Foxconn Robots Could Replace Up To 1 Million Workers

[army_ant7]

not to ignore the need for jobs, but this kind of work really should be be done by robots. humans aren't meant to perform repetitive, monotonous tasks for hours on end every day. and the robots will need humans to maintain them.

I think it is a good move on FoxConns part. In the end parts will be cheaper (wishful thinking), but with the elimination of low-end jobs, it will create a huge market for higher paying jobs to maintain these robots. Resulting higher skilled jobs for the next generation.

But as some (or at least that one person mentioned below) have said, how many of those maintainers would you need to the number of people they and the robots have displaced?

I tend to disagree. You'll never have as many people to maintain these robots as they are replacing. And if you replace people with robots at all the repetitive, monotonous tasks, you pretty much eliminate all labor from the market. Yeah, robots can work longer, steadily, and create more output than a human, but at some point you'll eliminate so much of the need for labor that you won't have enough people earning a living to buy anything.

Good insight, especially with people not buying commodities anymore thus businesses failing. I have heard as well that the economic conundrum the US is in right now might've stemmed from the housing market. People having problems with finances concerning where they'd live, and thus not having that much purchasing power which affected businesses. Not sure how true this is though.

I have though that the more sophisticated the robots we make are, the more they can take over people's jobs, like if AI advances enough that robots would have even more capabilities and could replace humans even to a greater extent. I'm thinking this would lead to people losing jobs, not being able to provide for themselves, die off (sadly, if the government allows it to happen, i.e. if they don't artificially stop the implementation of robots or something), and thus have a lower (like businessmen and the people involved with the automation and maintenance, i.e. professionals like programmers, engineers, etc.) but maybe more wealthy population left. Though I wonder what would happen further down the road. Would it get out of hand that we'd end up wiping ourselves out that way (not because of a Terminator-like event)? I do wonder...

I'd enjoy a good human vs. robot war....and besides, this planet could benefit from losing a billion or two of people. We are going to outgrow this planet eventually, oxygen will start to get thinner as there are more people and less trees. There will be wide spread food shortages. Power shortages. More pollution to produce more power and goods for more people. Yea we are about due for a 1 billion people reduction on this planet.

A very unhumane comment, but I do wonder if it would be for the best (for the sake of the human race as a whole).

US robots are more expensive - made by US labor.
US safety standards, to protect the remaining humans who work in the same areas as these robots, are expensive to implement - and it's even more expensive to pay costs for a worker crippled by a swinging robot arm. In, umm, certain other countries, it would be the worker's tough luck.

I'm somewhat kidding with this, but what if we got Chinese-sourced robots? Hehe... Your 2nd point is undeniable, though it might not be as hard as it seems (I wouldn't know).

The repetitive, monotonous tasks involved in farming freed up enough human time and energy to develop a mechanical civilization. Much as we don't like that kind of work, we have proven that we can do it.

I don't think there's a guarantee though that there would continue to be more and more fields of work available for people to thrive with the population numbers we have now...

 

[bllue]

Workers should destroy the robots and burn the factories after they all get laid off

 

[tolham]

i fear the day when 400000$ of collage is needed for minimum wage jobs.
not everyone is smart enough to get that higher paying job
some people can only really do the robotic tasks
and if everyone was forced to do better, the bar would be raised, probably to an extent that collage is required for minimum wage jobs. and the ones that dont require collage would have whoever works there by the balls.

imagine mcdonalds if they were the only employer of non collage graduates...

raising the bar is a good thing. do you like having computers and the internet, or would you rather go back to the caves?

Are you qualified to maintain industrial robots? No? Well, go get yourself a boring repetitive monotonous job then.

or you could actually try to achieve something instead of giving up on yourself and copping attitude about it. just saying.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]tolham[/nom]raising the bar is a good thing. do you like having computers and the internet, or would you rather go back to the caves?or you could actually try to achieve something instead of giving up on yourself and copping attitude about it. just saying.[/citation]

do you want everyone capable of building a microprossor that would trump intel, causing such a huge glut in that industry that top people are payed sub 100k in total including benefits?

smart people will always be smart, but you shouldn't force people who have no skill to gain a skill if they dont want it. look at trade schools where you could come out of it with a 6 figure job, now imagine needing that trade school to even manage to pull in a minimum wage part time job

 

[marcolorenzo]

but they certainly will not ask for pay increases and not complain about the environment they work in and the number of hours they are online.

Not YET they won't...

 

[soundping]

Like we didn't see ChinBot coming.

 

[somerandomasian]

Well atleast humans don't have to suffer anymore...

 

[velocityg4]

[citation][nom]techtate[/nom]True, and for someone who doesn't understand how capital in an economy raises everyone's living standards here is a good explanation of why displacing labor intensive tasks with machines is good for everyone in the long run.[/citation]

Sure other jobs are created. However, not everyone has the intelligence to be engineers, doctors, technicians, or other professions requiring a lot of thought. Even many of the careers requiring degrees will eventually be taken over by machines.

We already see steps being taken in medicine with robotics. What will happen when even an MD or PhD isn't much protection against job loss from robotics? Unless we hit an impassible barrier in robotics or AI it will happen sooner or later.

The longest holdouts will be jobs requiring creative thought. So scientific research and theory and the arts. Basically once machines can do any task a human can do all that will be left for people to do is pursue their interests.

For one thing what will people do to buy stuff when all labor is worthless. If robots can do all the mining, farming, maintenance, construction, accounting, medicine, &c. All that will be left of any value is land and mineral resources. People with those resources won't have enough need for everyone else to be theorists and artists.

True eventually it will work out and people will benefit. However, that doesn't mean that many people won't suffer for years or generations until society works itself out. There are many instances in history where technical changes caused a lot of problems before society adapted.

 

[monsta]

Skynet has begun

 

[becherovka]

I agree velocityg4, and i think it will take a long time to see the benefits. There are a lot of intelligent people that see this as a problem but its not always the most intelligent people that are in power. Often for whatever reason the leaders of the world tend to be greedy. This is not always the case tho. I hope for the best but fear that it might be quite a bumpy road there.

 

[army_ant7]

do you want everyone capable of building a microprossor that would trump intel, causing such a huge glut in that industry that top people are payed sub 100k in total including benefits?

Sure other jobs are created. However, not everyone has the intelligence to be engineers, doctors, technicians, or other professions requiring a lot of thought. Even many of the careers requiring degrees will eventually be taken over by machines.
We already see steps being taken in medicine with robotics. What will happen when even an MD or PhD isn't much protection against job loss from robotics? Unless we hit an impassible barrier in robotics or AI it will happen sooner or later.
The longest holdouts will be jobs requiring creative thought. So scientific research and theory and the arts. Basically once machines can do any task a human can do all that will be left for people to do is pursue their interests.
For one thing what will people do to buy stuff when all labor is worthless. If robots can do all the mining, farming, maintenance, construction, accounting, medicine, &c. All that will be left of any value is land and mineral resources. People with those resources won't have enough need for everyone else to be theorists and artists.
True eventually it will work out and people will benefit. However, that doesn't mean that many people won't suffer for years or generations until society works itself out. There are many instances in history where technical changes caused a lot of problems before society adapted.

These are true, especially for mentally handicapped people. I mean, I think they are quite limited compared to the average person in terms of searching for a way to make a living. Like I mentioned in my post above, I guess what would happen is survival of the "fittest." This is not really humane, but it has been happening ever since I would say. In this case though, a huge portion of the human population may just die off (again, sadly).

I'm not really sure if it will work out. Maybe if we put a stop to it at some point. But because we'd have a drastically reduced population, the people left would tend to be a lot wealthier because you have less people to share around resources with I think. I'm not sure if this would still allow for businesses to keep afloat. I'm thinking businesses would get smaller since they may only have so many people to cater to anymore.

Come to think of it, would we still even need businesses with the reduced population and advancements in technology? I'm thinking of almost everyone having their own machines to make their own material needs (like food). That sounds a little far-fetched though.

smart people will always be smart, but you shouldn't force people who have no skill to gain a skill if they dont want it. look at trade schools where you could come out of it with a 6 figure job, now imagine needing that trade school to even manage to pull in a minimum wage part time job

Though, smarts is nothing without any effort at all though. Also, smarts/intelligence can be acquired. I think people should be pushed to learn at least something they can do to contribute to society. It wouldn't be good if a lot of people didn't want to learn something i.e. were lazy. That's what happens with (some) Socialist/Communist countries because people had no incentive (one of which is to survive and proper, the basis of Capitalism I think). What I just said though was by no means something to justify putting people out of jobs by using robots, it's another topic on its own.

 

[mpdugas]

Hmm, rather than treat their employees humanely, Foxconn just eliminates them!

Pretty much the same thing.

 

[Guest]

Why doesn't Foxconn just get like 10,000 robots and program them to replicate themselves. Robots making robots that make... well... whatever.

If they want sustainability, go all the way and have a self reproducing army of robots.

 

[tolham]

do you want everyone capable of building a microprossor that would trump intel, causing such a huge glut in that industry that top people are payed sub 100k in total including benefits?

what?

smart people will always be smart, but you shouldn't force people who have no skill to gain a skill if they dont want it. look at trade schools where you could come out of it with a 6 figure job, now imagine needing that trade school to even manage to pull in a minimum wage part time job

then go join an amish community and stop complaining. if you don't want to learn or compete in the market, then you don't belong in modern civiliaztion. it's like army ant is saying - survival of the fittest. raising the bar raises quality of life and intelligence. if that's not for you, then don't have kids.

 

[C00lIT]

How long till the robots jump off into the nets 😀

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]tolham[/nom]what?then go join an amish community and stop complaining. if you don't want to learn or compete in the market, then you don't belong in modern civiliaztion. it's like army ant is saying - survival of the fittest. raising the bar raises quality of life and intelligence. if that's not for you, then don't have kids.[/citation]

no, it does not raise quality of life for anyone but the rich at that point.

where is the quality of life if get a minimum wage job its a 400k investment, and even there its highly competitive.

 

[tolham]

no, it does not raise quality of life for anyone but the rich at that point.

where is the quality of life if get a minimum wage job its a 400k investment, and even there its highly competitive.

if you don't believe me then by all means look at the quality of life of tribes people who live in remote jungles and the poorest of the poor in america. the poor here at least have clothes and can visit an ER and can find help from charities and shelters. that's more than what the best of the tribes people have. if you dont want the bar to be raised, then you are free to leave society.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]tolham[/nom]if you don't believe me then by all means look at the quality of life of tribes people who live in remote jungles and the poorest of the poor in america. the poor here at least have clothes and can visit an ER and can find help from charities and shelters. that's more than what the best of the tribes people have. if you dont want the bar to be raised, then you are free to leave society.[/citation]

ok, you are missing my point, raising the bar only makes it worse for everyone.
like what i said, the few jobs that will never need school like mcdonalds
you just made mcdonalds a highly competitive field where they can walk over peoples rights, i mean already, they could pay employees 30$ an hour and still pull profit.
you know that trade skill you learned to get a better job than minimum wage, congrats, that job just became so commonly found that you went from a nice 36-40$ an hour down to minimum wage because the bar was raised.

and the only people who benefit from the bar being raised, people who are already wealthy.
they have money to run the businesses, and they now dont have to pay more for the same work.

you fail to take into account that not everyone can amount to something.
i would like to design games, but i cant program, i cant type at more than 23 words a minutes, i have no ability to make an art direction, i cant tell a story to save my life, and god knows i would rather be dead than make 3d models of other peoples work (a constant reminder that i cant create). and i would never subject myself to the current game industry where everything from a company that would higher me (if i had a skill) would be an ea or a activision.

i would also like to translate for a liveing, but again, i have no ability to learn another language, i have tried several.

people dont get jobs because thats what they want to do with their lives most of the time, most people get a job out of nessessity. and that nessissity may be a part time mcdonalds job to pay for rent or school, or a trade to take a step up from low end assembly line work.

not many people are able to have a dream job because they just will never have the skill necessary to do it, otherwise everyone would be a rockstar neurosurgeon who works in space while sculpting rocks into works of art.

 

[drwho1]

In other news: Skynet has issued a complain about Foxconn's abuse on their Robotic Friends.
Skynet claims that Robots are not been properly maintained and issued a Warning to Foxconn..

We'll be back.

/sarcasm