Posted on 02/05/2017 1:37:59 AM PST by TigerClaws
After a factory in Dongguan, China, replaced most of its workers with robots, it witnessed a spectacular rise in productivity.
While some of the world’s leaders are obsessed with keeping people out of their country, an unspoken entity is slowly but certainly taking our jobs: robots. It’s been long discussed that robots and computers will start taking our jobs “in the near future” — well that near future is upon us and we’re not really prepared to deal with it. Of course, some jobs are more at risk than others, are few are as threatened as factory jobs. Advertisement
According to Monetary Watch, the Changying Precision Technology Company focuses on the production of mobile phones and uses automated production lines. The factory used to be run by 650 employees, but now just 60 people get the entire job done, while robots take care of the rest. Luo Weiqiang, the general manager, says the number of required employees will drop to 20 at one point. Despite this reduction in staff, not only is the factory producing more equipment (a 250% increase), but it’s also ensuring better quality.
Without a doubt, this is something we’ll be hearing more and more of in the future. Adidas is one of the companies which has already announced a shift towards robot-only factories, and it’s not just factories that will eliminate workers for robots. According to a report created by Dr Carl Benedikt Frey and Associate Professor Michael Osborne from the University of Oxford, there’s an over 90% chance that robots will take over the jobs of (long list ahead): masons, budget analysts, tax examiners and collectors, butchers and meat cutters, retail salespersons, geological and petroleum technicians, hand sewers, abstract searchers, watch repairers, new account clerks, tax preparers, order clerks, loan officers, legal secretaries, radio operators, tellers, hotel and restaurant hostesses, cashiers, real estate brokers, polishing workers, dental technicians, pesticide sprayers, telephone operators, cooks (not chefs), rock splitters, gaming dealers, and many, many more. Yeah, that’s a long list, and it goes on for much longer. Whether we admit it or not, we’re stepping well into the bounds of “robots taking over our jobs” and I’m not sure any economy is able to handle this at the moment.
I’ve got some very mixed feelings about this. Firstly, this is indeed exciting. We’re entering a new age of automation, and technology is truly reaching impressive peaks. The process is better and it’s also more resource efficient, which is also good. I’m also happy that humans don’t have to work repetitive, unchallenging jobs and can instead focus on other things. The problem is … there might not be other things. In fact there most definitely aren’t. Those people are out of a job, and there’s a good chance they’ll have a very difficult time finding new jobs. Simply put, our society isn’t prepared to integrate these people in different jobs and naturally this will cause huge problems.
Now they can make more bad quality stuff faster and cheaper?
What good is studying robotics and engineering if all the factories are in China, and they make all the robots? An academic exercise in futility?
“What good is studying robotics and engineering if all the factories are in China, and they make all the roBots?”
Oh, I don’t know...maybe if we had more qualified engineers WE could figure out how to make our own robots...therefore stirring a revival in our own factories.
A defeatist attitude will get us nowhere.
No, but standards of living have gone up while the average number of hours worked has decreased.
It is a management tool. In the past, we have had good management, not so much now.
99 percentage of Computer usage is for collecting and analyzing NEEDLESS information and standardizing for a new world order, not allowing for individualization.
How about a 100% tariff to back up your plan? Hmm? or is then just over the top?
automation ping
If telephone calls weren't automated, it would take half the population to managed the current load of calls.
Exactly what we are seeing in Europe and the U.S.
Once the population of welfare receivers is over 50%, the republics will begin to fall. The politicians will just promise more ‘fair share’ free stuff and the voters will go for it.
2-3 million people alone put out of work from self driving cars and trucks in the U.S. alone.
Robots could put ten to twenty times more than that out of work here in the U.S. This is with 94 million already out of the work force.
These are all potential Democrat/Socialist/move to welfare votes because of advances in technology.
Some folks on this thread are underestimating the massive social disruption this will cause and political consequences that follows.
What are you? 12 years old?
Do you really think we have a chance to repatriate robotic manufacturing WITHOUT a tariff? What are you? A Free Traitor™?
Soon China will control all production and rule the world. I'd say another 50 years or so....
Unions won’t like this. They exist on unskilled overpaid workers.
Not very much of the manufacturing sector is unionized at this point. It’s a tiny minority at best.
Will all manufacturing type jobs disappear to robotics, or will robots supplement human labor?
The USA has already gutted and offshored its manufacturing. So your question pertains to the Chinese.
Right , union stewards and bosses will fight this like they did with AMTRACK
My concern is the Chinese; what do you do when you have too many unemployed people in a country with limited resources ?
The old time trusted and true method is to go to war.
It creates jobs, rewards industry, while reducing population, thus heading off any internal civil war against its' own government.
The same thing that set off the Japanese for WWII .
Ping
“Does it occur to you that the factories are in China?”
And the last time I checked, robots do not mind long trans-Pacific flights or insist on flying in Business Class and when the arrive in the USA, they are not required to have a passport or a visa and are even allowed to work here without a green card.
And they are willing to work long hours, even on holidays and weekends and they work so many hours that they never have time to deposit their paychecks.
I doesn’t bother POS globalists one bit that the Chinese are trying to corner the market in manufacturing and all that entails. I wish Free Traitors™ would commit an act of mercy and jump off the nearest bridge made with Chinese steel.
“I doesn’t bother POS globalists one bit that the Chinese are trying to corner the market in manufacturing and all that entails.”
Automation and robotics are the great equalizers, as operating a manufacturing facility in the US will become just as economically feasible as it is to operate a manufacturing facility in China.
We have learned from history that economies must not resist technological advancement as when they do fail to adopt new technologies, not only does their economy fail, but their nation fails.
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