Robots Join Final Assembly Line At US Auto Plant

moon_unit2 writes "MIT Technology Review has a story about BMW's new collaborative final-assembly-line robots. The move could be significant in the ongoing automation of work, as robots have previously been incapable of doing such jobs, and too dangerous to work in close proximity to humans. Robots like the ones at BMW's South Carolina plant will also cooperate with human workers, by handing them a wrench when they need it. Perhaps the next big shift in labor could be robot-human collaboration."

Coming Soon

[evil crash]

Next the robots will want to unionize.

Open the pod bay doors HAL

[tedgyz]

That was a good example of human-robot collaboration.

Re:So what IS the plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we just going to kill off all the unuseful population?

We? No. After all, we have robots to do the dirty work for us.

Re:Coming Soon

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well clearly they should have picked their parents better and been born on third base like me.

I'll have you know that my grandaddy pulled himself up by his bootstraps to give me what I have today, so the fact that you can't do the same makes me sick.