Posted on 02/25/2010 12:04:38 PM PST by RogerFGay
Well, you know what they say. “Resistance is futile!”
Actually China is one reason that we need to do this.
If we want to get labor costs down to compete with China, then automation is the way to do it.
Of course general purpose robots will cause massive labor disruptions in the U.S. as well. Starting with some of the most unskilled labor. But we’ve already got massive labor disruptions thanks to the outsourcing and the oil price shock.
So we would need to be prepared to have even more safety nets and retraining programs, until the labor market had a chance to redirect the displaced labor.
Just to get a little more perspective, click on “Urban Challenge” in the article. The purpose of the competition was to push robotics technology.
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