Robots could gain valuable slaughtering skills as the meatpacking industry begins to test greater use of automation in its plants:
Slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants throughout the country employ a lot of people. About a quarter of a million Americans prepare the beef, pork and chicken that ends up on dinner tables. But some of those workers could eventually be replaced by robots. The world's largest meatpacking company is looking at ways to automate the art of butchery. Late this fall JBS, the Brazil-based protein powerhouse, bought a controlling share of Scott Technology, a New Zealand-based robotics firm.
While many manufacturers have gone to automated machines to process and package everything from food to furniture, the beef industry has stubbornly held on to its workers. It still takes thousands of workers to run a modern beef plant. In fact, U.S. meatpacking plants are expected to add jobs in the next decade, as the appetite for pork, chicken and beef grows in the developing world.
[...] JBS is looking at how robots could fit into its lamb and pork plants first, Bruett says. Sheep and pigs tend to be more uniform than beef cattle. "Now when it comes to beef packing, beef processing, the fabrication of the animal, it's very difficult to automate beef processing," Bruett says.
The meatpacking robots of today use vision technology to slice and dice, but the key to butchery is touch, not sight, Rupp says. And the company's beef division president, Bill Rupp, says right now, robots just can't feel how deep a bone is, or expertly remove a filet mignon. "When you get into that detailed, skilled cutting, robots aren't there yet. Someday, I'm sure they will be," Rupp says.
The technology isn't quite ready for a massive roll out, but could the economics of widespread robotic use in the beef industry ever work? Not any time soon, says Don Stull, an anthropologist who spent 30 years studying the cultures of meatpacking towns at the University of Kansas. "Workers are really cheaper than machines," Stull says. "Machines have to be maintained. They have to be taken good care of. And that's not really true of workers. As long as there is a steady supply, workers are relatively inexpensive."
There's a stream of immigrants and refugees, most from Somalia, Rwanda, El Salvador and Guatemala, ready to put on the chainmail and pick up the knife, Stull says. In large, modern plants, companies pay less because the skill needed to work on the fabrication floor is so low. Some jobs take less than a week to fully master.
Turnover in the industry is high, Stull points out, because of the physical demands. "After you do the same thing thousands of times a day, six days a week ... your body wears down," Stull says. While the industry says it has dramatically improved on worker safety over the years, meatpacking jobs consistently rank among the most hazardous in the country. Increased automation could ease some of those injuries.
(Score: 2) by pgc on Thursday January 07 2016, @11:10AM
Now that is the stuff of nightmares...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @01:55PM
Indeed! But don't worry, I'm sure the slaughtering robots will be perfectly humane...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @04:41PM
The nightmare starts out, "Ladies and gentlemen of industry, I introduce to you the Slaught-R-Tron 9000!"
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday January 07 2016, @07:56PM
I predict after we develop the first runaway AI, the Slaught-R-Tron 9000 will become the first robot to incorporate internal fusion power and legs.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday January 07 2016, @10:29PM
Nah, man, they'll just build in an MP3 player and put "Powerhouse" on loop. It'll be fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9-7uLg-DZU&t=27 [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by cafebabe on Thursday January 07 2016, @11:51AM
For some reason, this reminds me of a Monty Python sketch which involves a reference to rotating knives.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:04PM
For some reason, this reminds me of a Monty Python sketch which involves a reference to rotating knives.
...I wasn't expecting a Monty Python sketch...
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:46PM
Nobody expects the Spanish Monty Python Sketch!
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday January 07 2016, @08:54PM
My brain hurts.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday January 07 2016, @09:04PM
As long as the actual slaughtering is still done by a human, even if they are just pressing an interlocked, keyed, recessed big red button covered by a normally closed shield and requiring a retina scan to confirm authorized use.
And lets not forget to have human inspectors at the beginning/end of each step, just in case someone tries to coverup a murder by getting the victim processed into hamburger.
Anything less would be the stuff of horror movies.
On the brighter side it is easier to keep a machine environment sterile than one filled with germ/virus riddled humans who forget to wash their hand's.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:56PM
I was expecting one about fork handles
(Score: 2, Funny) by cmdrklarg on Thursday January 07 2016, @07:40PM
...I wasn't expecting a Monty Python sketch...
NO ONE EXPECTS.... oh never mind.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:50PM
Ah yes, the Architect Sketch [youtube.com].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by pyrrho on Thursday January 07 2016, @04:48PM
It rather reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick" but on a whole different scale...
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:04PM
And the company's beef division president, Bill Rupp, says right now, robots just can't tell the difference between cows and puny humans, but they can clumsily remove a filet mignon from either.
FTFTFS
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:56PM
And the company's beef division president, Bill Rupp, says right now, robots just can't tell the difference between cows and puny humans, but they can clumsily remove a filet mignon from either.
That's a feature, solving overpopulation, world hunger, and what to do with undesirables all at the same time.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @01:10PM
No, it's a bug: Humans should go into the pork lines, not the beef lines.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 08 2016, @10:40AM
yup... "long pig".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by jdavidb on Thursday January 07 2016, @02:13PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday January 07 2016, @02:28PM
Why on earth would a website named for soylent green make jokes about cannibalism. It makes no sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @05:23PM
Irony much?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 07 2016, @06:46PM
That's not irony, Alannis.
(Score: 3, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday January 07 2016, @02:44PM
That suggestion sounds very modest.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday January 07 2016, @01:35PM
FTFTFS? First-Time, Full-Time Freshman? write what you mean, retard.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday January 07 2016, @02:46PM
I believe that would translate to "Fixed That For The Fine Summary."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:35PM
Had a chat with the network administrator of a meat processing company once -- told me they had 5 plants across the Netherlands, capacity 50,000 pigs per day (pigs driven on a platform, platform drops 50 metres down, carbon dioxide gas): nearly all of the meat processing was robotic, with butchers only coming in for the finest pieces of meat. This was 2005.
Did a quick check on such automation on Dutch websites: here's an [English language] product folder [marel.com] (notice they're advertising for an IN33-430 injector, used to inject water into meat to make it weigh heavier).
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @12:59PM
We can not replace muslim slaughter men with machines! This is not halal!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:28AM
When the robots pray, won't their prayers be heard?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @01:07PM
Is it really stubbornness, or is it maybe that living animals are harder to handle properly by machines than inanimate objects?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday January 07 2016, @06:04PM
Or is it that no two animals are the same (barring twins), so the algorithms needed have to be extensively capable of handling variation?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @07:04PM
...far from it, actually.
But, I can imagine some horrifying things happening here. Like a machine that's calibrated wrong and instead of an instant & painless kill, tortures an animal for hours/days...
if we're going to kill other creatures to eat them, let's at least offer them the most minimal of dignities, and that's to be slain by an actual person. (See also: Drones)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @08:52PM
Pigs and chickens are killed by gasification; cows (and, I presume, horses) by walking with their head against a pressure plate, a gunshot follows.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by zugedneb on Thursday January 07 2016, @07:05PM
should have done it earlier... it is articles like this that can make me wish I was born buddhist or some shit...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @09:57PM
Sure you are buddy. So how long until your next hamburger?
(Score: 2, Touché) by zugedneb on Friday January 08 2016, @08:14AM
why the doubt?
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday January 07 2016, @09:08PM
This sounds like a perfect fit for the Soylent Green factory. Keeps all the pesky moralists out of the process.
(Score: 1) by devnulljapan on Friday January 08 2016, @01:10AM
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:36AM
Something, or someone, could unexpectedly enter a robot's work area, and the robot would stop working until a human came to clear the obstruction.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 08 2016, @10:44AM
This is a food handling situation.
Machinery can be thoroughly cleaned.
Humans can not.
Besides, I cannot really trust a human to do as much as wash his hands after taking a shit.
Meat-packing is one of the worst jobs imaginable to make a human do. I cringe at the thought this kind of stuff still has to go on.
So, my vote is FOR this technology.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]