Posted on 02/18/2017 5:54:10 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Been hearing this sort of talk since at least the 50s. Didn’t happen then and won’t happen now.
AI robots may replace much of that as well. Such a device could keep you from having to go to an assisted living center or nursing home.
I expect they'll be available by the time I would need them. I plan to live in my own house for the duration. Mine will be named 'Robby'.
Prices will drop, and quality will rise across the board.
Medical careers are far from a sure thing - as more diseases will be cured, we may need fewer health care workers.
The power of robotics and AI will become better and cheaper, becoming available to any entrepreneur, just as the Internet is today.
I hope I can still make buggy whips next year...
I think that is part of the point of the article. We are going to need robot repairmen and others with skills. Government schools are still doing things the way they were done 100 years ago, not just 40 or 50.
Let’s face it, the main purpose of keeping kids locked up in boring classrooms, marching lockstep with other kids based on age rather than progress or ability, is all about subsidized babysitting so parents can go to their jobs and keep the kids out of their hair. If schools were really about educating children, they would be tailored to individual students who could then graduate when they had achieved certain objectives rather than being warehoused until age 18. The entire system from pre-school through college is a dinosaur that just won’t die.
But nobody is going to be paid $35 an hour with great benefits to lower a Ford windshield onto a car. There are few good jobs left for people doing manual labor or unskilled work. About all that is left is the service sector, and that is shrinking, too.
The future belongs to people who have the attributes to learn the skills needed in the digital age.
The industrial robots based in Foxconn’s factories are also known as “Foxbots.” The company owns approximately 50,000 foxbots and other automated equipment. Foxconn is capable of performing more than 20 varied manufacturing processes, including stamping, polishing, packaging and testing. Currently Foxbots are used in factories including Zhengzhou, Kunshan and Shenzhen. The deployment also implies the possibility of lights-out, or worker-less, factories in the future.Foxconn’s in-house manufactured robotic technology is capable of covering up to 70% of the mechanical manufacturing process , said Chia-Peng Day, general manager of Automation Technology Development Committee of Foxconn Technology Group. Chances are that these robots will be used in Foxconn’s manufacturing bases including Zhengzhou, Kunshan and Shenzhen, turning them into lights-out factories. Meanwhile, Foxconn’s “Foxbot” may be commercialized and introduced to the market, reported South China Morning Post.
Millions of people are going to become obsolete in this utopian scenario. We get an apocalyptic world with the filthy rich lording over and eventually culling the herds of the filthy poor to stay safe, pampered, and powerful in thier compounds. Jobless, useless, miserable masses won’t have a place in this glorious new world.
Maybe thousands of call centers will fill the void. Oh that’s right - Alexa will handle all of that. Even those jobs will disappear. What am I missing here?
Even as robots and AI systems make for cheaper production and greater material abundance, there will still be a need for skilled people who can think up and refine new equipment, products, and processes. Customer service jobs will also remain in demand, even if only as genial and informed expert mediators between ordinary customers and the AI systems that are coming to dominate many service industries. The real problem with employment is that at every level, from K to 12, from college freshman to post-graduate and workplace education, our educational system and methods are poorly suited to their tasks. We urgently need better ways to motivate, teach, and otherwise prepare people for the new job market.
Also, if the automation plant is in China, then the truck drivers bringing materials to the plant are also in China, and the robot repairman is in China, and the cleaning crew is in China, and the automation engineer is in China. Losing some jobs to automation is not as destructive as losing industries to foreign countries.
I have never liked the idea of a guaranteed income either. I grew up when any able bodied young person who had at least average IQ could work hard and get somewhere but I see that things are vastly different for young people now. I used to think I knew the answer but now I am just waiting and watching.
Not really, this is just a continuation of a long line of automation, including other IT developments, that have helped to make American workers more productive and thus earn them a higher standard of living.
It has become the cover-up excuse for the dysfunctional Obama economy, just as “stagflation” was supposedly the new, inevitable and permanent state of our economy during the Carter era.
Don’t buy into the BS. The problems we have with tech involve its roll in our voluntarily harnessing ourselves into a police state of surveillance and control—not with the rising efficiency making our jobs obsolete.
Just kick out enough of the illegals and we’ll have plenty of better-paying jobs for low-skilled Americans.
Ha ha—is that really what that is?
You are looking a long, long way out when you are talking about those levels of robots building and repairing robots, including to the level of obviating the need for doctors and other medical professionals.
Also, a good part of why the low-skill service jobs are cheap is because we have taken in 10’s of millions of low-skill, largely illegal laborers. This has both pulled down wages via competition for those jobs and staved off the investments in technology that would make those jobs more productive and thus more valuable.
That that Luddite fantasy has been dreamt up to cover up for the Obama types intentionally bogging down our economy.
There was a massive inflow of technology, for example, displacing hordes of secretaries and clerks, in the 1980s. But under the Reagan revolution that became Morning in America, with “greed” decried by the left as more and more people became wealthy and saw their middle-class standards of living finally rise again.
Here s the most disingenuous statement of the century. The USA imports Trillions of dollars of durable goods every year. Goods that used to be made in the USA. So the writer would have us ignore the millions of container ships that poor into the USA every year. We run a $800B dollar trade deficit every year which amounts to $70B in lost wages, perhaps over 2 million blue collar jobs.
Worm tongued Globlaist link automation with offshoring. Don't fall for it.
Fixed it for you.
Not if the factories are in the 3rd world and we keep importing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.