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Toyota to Employ Advanced Robots

Posted by michael on Fri Jan 07, 2005 07:30 PM
from the robots-are-born-free-and-everywhere-are-in-chains dept.
Robotics Businesses
olegalexandrov writes "Toyota Motor will introduce robots which can work as well or better than humans at all 12 of its factories in Japan to cut costs and deal with a looming labor shortage. The robots would be able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously with their two arms, achieving efficiency unseen in human workers and matching the cheap wages of Chinese laborers, a report said on Thursday." The Motley Fool has a humorous take, and Toyota emphasizes that goodlife, err, humans will continue to have a place in Toyota factories.
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  • Droids (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheAdventurer (779556) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:33PM (#11293154)
    I think that just for my sake, and for the sake of all my fellow Star Wars fans, we should just start calling them Droids.
    • Damn. Mod parent up (and probably mod me down).

      On topic, this reminds me of 1995's Ghost In The Shell:

      We see all science fiction as just that-- fiction, until the clock advances.

  • The robots will be commenting on Slashdot too! Maybe then the editing will be consistant...
  • The robots would be able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously with their two arms, achieving efficiency unseen in human workers

    Pushing AND shoving are the answer. Toyota will protect you from the terrible secret of space.

  • Lower wages (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So to compete, the Chinese just have to lower the wages that they pay their laborers. They've done it before.

  • What?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bman08 (239376) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:35PM (#11293167)
    Labor shortage? How about outsourcing (insourcing?) some of those jobs to Detroit where there are surplus autoworkers?

    • Re:What?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gstoddart (321705) on Friday January 07 2005, @08:00PM (#11293334) Homepage
      Labor shortage? How about outsourcing (insourcing?) some of those jobs to Detroit where there are surplus autoworkers?


      For a Japanese manufacturer, outsourcing to Detroit probably doesn't represent a cost savings or an efficiency boost.

      You don't have to pay benefits to a robot, and they work longer shifts.

      North American workers simply aren't willing to view themselves as cheap labour to pick up the slack from more expensive places to do manufacturing.

      • North American workers simply aren't willing to view themselves as cheap labour to pick up the slack from more expensive places to do manufacturing.

        How do you say that in Spanish?

      • Re:What?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by pchan- (118053) on Friday January 07 2005, @08:58PM (#11293713) Journal
        North American workers simply aren't willing to view themselves as cheap labour to pick up the slack from more expensive places to do manufacturing.

        Not true. Several Japanese automobile manufacturers assemble in the U.S. a large number of the cars they sell in North America. Toyota does it (my 4runner was built in their plant in Kentucky). Honda and Nissan do it. However, they do NOT do it in Michigan, due to the low quality of the workforce there, and the strength of the UAW in that state. Car stickers (at least in California) are required to state what country the car was assembled in, as well as what country the majority of the parts were manufactured in (usually Japan).

        • Not true. Several Japanese automobile manufacturers assemble in the U.S. a large number of the cars they sell in North America. Toyota does it (my 4runner was built in their plant in Kentucky). Honda and Nissan do it.

          Yep. They do manufacture there. I'm too lazy to google at this point, but I'm fairly sure that's to comply with domestic labour tarriffs and duties. I'm prety sure here in Canada it closes a loophole for domestic production numbers. I've certainly grown up knowing this is why -- if a comp

  • When I read the article, I wasn't thinking berserker [berserker.com], I was thinking Skynet [eterminator.com]

  • Rise of the Machines (Score:4, Funny)

    by robyannetta (820243) * on Friday January 07 2005, @07:37PM (#11293176) Homepage
    Keep your eye on that one robot near the corner... he keeps mumbling something about Sarah Conner.

  • AARGHH (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 07 2005, @07:37PM (#11293181)
    TEHY TOOK OUR JOBS!!1111111

  • disturbing, yes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by LiquidMind (150126) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:37PM (#11293184)
    "...with humanoid robots jamming in a brass ensemble and performing hip-hop."

    robot1: "you got e-served"
    robot2: "oh, it's (ON)/OFF"

  • Will these robots be buying Toyotas also (Score:4, Insightful)

    by srobert (4099) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:39PM (#11293197)
    It'll be difficult for a labor organizers to organize these robots. But I'll bet it'll also be difficult to get them to act as good consumers.

  • looming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lubricated (49106) <michalpNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 07 2005, @07:40PM (#11293205)
    If by looming labor shortage they mean layoffs, then yes a looming labor shortage will come. Good thing these robots are around. I mean how is a company supposed to layoff workers and get work done at the same stuff. Trully inovative on their part. I for one salute our new robot overlords, while the people in Russia have a robot shortage.

    • Re:looming (Score:5, Informative)

      by RealAlaskan (576404) on Friday January 07 2005, @08:01PM (#11293350) Homepage Journal
      If by looming labor shortage they mean layoffs

      I think that ``looming labor shortage'' refers to their looming demographic crisis [foreignaffairs.org].

      Japan's population is aging fast. They're getting older at the rate of one year per year, of course, but they aren't breeding fast enough to replace themselves. That's going to have lots of effects on Japan, most of them bad. One of those bad effects will be a labor shortage. You see, the number of people who are both willing and physically able to work is going to fall off as the current generation of workers gets too old to work.

      Europe is facing the same problem, and they're dealing with it via gastarbeiters [google.com]. Apparently, Japan is going to deal with it using robots.

      • Re:looming (Score:3, Informative)

        by tsotha (720379)
        Europe is facing the same problem, and they're dealing with it via gastarbeiters. Apparently, Japan is going to deal with it using robots.

        The rejection of guest workers is a carefully considered policy in Japan. There are some disadvantages to losing a common culture, as the Dutch [bbc.co.uk], the Germans [dw-world.de], and the French [arabnews.com] are discovering. Can't say I blame the aging Japanese for not wanting to deal with cultural strife or learn Tagolog or Mandarin in their dotage. But pardon me, I'm off to my Spanish class...

          • have horrible weather and natural disasters

            The weather in Japan is nice enough. The winters are much more comfortable than the east coast of the US.

            Natural disasters? What kind of crack are you smoking? The US has hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes, you know. I've lived in Japan for most of my life and I haven't seen any natural disasters that affected me personally.

            Japan is expensive, but the pay is much higher to compensate. Guest workers in Japan are among the "richest" in terms of money the
  • Jeez, don't *do* that! For a couple of seconds there I thought they meant "employ" as in "pay" and not "employ" as in "use". I know Japan has some pretty advanced robot technology, but they're not *that* advanced are they? ARE they? If they start talking about forming a union, it's time to get worried...
    • eunuch # A castrated man employed as a harem attendant or as a functionary in certain Asian courts

      I would assume that circumcision would not apply to one who has already been castrated. A failed attempt at a witty sig?

  • Welcome! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by anakin357 (69114) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:43PM (#11293221) Homepage
    I for one, welcome our new two-armed manufacturing robotic friends.

    All kidding aside, technological advancements not only displace jobs, but also create them as well. There is a small difference between paying 20 robotics engineers to develop, create, and maintain the robots exorbitant salaries as much as hiring 150 "guys off the street" to do the same stuff.

    Yes, after the initial development, the costs go down, but not a whole lot. Someone needs to make sure the robots keep doing their jobs.

    From TFA:
    Japan has so far rejected calls to open up to large numbers of unskilled immigrants, fearing the effects on the country's social framework.

    So instead of using "outsourced" labor, they remove jobs by having robots do them.... almost as bad.

      • Re:Welcome! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bluGill (862)

        But those 20 families have a higher standard of living, because they are earning the income that was previously dedicated to 30. Also, the other 100 million people in the country get a higher standard of living, because the cost of cars goes down. (competition means they are trying to undercut the other guy, and now they can!) In some cases costs of transportation accounts for 60% (not made up, but I don't know where to verify it either) of a familys income.

      • you stand to lose roughly 130 households of potential customers... per factory. Brilliant!

        That common refrain is similar to the broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org], and of course is the philosophical justifaction for sabotage. Although even some major industrialists have said otherwise, it is not overall sensible to give people money (employ them) in the hope that they give some of it back (be customers).

        That's like operating a boat by installing an electric fan on the deck, aimed at the sail: the needless extra step

  • Strange New War? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bryan1945 (301828) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:49PM (#11293265) Journal
    Does anyone get the feeling that China may be the cause of a new, strange war? Not shooting, but economic, robotic, worker-ethic, or something even stranger?

    We already hear complaints that everything is "Made in China" (or Taiwan, but we shall ignore for this discussion). Ok, shoes, T-shirts, etc.,... but now cars?!?

    Can China's cheap labor outdo even "Western Civilization's" tech by just throwing enough bodies at it? Toyota is scared that their non-smart bots are non-competitive against China's workforce? What next, Oracle is competing against a billion data enterers? (OK, a bit jokey).\

    It just seems that a lot of stuff points back to China as a problem for many countries. [Put on tin foil hat now]

    I am just wondering if there will be in the near future (or whatever future in the US's case; and yes I am American) some kind of trade war, social war (China being bad on human rights), maybe terroristic war by who knows who, or just straight out weirdness because China is becoming so powerfull by utilizing a labor method outgrown by pretty much every other world power a long time ago (ie, something akin to slavery- I know this is a powerful and loaded term, and correct, but I could not think of another suitable term that would describe some of the conditions that China lives under.

    Sorry for rambling so much.

    • After the slavery comment- I meant to say "and NOT correct".

      Again not "and correct", but rather "and NOT correct".

      I am very, very sorry for that typo. This is a very good reason /. should allow editing. Many people will see the above remark without seeing this correction, and be very mad. And yes, I did preview. Don't know how I missed it at first.

    • Ah, the Scapegoat. Is there any figure more welcome to the mind of the citizen who sees his country going down the crapper?

      The reality is that we've won China over to our vision of global capitalism. No fair crying "foul" if they kick our ass at our own game.

      Yes, there are some pretty disturbing human rights/social justice issues over there. But today's China is radically different from the China of just 5 years ago. In my opinion, their expanding middle class will eventually cross a threshhold where

  • Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto... (Score:5, Funny)

    by HungWeiLo (250320) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:50PM (#11293273)
    Come on! Someone had to say that...
  • I don't understand why limit them to this? Actually, what exactly would be an optimal number anyways?

    I think a better solution would be able to easily add or remove things like arms as needed, depending on the job.

    And then there's the whole socioeconomic issues of replacing mass numbers of jobs with robots. Eventually robots will be better at most things, though not in our lifetime. Huge political and economic issues loom overhead.

      • Not if it has ambulatory degrees of freedom.

        Most manufacturing arms ar stationary devices that move product from an inventory state to a place in a production state. (from a pile of parts onto the object being assembled)

        If these "two armed robots" are also able to do more than transition product from point a to point b - but say can pickup and maipulate the assembled object, retreive additional parts from shelving, or reposition themselves so they have access to the assembled object so that they can put o
  • In Japanese Substitute Inventiveness for Immigration; NYT Shocked [vdare.com] Steve Sailer writes:
    New York Times reporter James Brooke was recently shocked, shocked to discover that the Japanese people's famous fascination with robots and automation stems from their"xenophobia." [Japan Seeks Robotic Help in Caring for the Aged Mar. 5, 2004 NYT [globalaging.org] ]

    The labor-saving device that gave Brookes the willies was Sanyo's new clamshell-shaped automated bathing machine. It allows frail people confined to wheelchairs to roll in dirty and roll out clean and dry.

    Shivered Brooke: "Futuristic images of elderly Japanese going through rinse and dry cycles in rows of washing machines may evoke chills."

    Yet the machine doesn't seem to give the shivers to its users. Toshiko Shibahara, an 89-year-old resident of a Japanese nursing home told Brooke, "You don't get a chill. You feel always warm." Likewise, Kuni Kikuchi, an 88-year-old in a wheelchair, noted, "It automatically washes my body, so I am quite happy about it. These bubbles are good for the massage effect."

    ...

    My question: doesn't the uniqueness of Japanese culture [archive.org] add to the diversity of the world?

    And aren't we supposed to celebrate diversity [vdare.org]?

    Oh, excuse me, that's the wrong [vdare.com] kind of diversity. We are supposed to celebrate the right kind of diversity--the kind where each country becomes so diverse in population [vdare.org], its culture so diluted by immigration [vdare.org], that all countries are eventually the same.

    How silly of me to forget that the ultimate goal of "diversity" is global uniformity--and monotony.

  • They are here to protect us (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jardine (398197) on Friday January 07 2005, @07:55PM (#11293294) Homepage
    So the same robot could be the pusher robot and the shover robot at the same time, doubling their protection of us from the terrible secret of space.
  • One theory I've seen for dealing with the impact of increasing robo-industrialization is to help the workers you're displacing to purchase the robots, and then the company rents the robots from them. Even if the rent equals what they used to pay you as a worker, the productivity will be increased because of significantly less down time, and you are less likely to be bothered by being paid even somewhat less to hang around the house or follow your other pursuits.

    And of course the "smart" folks will put som

  • I read a few years ago about Japanese car makers investing heavily in robotics, but then didn't hear much more about it. I assumed that with the opening up of markets like China and India research had dwindled due to such low labour costs. This will require jobs to maintain and of course develop the robots. Which really are going to be mechanical arms with some basic AI thrown in.

    Toyota can spend more on design and less on the actuall production of vehicles, which will likely improve safety and performance of the vehicles. I hope over manufacturers follow suit. This should funnel more money into R&D for AI.

    Sorry, I just rambled on with thoughts there. hmmm... ...I'm waiting for the 'our new robotic overlords' jokes to start flooding in.
  • The US, Europe and others trade with China because they are able to produce goods so inexpensively, but we never think of the costs to our societies. They are doing to us, in many ways, what the Brits did to them with the Opium Wars. We are addicted to cheap products and so many aren't willing to give them up to compensate for the human casualties of the commerce: the millions of Chinese who work for basically nothing, especially in prison labor camps.

    It wasn't until I became a Christian that I realized th

  • Once again... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogaboga (793279) on Friday January 07 2005, @08:01PM (#11293342)
    ...Another potential first from an Asian company! Where has all the American innovation gone? For those ganging to mod me down, GM (of USA) continues to lose market share in the US while Japanese companies seem to be flourishing. In Canada, it is even worse for GM even after introducing 5 new models, more than any other company.

    Another bit: For Canada, though being one of the so called G7, only the Russian built Antonov-124 http://dptscargo.homestead.com/antonov124.html [homestead.com] could transport the enormous amounts of aid to the tsunami victims. The Canadians have nothing to rival this giant plane! We Americans are not any better because our even smaller cargo planes are more expensive to operate and require better and longer runways, and cannot self-handle! Airport workers gaped as they had never seen a plane as big with all the independence it has. I was also amazed.

    I leased the new Toyota Sienna, and you know what, it's a pleasure to drive not to mention the quiet engine. When I look arround my house, almost everything I use daily is Asian made...from the cell phone to the rice cooker.

    As Americans, we must wake up before it's too late.

    • Re:Once again... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by antifoidulus (807088) on Friday January 07 2005, @09:33PM (#11293893) Homepage Journal
      But by using your same logic I could say that the Americans are more innovative and resourceful than the Japanese. Which country has 2 rovers currently on Mars that have by far exceeded all expectations? The EUs robot crashed in the atmosphere, Japan's didn't even come close to hitting Mars. You have some good points, but your examples are too narrow.
      Americans and Japanese innovate in different ways. It's pretty much always been that way since Japan became an economic power after the occupation. Americans tend to neglect a lot of the little innovations like this that can make a big economic impact, but tend to excel in huge undertakings(Man on the Moon, the Internet etc). Japan seems to be the exact opposite. Their space programs have been an abysmal failure, and yet their consumer level technology is unrivaled. Interesting to see how different cultures react to similiar circumstances.

  • This will be a new industrial revolution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nyri (132206) on Friday January 07 2005, @08:22PM (#11293483)
    The non-specialized robot worker will usher new era upon mankind. The think is, in couple of decades we are running out of work for people without college decree. The robots will remove manufacturing jobs and ever expanding self-service industry will cut out jobs from the service sector. This means that societies must adopt to new situation as the current social agreement is based on the assumption that there is jobs for everyone.

    It's true that these innovations and changes will create new jobs, but the new jobs are created for the educated people not for the people whose jobs are disappearing.

    A world where there are no jobs for everyone isn't necessarily a bad thing, if societies are rearranged so that a decent living is provided for everyone and people start defining themselves not by their profession but by some other attributes.
    • A world where there are no jobs for everyone isn't necessarily a bad thing, if societies are rearranged so that a decent living is provided for everyone and people start defining themselves not by their profession but by some other attributes.

      Get off it. It's been done before. The people were called peasants or serfs or comrades. When the people are unable to contribute to the GDP, then society has no need for the people and they are marginalized.

      The global economy abstracts the whole capitalist marketplace into two camps: producers and consumers. As long there is some population somewhere that can buy your product (maybe a tiny western European nation with a small, rich population) the rest of the world can go get bent. Crank out your product with robots or slaves or serfs or peasants and make a profit.

      Rampant capitalism is known as the black market and it doesn't work very well in the long run. The global economy isn't far from rampant capitalism, but it will work to some extent right up until the point where everybody's job has been replaced by a robot. Then nobody will be able to afford a new television, and the system will be in trouble.

      A little international labor law and careful import/export management would be help, but one thing is for certain - this is not the path to utopia where "societies are rearranged so that a decent living is provided for everyone". This is the path to peasantry, serfdom, servitude, and slavery through debt. This is the road to a life where a communist revolution starts to sound like a good idea.

      • Get off it. It's been done before. The people were called peasants or serfs or comrades. When the people are unable to contribute to the GDP, then society has no need for the people and they are marginalized.

        I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you implying that the waves of successive social rearrangement have made things worse for the underclass? The underclass in medieval European societies were essentially owned by the lords. The underclass during the Industrial Revolution were essentially i

  • Industrial Robots (Score:3, Informative)

    by nameer (706715) on Friday January 07 2005, @10:54PM (#11294301)
    For the most part, they are talking about industrial [fanucrobotics.com] robots [kuka.com]. These are not C3P0 by a long shot. Even the instalation of car seats is semi-automated [stanleyassembly.com] already. Fully automating this, while an intersting challenge, does not involve anthropomorphic robots.

    Building anthropomorphic robots for an assembly line is (in this engineers opinion) inefficient. The tool should be matched to do the job specifically at had. Hell, Toyota was one of the companies that started the buzz in Lean Manufacturing. [optiprise.com]

    I work with robots. Robots are my friends. You, sir, are no robot. Wait, I mean you, sir, are not thinking of the right robot.

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