Posted on 05/03/2015 7:52:03 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Report: Robots replacing human workers at faster pace
Robots aren't just for corporate Goliaths -- now even the little guy on Main Street is adopting them. The goal: to boost sales and productivity. But at what cost?
Take Sam Kraus, a Hungarian immigrant who founded what became Skyline Windows in 1921. In the early days, the tinsmith traveled around with a small cart to do his roofing and waterproofing work by hand.
Fast-forward to today, and the fourth-generation business based in New York City's South Bronx has left the pushcart era far behind. Skyline, which has evolved into a custom window manufacturer and installer, now relies on robots to do some of its work. In the factory in Woodridge, New Jersey, where it makes its windows, Skyline uses a $150,000 computer-operated machine to automate tasks like cutting holes in the metal and two $20,000 robots to install its windows, which sometimes weigh 600 pounds.
"It allows us to be more efficient—and our plan is to buy more of these robots when we can," said senior vice president Matt Kraus, whose profitable firm brings in about $70 million in annual revenue and employs about 350 people.
The future of jobs
"Businesses will need to hire no people or fewer people," he said. "You can literally have one person start a manufacturing business."
A decline in traditional jobs could lead to shrinking markets for small businesses, said Ford. "We need consumers out there who will buy what is created by the economy," he said
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Doesn't say anything about social conditions. ;)
I'm sure people will find something to do. Even the bums I know have a hobby of some kind.
/johnny
The pace of change is much more rapid now. I’d like to find some reason for optimism but all I see being likely is a short burst of productivity and profitability quickly followed by a massive increase in unemployment that is not going to be easily or quickly addressed.
Well said.
True. More and more people will fall out the bottom of the employment market.
So what do all these people do with their lives?
The examples of Indian reservations, inner-city ghettoes and English slums do not bode well for a future with large numbers of people who are economically superfluous. Even when they have a lot more “stuff” than their hardscrabble ancestors.
They sell this on Amazon.com. Please read it and get back to us:
.
Robots don't assault the customers...yet.
Robots will repair themselves.
Will they pay the robots $15/hour?
“Life is not fair, and the government can not change that,” said the Czar as the Bolsheviks shot him and his family.
OK, you tell me, what is the country going to do with all the people who will no longer have a salable skill to offer due to robotics?
People need to work to have meaning to their lives. Maybe what they produce will have less value or even be unnecessary to many, but people with healthy minds and bodies will always work.
My own preference (not as a one size fits all) is to allow a Distributist system for those who have an interest -- small areas of land that people would own and work. It would provide self-sufficiency, personal responsibility, production of food and goods for local markets. It might not be "necessary" because the robots could do so much of it cheaper -- but it might be "beneficial" to have people make a contribution to their lives and to society.
I also support smaller political areas -- I prefer City States over large impersonal constructs like "California". A lot of people in California (or Pennsylvannia, or New York) are not Liberal at all -- but who care?? The big urban centers determine the State laws, and everyone else is stuck with it! I'd like to see cities have to stand on their own (urban farming, neighborhood policing, etc) and if their Liberal policies "work", that's fine -- but if their Liberal policies are utterly "unsustainable" then they ought to find a better way.
But if we don't actively forge a new path, we could slip into a communist world where there is "no money" and the robots do the work, and the people sit at home waiting for EBT cards and dream about burning everything down. That just isn't good -- but it's the world that might be born.
It is not a zero sum game. With any technical advance there is always winners and losers. For the stupid and unskilled workers the future is always bleak.
100% of the intelligence in artificial intelligence is programmed into them by a human being , artificial intelligence is simply a mime.
At the moment, but that will change since A.I is now able learn and the Quantum Chip.
It’s simply only a matter of time (10 to 15 years)
The unemployed live better than kings did a couple of hundred years ago. As technology advances so do people’s lives. I realize Bill Gates has a lot more toys than me but I do not envy him. Agitators are always around to get people worked up about what they don’t have.
Human beings are at their best when they are creating and that human trait cannot be replaced by machines. Problem solving as well as invention and even art are here to stay. For that reason, humans have a value that machines do not and cannot have...that is at least until we create a robot that has a soul.;-)
Don’t understand your point.
I just don't believe machines will ever be able to do it. What people will see is a Clone of one person. That may seem like a real person, but it does not have a Soul. Only God can that.
Finally, even if it's possible. I will NEVER do it. To me that is selling your Soul to the Lucifer.
I trust in God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
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