Robots Join Final Assembly Line At US Auto Plant 223
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."
Re:Coming Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, we're approaching 3 classes, Robot Slaves(who don't mind), super wealthy robot owners, and people who are expected to work in a world where work is done by robots.
Re:Coming Soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Robot designers? Robot systems integrators? Robot process engineers? Robot maintenance and field service engineers?
Increasing productivity has historically been good for us. Less human capital spent on turning bolts frees up more for doing cool stuff. I don't doubt that there will be short-term pain for people who used to perform unskilled repetitive labor - but honestly they were losing their jobs to East Asians anyway. Sadly, retraining programs don't appear to work very well, so we might very well be stuck with a huge population dependent on public assistance throughout the remainder of their lives. But that is the short term view - the long term view is probably just as bright as other massive changes in productivity have been.
Re:Coming Soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually we will have to have a huge class of people either allowed to starve to death or cared for by the state. Some people are not ever going to be capable of more than manual repetitive labor.
I think many nations will move towards extremely limited work weeks and high levels of social welfare. I think the USA will more likely go with more salaried employees who work long hours and a huge class of folks barely surviving. The salaried workers will be told by the media that these folks unable to find jobs are why they must pay high taxes and work long hours. The owners will profit even more.
At some point every non-creative job can be done by a machine. Many folks will be employed making hand made items as those will be a novelty, or cooking amazing new foods and the like. Those will be the only workers left.
Re:So what IS the plan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Minimum subsistence for those who choose not to work. Better living conditions and wages for those who choose to work.
Same as it ever was - you don't have to lift a finger now to be guaranteed a minimum subsistence (food, some basic education, housing, clothing provided for by welfare and charity programs). If you want more than that, you work - as a robot janitor, as a robot accident clean-up guy, as a robot builder, robot programmer, robot repair guy, or one of the people who extract the raw materials required for all of that work to feed it into the increasingly mechanized production chain. Or, as an artist or artisan - producing something that CAN be produced by a robot cheaply, but which some people will value the 'handmade' quality and materials of, and thus pay a sizable premium for some of your time and effort. Yes, "Mountain Dew Hydrolyzed Nutro Paste" may be a perfectly good, cheap meal for most people... but that won't stop people from wanting to pay for a good steak that requires the skill, attention, and experience of a chef.
We need to stop treating the expectation that "working hard to get ahead" is a bad thing, and somehow people who do it are evil and bad. We can certainly work on making the effort vs. reward curves more similar for different genders, different races, etc. - but the expectation that somehow robots will be able to do everything, everywhere, is foolish - there will always need to be humans in the production chain somewhere. If you choose not to work, don't expect others to hand you a gold-plated lifestyle for free.
"the ongoing automation of work" (Score:4, Insightful)
The move could prove a 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.
The "ongoing automation of work" has been going on for centuries, and will continue thank goodness. Yes, that means rooms of human calculators were displaced by the device you are looking at right now, laundresses were displaced by automatic clothes washers, human dishwashers displaced by their automatic equivalents ... (and the last two helped half of humanity get out of the house and into far more rewarding, productive things).
There is always more work to do. If you look at the jobs of 50 years ago, I expect a large portion are gone now, yet people have found new, more productive work. Where would the software developers come from if they were still sewing shirts and digging coal?
The drawback isn't for society, but for individual workers. The economy as a whole becomes more productive, but the individual whose life-long skills become obsolete may be out of luck. We need to find a way to help and take care of those people; all of society benefits, while the entire cost is born by a very few.
Re:Coming Soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that what they said about the industrialization of agriculture last century? Isn't it a good thing that we no longer need to perform manual labor? I hate picking up heavy things or performing mindless repetitive tasks. Hell, I have a robot to vacuum my floors...
The economy is changing. Some fields are rapidly expanding and others are rapidly shrinking. As a result the people who are willing to accept the changes and adapt and move into the new positions will be successful and those who sit around go "woe is me! A robot took my job and I can't find another job turning this wrench a half turn every minute!" will be SOL and there will be no place for them.
You can not stagnate the world just because you are comfortable in it. As an engineer it is my job to eliminate my job. I don't bitch about how if I automate this one step then I will have less to do. I automate it and say "thank god I don't have to do that anymore!" then move on to the next step. There are plenty of things that an industrious person can do to make a living. They simply involve stepping outside of the factory and doing something that actually requires thought and effort.
Re:Coming Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people are not ever going to be capable of more than manual repetitive labor.
Some people, sure. But not "most people". I'll go so far as to say that 95% of people are probably biologically capable of going to college. We would need to straighten out our K-12 education problems first, and seriously tackle the problems of educating people in poverty, and those who are unwilling or unable to educate their children.
The owners will profit even more.
Unless we move to more consolidation and monopoly, I don't see why this would be the case. Robotic equipment doesn't magically remove competition - why should profit margins go up? If COGS go down, so will prices - not profits. Walmart will only be a single-digit percentage point profitable no matter what they do with robots.
every non-creative job can be done by a machine
Why not "creative" work?
Re:Coming Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Coming Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. 90% used to work in agriculture. Now 1% do. The remaining 89% found something to do.