabbed by a robot with robot vision and placed in pouches to be sealed. Skip to 3:12 if you just want to see that last part. Fillet-making machines are still in the research phase but there are examples of that too using X-rays to scan and find the pin bones. If they can deal with all that, I'm sure they can apply the right torque to a screw.

Re: Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More

[drinkypoo]

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?