Posted on 10/14/2016 12:43:23 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Edited on 10/14/2016 6:07:03 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Foxconn has deployed 40,000 robots in its factories in mainland China as it aims to reduce the number of workers at its plants creating digital devices.
Dai Chia-peng, general manager of the automation technology development committee of Foxconn, said during an interview with local Chinese media that those robots are basically made by Foxconn itself, except for some parts like servo motors and reducers that come from other parties.
Those robots were deployed to Foxconn's manufacturing base in Zhengzhou, a panel factory in Chengdu, and computer and peripherals factories in Kunshan and Jiashan.
Dai said currently Foxconn can produce 10,000 robots annually. In the future, those robots are all potential replacements for human labor. For the Kunshan factory alone, Foxconn has cut 60,000 employees.
Prior to this, labor costs in mainland China were lower than robots; therefore, Foxconn maintained nearly one million workers. However, with the increase of labor costs and the younger generation's lack of interest in production line work, many companies have launched huge investments in automation.
Dai also revealed that apart from making robots on its own, Foxconn may acquire other robot manufacturers. In addition, Foxconn plans to create robots for medical and health applications.
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Kids need to go into robotics so they can get jobs working on and programming robotics.
Electronics today have to be built by robots.
So many, so fast....
So many things that BURN! and Blow up.....Robots are after us they are going to kill us all!
This wave is just starting to build.
People are going to be displaced from jobs in ever increasing numbers. This will dwarf the displacements of the industrial revolution, the rise of the service economy, or the Internet.
It will come so quickly, that there just won’t be enough old style jobs to absorb the numbers being laid off. Like musical chairs, those left without a job in the shuffle will have to either make their own, or go on the government dole.
We know which of those the left will want. We should try to make it easy, cheap and quick to start small businesses, before this wave starts to hit in force. If the government won’t do it, maybe a service company can provide turnkey support for individuals to become self-employed (i.e. legal/regulatory compliance).
Each year will be more folks displaced than the previous. In just a few years, whole industries will begin rapidly shedding their employees, like Kodak when the digital camera took off (Down 1/3/ each year).
Taxi drivers, truck drivers, food delivery drivers all face a rapid handover to self driving cars in a few years. Manufacturing is starting to shrink already. When general purpose humanoid-equivalent robots become available, old jobs will start to go away by the tens of millions per year.
All routine jobs -- whether manual or not -- will be automated.
All the people who promise to bring factory jobs back to the USA are dreaming. Those jobs are gone forever -- not to China, but into ether.
The factories may come back to the USA, but the jobs will be automated.
As to RWR's post - kids need to go into robotics -- this isn't a solution as only I would think 10% of students have this ability.
even in the wider world where routine jobs are automated, 80% of people can only do this type of a job. I don't believe we can help them when jobs get automated, I don't believe they can be re-trained. And even among current students, the same pareto rule -- 80% will be useful for no job.
I wonder if this 53 gear old auto technician can retrain for this field.
No. Even if you could no one would hire you at that age.
You can retrain, but the guy whose job is standardized and the same thing every day for months or years, his job will be eliminated.
This will make i-whatsits ever more affordable, a positive boon to humanity!
According to the FBI, car hacking is a real risk.
Of course, these days, the FBI is in bad odor, due to its execrable Director.
But it's nevertheless the case that cars are becoming more and more computerized, even to the point of becoming self-driving.
You need to make yourself the go-to guy for automotive automation.
Remember, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The money that is paid in by workers today ad paid out to people on retirement tomorrow. There is no "lock-box."
If robots don't pay Social Security, people on retirement will starve.
The downside to all of this is how disruptive it will be. Not everyone can program robots (robots will be largely built and programmed by other robots). Not everyone can run a small business. What type of small businesses would there be? People selling flowers? People running kiosks full of robot-made trinkets?
The left will want people to be idle and on welfare - they will want people to be idle and angry and poorly-educated and have people develop self-destructive lifestyles. Imagine the worst inner-cities multiplied by ten thousand. These people could become a vast army that would destroy everything - including themselves in large numbers. When the dust settles, the world would consist of pre-industrial tribes run by communist war lords. The left’s dream for the world would be realized.
As a follow on to your point, we already have a glimpse of what will happen to the 80%. In the rust belt, the chronic and long term unemployed are rapidly becoming unemployable for life. They can’t pass the whiz quiz and exist by going from food pantry to food pantry and hitting up thrift stores for hand me downs. Once quaint mining towns and rural farming communities are now home to heroin and meth addicts.
I’ve worked in IT my entire career. It is abundantly clear the IT industry is disappearing into the cloud. All IT is going to become a subscription, business and consumer, with increasingly fewer and much lower paying jobs on the street.
If you work in a field that is not being disrupted by the advance of big data, technology, automation and cloud based IT, you should be figuring out how to become the disrupter.
Soylent green will be the primary food source!
Hey, I know. Lets import millions of immigrants to fill the jobs not yet automated.
On another note, I seen an ad for a Roomba version of an automatic lawn care machine. 4K, but never mow your lawn again. Or pay someone to mow your lawn ever again.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Not the starving, but the end of a Ponzi scheme.
Alas, it will not be so. As Medicare has morphed into Nationalized control of medicine to avoid acknowledging the fraud, the taxes you mention will be added to with a VAT tax and other consumption taxes so that fraud can continue.
It turns out Americans are just as stupid as the Euro-peons.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Not the starving, but the end of a Ponzi scheme.
Alas, it will not be so. As Medicare has morphed into Nationalized control of medicine to avoid acknowledging the fraud, the taxes you mention will be added to with a VAT tax and other consumption taxes so that fraud can continue.
It turns out Americans are just as stupid as the Euro-peons.
Think like a leftist (I know it is hard, but bear with me...).
Each robot shall be declared a citizen of their country with human rights.
Those rights will include the right to pay taxes just like humans.
In addition since they won’t need health insurance they will have to pay the fee for not taking health insurance.
And, even though they won’t collect Social Security and Medicare they will have to pay the taxes anyway.
And, since they are displacing human workers they will have to pay an additional “social justice tax” equal to the annual living costs of the worker they replaced.
Now—you can run as a Democratic candidate of the future!
The good news: we can finally send someone to explore the ocean depths. (And that island in the Indian Ocean where the natives kill all who drop in.)
I am currently saving up to buy a Mac but by the time I’m ready to buy it, it might look like...people.
“This will make i-whatsits ever more affordable, a positive boon to humanity!”
Apple would never pass on the savings. Only cheaper competition would force them to.
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