SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the employees-will-now-lead-lives-of-leisure dept.
Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer of Apple's iPhones and other electronic devices, aims to replace human workers with "FoxBots" and achieve nearly full automation of entire factories:
The slow and steady march of manufacturing automation has been in place at Foxconn for years. The company said last year that it had set a benchmark of 30 percent automation at its Chinese factories by 2020. The company can now produce around 10,000 Foxbots a year, Jia-peng says, all of which can be used to replace human labor. In March, Foxconn said it had automated away 60,000 jobs at one of its factories.
[...] Complicating the matter is the Chinese government, which has incentivized human employment in the country. In areas like Chengdu, Shenzhen, and Zhengzhou, local governments have doled out billions of dollars in bonuses, energy contracts, and public infrastructure to Foxconn to allow the company to expand. As of last year, Foxconn employed as many as 1.2 million people, making it one of the largest employers in the world. More than 1 million of those workers reside in China, often at elaborate, city-like campuses that house and feed employees.
In an in-depth report published yesterday, The New York Times detailed these government incentivizes for Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory, its largest and most capable plant that produces 500,000 iPhones a day and is known locally as "iPhone City." According to Foxconn's Jia-peng, the Zhengzhou factory has some production lines already at the second automation phase and on track to become fully automated in a few years' time. So it may not be long before one of China's largest employers will be forced to grapple with its automation ambitions and the benefits it receives to transform rural parts of the country into industrial powerhouses.
To undermine American manufacturing, ditch the meatbags.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jelizondo on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:33AM
Think about it for a bit. Back in the time before the Industrial Revolution most people were farmers, during the Industrial Revolution many people moved from the fields into the city and became laborers, i.e. doing manual work alongside the newfangled machines. You didn’t need to know a lot to tend the machine and there was a lot of other work, including jobs for women.
In the later part of last century, we saw a lot of mechanization and automation. Some jobs, such as telephone operator, were lost never to be recovered but there were other jobs springing up, such as customer rep or stuff like that, which is basically answering the phone and reading from a script.
But as automation moves farther and further, there a no jobs left. The machines are built in an automated factory, the maintenance requires very few people thanks to modular design (pop out a module, pop in a new one), the job requires a degree on something or other and the pay is so low, you need another job to make ends meet.
For example, medical and legal services will be the next to go. A medical doctor spends 7 to 10 years in schoool plus several years as an internt, and now is replaced by a computer. A lawyer has to spend at least 5 years in school plus another couple in practice. What sort of jobs will the economy offer them? Flipping burgers? Stacking aisles in the convenience store?
We are in for a substantial change and I do not think any job is safe. And those jobs that are ‘safe’ will be paying a lot less, you know, a lot of people want this job, you gotta make do with less.
And there is a hell of a lot more people than 150 years ago. Think about it. The situation looks like the Industrial Revolution but the variables are much greater and so will be the outcome: either we move forward into some sort of utopia or there will be blood in the streets in every developed country.
I'll be happy to hear your thoughts and comments, particularly if you disagree.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:42AM
You, sir, have it made, and I'll tell you why. You can spit out an opinion piece on demand. Now what you do is you publish a collection of your opinion pieces on a blog. Then you run pop under advertising on your blog. Don't use banner ads. Don't use pop up ads. Only use pop under ads. That way your blog looks like it doesn't have ads, until your visitors have already read your opinion pieces. You'll make it rich in no time.
See? There are plenty of jobs left, for scummy bloggers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:44AM
Is wealth absolute or relative? That is, is it important to have enough to live in reasonable comfort, or is it more important to be ahead of your neighbors?
All this automation is going to create more wealth at less expense. We will all be richer. We need to be more careful we don't let the greedy among us exploit antiquated legal and social customs to hoard the majority of the wealth. The Microsoft Empire rests on an incorrect simplification of property. They've partnered with Big Media and Big Pharma to make "intellectual property" law and social custom be just like property law, tried to bury the distinction between the material and the immaterial.
Automation already has made human labor much less valuable, and that trend is not slowing down. We shouldn't just coast along and allow this trend to cause mass unemployment and resentment from that. Will employment as we know it become a thing of the past, and our children will be able to live a comfortable life without ever working, and that will be okay, they won't face massive social stigma for being unemployed?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:06AM
Thank you for your reply and insight.
I believe that having enough is sufficient. Do you really need the latest and greatest sports car? I can tell no, after owning a couple of them. The reason I changed my mind was that, a little late, I learned that all the money in the world does not stop time and while one is busy getting money, life is passing you and leaving you with nothing, not even the money you fought to get.
I missed most of the important dates of my son and two daughters. I was lucky to realize I was very mistaken in time to share a lot of time with my youngest daughter. I don’t make as much money as before but we have a solid relationship, and I value that over having a great car.
Towards the future, I worry that the greedy will try to get most of everything for themselves and leave as little as possible for everyone else. When you get too many people down at rock-bottom, they have nothing to lose and therefore they can take great risks in trying to change their situation.
Some think that a popular revolt has not chance against drones and other modern weapons, but they forget that the people pulling the trigger are not the oligarchs, but regular Joes who could turn against their masters. But their turning would not prevent a bloodbath and I fear a reenactment of the French Revolution: Off with their heads! Starting with the king and culminating with the leaders of the revolt.
How much blood would have to be spilt before the oligarchs realize that we don’t want their private jets or private islands, but just a decent living? I believe that having this conversation now, exploring possibilities, could save us from a lot of grief before it comes to blows.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:27AM
I think an even baser instinct is at work here and greed is just a dress for it - we will continue to have a basic instinct to compete with each other to attract a partner. For as long as that competitiveness is here, there will always be imbalance, and enough of us will be subservient to that instinct that government will make sure you can't have your cake and eat it too, so to say.
(Score: 2) by driven on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:00PM
"Some think that a popular revolt has not chance against drones and other modern weapons, but they forget that the people pulling the trigger are not the oligarchs, but regular Joes who could turn against their masters. But their turning would not prevent a bloodbath and I fear a reenactment of the French Revolution: Off with their heads! Starting with the king and culminating with the leaders of the revolt."
Don't forget the premise of the article: that robots are replacing workers. Robots will surely be able to perform police/military duties by the time such a revolution happens. Especially if it were to get to a point where exercising discretion was not important (eg. if it moves, kill it - we already have that level of technology).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:05AM
All this automation is going to create more wealth at less expense.
This is BS. Yes, machines create wealth faster than people ever can. No, it will not be divided equally...
Guy works at factory. Robot replaces worker. Worker dies homeless. Factory owner gets fatter even faster.
That's what's going to happen. Perhaps a revolution of two along the way if we're lucky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:08AM
Goddamn I f'd up my quote leaving out the silly end I object with
"All this automation is going to create more wealth at less expense. We will all be richer."
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:49AM
They're lucky they can pay people $8.25/hr as those jobs can be automated too. McDonald's has already demonstrated that they are prepared to fight fair wage increases with automation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:56AM
Full service gas stations weren't even automated away. The business just forces the customer to work for free and calls it self service instead.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:14AM
I saw this kind of thing in Cuba back in the late 70s. They had engineers and architects cutting sugarcane because they had no jobs for them. If a young doctor or engineer can’t get a job even flipping burgers, how are they going to make a living?
Years ago a good education, I mean a degree in something or other, was a sure-fire way to get a decent job making enough money to support a family. Nowadays, just to get in the door you need a diploma and that’s for an entry level position. Does it make sense to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a college degree when it doesn’t buy you a decent job?
Jokingly, I think, someone else posted about VR and entertainers, but think about CGI and special effects and all of a sudden your favorite actor is simply created on demand by software. Think of a future when all the famous actors and actresses are no longer millionaires, because they are virtual while some large corporation pockets all those millions they now have to pay to DiCaprio, Cruise or Johansson. If they don’t have a chance, what can we lowly serfs expect?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:29PM
"I'll be happy to hear your thoughts and comments, particularly if you disagree."
Bernie Sanders will get elected in 2020 and he is going to make everything free.