Toyota to Employ Advanced Robots 360
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.
All too soon (Score:2, Insightful)
Lower wages (Score:2, Insightful)
What?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Corporate Crack (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. In Japan [ipss.go.jp] the population is expected to do just that.
Will these robots be buying Toyotas also (Score:4, Insightful)
looming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Corporate Crack (Score:2, Insightful)
Japanese Substitute Inventiveness for Immigration (Score:5, Insightful)
They are here to protect us (Score:5, Insightful)
I am very happy that Toyota are doing this (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:What?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:What?!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Automation will free us (Score:2, Insightful)
My point is that these will be owned by big companies with the capital to buy and develop them. Then they will just rule the world even more. This is something that really scares me. Someday robots will be able to do so much that the big corporations won't need us anymore.
Many are missing the point (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Anyone else see one of the biggest problems her (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What?!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you say that in Spanish?
Re:This will be a new industrial revolution (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This will be a new industrial revolution (Score:1, Insightful)
Then people should educate themselves.
How many jobs can you get today of you can't do arithmetic or can't read/write? And how many jobs could you get 200 years ago if you were illiterate?
Times change. If education is the *only* obstacle for jobs lost, then we don't have a problem. Of course, things are not as simple as that.
Communism is the way forward? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 indentured to their employers. The underclass now are still the underclass, but would you argue that their situation is worse than that of the underclass from ages past?
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.
You're radically simplifying to the point of distortion. First, producers don't operate solely within a given nation. Second, nations can be both producers and consumers in the same market.
Internal markets are where it's at in the rapidly developing economies that used to be beholden to the industrial leaders. Take a look at the computer technology and automotive markets in China. Not only are foreign companies entering China, home-grown companies are serving the increasing demands of the Chinese themselves. Would they have been able to build up internal demand without the wealth generated by exports?
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.
Black markets are present in all economies, but large black markets are the product of restrictive state controls on commerce. People want something that the state doesn't want them to have, so people steal from the state and sell the goods on the black market. The rest of your statement comparing capitalism as a whole to the black market is strange, given that the freer the market, the less likely it is to have a black market.
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.
You mentioned the terms peasant, serf, and Comrade interchangeably in the first paragraph, but now you're saying that a Communist revolution sounds like a good idea. Given the historical failures of Communism (including the liquidation of, rather than marginalization of undesirables), it doesn't sound like such a great idea to me.
Re:Welcome! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Whats the big deal (Score:1, Insightful)
It frees the humans to do something that isn't so dangerous and may be even more humanizing.
IE: In the plastics industry robots are used to very quickly and efficiently pull the parts from the molding machines.
The parts are too hot for human hands to touch.
You all have the things that these robots helped produce: anything plastic
And this greatly reduces cost.
And this makes for much more efficient and accurate sorting and product quality control.
No big deal.
Robots, programmed by humans, do this.
Now when the robots start to do their own programming, then we might start to worry.
Anyone ever read the Foundation Trilogy? I know that you have.
Re:Welcome! (Score:3, Insightful)
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 just reduces overall efficiency.
If a factory owner has a generous soul and wants to do something good for the larger economy, then he should automate production, fire the 130, and rehire them as something totally different, like scientists, schoolteachers, or policemen.