Adidas To Sell Robot-Made Shoes In Germany (dw.com) 166
Adidas, the German sportswear and equipment maker, has announced that it will start marketing the first series of sports shoes manufactured by robots in Germany from 2017. Deutsche Welle reports: The announcement came as Adidas unveiled its prototype "Speedfactory", a state-of-the-art, 4,600 square-meter facility meant to automate shoe production, which is largely done manually in Asian factories at the moment. The company has struggled with steadily rising wages across the continent, where it employs around a million people. Still, Adidas insisted that the aim was not to immediately replace their workers, saying the goal was not "full automatization".
Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:1)
> The Group’s gross profit increased 20% to € 2.304 billion (2014: € 1.918 billion) in the third quarter.
http://www.adidas-group.com/en... [adidas-group.com]
I would love to know why Adidas can't afford to pay decent wages?
Re: Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is your definition of a corporation for you to say they have no decency? As a developer it is not my obligation to pay my cleaning staff more or pay a higher rent than my landlord requires. Is it my responsibility to pay more? If not why is it adidas' responsibility?
Re:Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations are legal entities, not humans. "Decency" is not a legal term, it has no meaning in the context of a legal entity.
If you, as a person, pay your cleaning staff poorly, people knowing this may think lowly of you, and as a human, you may therefore feel a lack of decency.
But a legal entity has no feelings, and thus no decency.
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As far as I'm concerned my cleaning staff wanted X to clean the office. I'm paying X. I don't think about it anymore than I think about the landlord. They wanted a certain amount per month. I'm paying it.
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Some corporations aspire to higher levels of decency.
B Corps are for-profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance,
accountability, and transparency.
The company I work for (as a software developer) is a B Corp.
You can find out more at https://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps
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Some companies ideas of decency and social performance mean not working on the Lord's Day, even if it means sacrificing sales (read profit). Chick Fil A and B&H Photo are two that come to mind.
Re: Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:2)
Shouldn't a company hire the person who is willing to work for the least? They are probably in the most desperate situation. Hiring someone who doesn't really need the job that badly does less to reduce human suffering.
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Corporations are just a tool to abstract away the financial and ethical liabilities of the owners and operators. "Corporations" don't actually do anything at all, including paying the cleaning staff well or poorly, because they are legal and not corporeal entities. A human, or several humans, ultimately decided what to pay the cleaning staff, even if they laundered the responsibility for that decision through the corporation.
It's the humans that are making decisions on behalf of the corporation that do or d
Re: Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:2)
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Officers in the corporation have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (Meaning they should be competent and not collude with vendors etc...) Cheap does not mean better from either a consumer or corporate perspective. There are always trade-offs. Do we off-shore to get closer to our customers, pay less in wages, pa
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There is a very nice upside of automation. Without workers to screw over the CEO will not have any cheap ways to increase profits and no-one to blame when the company does something illegal.
But on the upside, once caught doing something illegal you can do a low level format of the CEO and upgrade to a newer version!
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They can. What makes you think they cannot? Just because they don't?
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I would love to know why Adidas can't afford to pay decent wages?
No company wants to pay anyone anything. Ever. That's just how it works.
Re:Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to know why Adidas can't afford to pay decent wages?
This comment is hard to reply to, but I'll try.
The best thing to do would pick up an economics textbook used by any entry-level Macro Econ 101 course.
Basically, you have it backwards. We don't want companies maximizing pay - we want them minimizing cost. Cheaper shoes are good for everyone who buys shoes. The incentive structure for the company is such that they need to keep their production costs as low as possible. They also have incentives to meet demand. In a competitive environment, this meshing of supply and demand means we don't run into shoe shortages and there are plenty of affordable shoes to choose from. Jobs the wages associated will follow similar supply and demand rules. You can fiddle with the system if you want and pin wages, but this obviously effects the demand curve in a direction that you likely aren't going to be pleased with. Left alone, they system will dither (sometimes wildly) around the point of highest efficiency. For shoes, this is probably what we want. For food... well, the dithering is probably not desirable so we can probably afford to trade away some efficiency to avoid periods of starvation.
Now imagine your economic system, where we change the incentive structure to maximize wages. I'd like you to describe how this would work. I think by explaining it, you would find some holes all by yourself without any debate from me.
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Average incomes are falling. Surely this will lead to unwanted deflation since supply will exceed demand, forcing companies to lower prices to encourage more consumerism, but losing profits as a result, which will result in labor cuts, which will continue to decrease demand.
I'm not sure how sustainability comes into play here...
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We have built-in inflation thanks to the Federal Reserve System, so no we are unlikely to have deflation. If we do, things have gone very wrong.
Supply will periodically exceed demand, but then prices will drop below the level that companies can sustain and supply will become more constrained. If the market is fairly free, supply and demand should more or less align.
Similarly, your labor is only worth what it is worth. You can artificially prop it up, but this will distort the markets in a less-efficient dir
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I'm not sure I see how deflation can be avoided if income continues to decrease
People with less money, will spend less, encouraging retailers to lower prices, which will encourage those same retailers to cut labor costs, which will decrease further the supply of consumers.
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Simple: By increasing the money supply. Currently we do this through printing money and issuing debt. They are currently keeping the fed rate very low to keep inflation going. No one wants deflation because then hoarding cash becomes a viable investment strategy, which is good for no one.
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Why did you delete this part from my quote: "If we do, things have gone very wrong."
It seems to me that the Great Depression counts as "gone very wrong".
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We don't want companies maximizing pay - we want them minimizing cost. Cheaper shoes are good for everyone who buys shoes.
I concluded the same when I designed my own economic theory *before* bothering to glance at formal economics. (It turns out modern economics are about measuring, and not about the function of an economy; I can generate and explain a lot of modern theories using my own as a sort of economic fundamental theory.) Most people don't understand technical progress and how it affects an economy; and they don't understand demand-side economics.
I've shown people how demand-side economics works, and drawn up a hy
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Provided you are still employed and can afford to buy it.
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The best thing to do would pick up an economics textbook used by any entry-level Macro Econ 101 course.
And read it with extreme scepticism as they are chock full of nonsense. Even better would be to pick up something like The Anti-Textbook [amazon.co.uk] or Debunking Economics [amazon.co.uk] which will point out the nonsense for you.
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Thanks, those are good links. The "Debunking Economics" book looks like it is mostly critiquing classical theories which rely on equilibrium, as well as viewing debt as equivalent to expanding the money supply. I obviously haven't read it, but it could certainly have merit. On the surface, I agree with those things. One should probably still read some entry level econ 101 type stuff so that they at least understand supply and demand before delving into mathematical relationships. The other, "The Anti-Textbo
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I'd like you to describe how this would work. I think by explaining it
Surprisingly most western nations do that. Only the USA seem to favour to have a 25% population at poverty.
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And I think you'll find that some of those nations are dealing with civil unrest as a result of some of these policies, which have resulted in massive youth unemployment. I mentioned tradeoffs - that's one of them.
Re: Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:2)
You mean like in Ferguson?
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I think there may be a wee more to Ferguson than youth unemployment.
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Such as rampant entitlement? Every person should be allowed to act like a thug and beat up police officers and never expect to get shot for rushing at a cop in a threatening manner!
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While there is a problem with respect for law and order in many poor communities, this whole thing is a two-way street. In addition to the reality of institutionalized racism and the occasional bad cop, we ask cops to perform a lot of duties which are counter to what a community wants their police to be doing. Ferguson is not a good example, because the officer in that case was doing exactly what he should. But in NY, they have local beat cops enforcing state cigarette tax laws. Pretty much everywhere, we h
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Actually, I don't find this.
But feel free to point such nations out, so I get a clue.
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Maybe you would also like to be more specific? I'm talking about such obscure nations as Italy and France. Italy has strong worker protections and 39% youth unemployment. France has 25% youth unemployment. The EU in general has stronger worker protections and higher youth unemployment than the US (~10%). You don't get something for nothing, and you can't wave a magic wand and make your country prosperous.
We have civil unrest in the US, too - lest I be accused of casting stones from a glass house. But we als
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There are reasons and that are very likely not related to worker protection laws or denmark and germany would look equaly bad.
The main reason is: we already live in a post scarity economy/society. But the society is not adapting or the economy is not. As you wish.
The next reason is, most countries have no well developed way to introduce pupils leaving school into the economy. E.g. journeymen as we do in Germany.
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Germany is the only one below the US average so I think you are perhaps cherry picking a little. The worst state in the US is only as bad as the EU average.
I do agree that the issue is more complicated. But that doesn't really change my point, which is that artificially propping up salaries will have consequences. That much is not disputed by any serious economic theory that I am aware of. The decision to balance these consequences against the benefits is a political decision, and one which some countries i
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Salaries for young people leaving school and going to trade school and working in the companies where they are educated/employed are very very low.
You hardly get over $800 per month.
And then again, the numbers are about people who report in as unemployed. Perhaps in the US young people don't do that often as they get no welfare anyway?
The decision to balance these consequences against the benefits is a political decision, and one which some countries in Europe are currently struggling with.
Europe is struggl
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E.g. I won't employ anyone, regardless of wage. The paper work to employ one is already killing me. I contract out to my tax accountant etc. what I can, but an employee? No way, ever!
I would argue that the sort of bureaucracy that you are bemoaning is a direct result of government attempts to protect workers. I'm not making a judgement as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, just pointing it out. (Though if you want to turn this into a debate about the wisdom of such policies, I'm happy to indulge.) Even in the US where most employment is "at will", there is a fair amount of bureaucracy to cut through to "employ" someone. That is why it is becoming more common to "contract" with so
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You might be surprised, but I actually agree with you that "free trade" is not healthy. I like free markets, but free trade can distort free markets.
In order to have a free market you need free movement of capital, free movement of goods, and free movement of labor. We have capital and goods covered with these free trade agreements, but we mostly ignore labor. I think the free trade agreements need to be adjusted to account for things like different labor markets. I don't know what the mechanism should be -
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Let's examine what you've posited.
"Adidas could sell their shoes at the current price and instead of retaining that giant profit, they could use that money to give to their employees. they could actually pay a higher wage and still make a profit without raising prices. just not as much profit."
OK, so now Nike comes in and makes more profit. Their stock price goes up. Adidas goes down. Nike finds it far easier to raise capital and takes market share from Adidas. Or they simply buy Adidas and now the "good" c
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I think you could bat this down with a rule dictating ownership percentage of a parent corporation based on revenues of child corporation or somesuch. It's not like corporate accounting isn't already a nightmare. (I'm an advocate of getting rid of corporate taxes, BTW... too many funny games going on - just tax the owners.)
Re:Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:4, Informative)
Adidas's GROSS profits are increasing. "Gross Profit" is total revenue--sales. Outside of the financial industry, "Gross Profit" is a weasel-word used to mislead people: we usually think of "profit" as "net profit," which is the gross profit minus operating expenses. This makes sense because operating expenses include wages (employee gross profits--net is minus taxes), supply line (other business's gross profits), and outsourced business services (again, other business's gross profits). If you put all business net profits together with all employee gross income, you get the total income.
Gross profits increase if your employee wages get more expensive and you thus adjust the price of your product. Your net profit can actually decrease under this situation, leaving your business with less money at the end of the year.
As for this:
I would love to know why Adidas can't afford to pay decent wages?
Businesses don't pay wages. Consumers pay wages.
Wages in aggregate across the entire production process are the base cost: at the end of the day, the product will absolutely sell for no less expensive than that. Volume deals push the price closer to the cost, such as when GM tries to bid for 100,000,000 tonnes of steel per year, and the steel mills contract with the coal and ore companies contingent on winning the GM contract, and everyone slims their profit margin because taking $1 per tonne on 100,000,000 tonnes is still $100,000,000 versus trying to profit $20 per tonne and selling 0 tonnes to GM. No matter how hard you compact that down--get it down to tenths of a cent per unit and 0.1% profit margins--you'll get no lower than the wage-labor costs of all employees involved in the entire supply chain.
Raise the wage-labor cost such that the steel costs $20 more per tonne and the price the steel mill will need to charge goes up by $20. With GM making passenger cars weighing 1.5 tonnes in steel, those cars cost $30 more. Either GM absorbs the cost in the form of lower profit margins (in which case, GM, as the consumer of steel, pays the wage of the steel mill) or GM holds its profit margin (usually 7%-13%; was -7.5% in 2013--they took a loss, which the big profit margins help protect against) and the end consumer pays for the wage raise.
In the case of Adidas, when shoe-maker labor increases, they can either raise prices or lower profits. Adidas's profits barely offset their loss years, with a five-year average of 4% and a five-year low of -7.5%. That means a 4% increase in labor costs--29 cents in minimum-wage increase in the United States, or a 14 cents increase on $3.50/hr Chinese labor--can put Adidas into permanent loss, ending in bankruptcy.
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> The Group’s gross profit increased 20% to € 2.304 billion (2014: € 1.918 billion) in the third quarter.
http://www.adidas-group.com/en... [adidas-group.com]
I would love to know why Adidas can't afford to pay decent wages?
Maybe they're using more robots precisely because they want to pay their (remaining) human employees decent wages. :D
Think of the Children (Score:2)
Re: Dealing with steadily rising wages? (Score:2)
The answer to your question is the same reason YOU don't live on $10 a day and donate the rest to help starving people. You could easily do it. Live less luxuriously.
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(euro) 2.304 billion / 1 million (workers) = 2304 Euro...ok, so where is that raise supposed to come from? Personally, I wouldn't see everyone getting a 2304 Euro a year raise as "paying decent wages" either.
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so a corporation's profits are considered wages now? to whom?
Great News (Score:3)
Re:Great News (Score:5, Insightful)
If that actually becomes technically feasible one day, you can be sure the (by then heavily dongled) plastic filament cartridges will be more expensive then the ready-made shoes.
Ever tried to print a colorful book on an ink-jet printer for the price you can buy a hardcopy?
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If 3D-printing ever becomes mainstream and if it actually becomes cheaper than buying a pair of shoes, you may rest assured that what you now have with the copyright mafia and people getting sued for infringement is an insignificant breeze of the shitstorm that will come down if fashion designers feel their bottom line threatened.
And THAT in turn will pale against what's going to happen when printing car parts becomes mainstream.
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And THAT in turn will pale against what's going to happen when printing car parts becomes mainstream.
It's already fully legal to copy car parts if they are not covered by patent or copyright. You can't make the badges, and you may not be able to make some slick trick engine component although I can't imagine what at this point (one of Koenigsegg's solenoid valves, perhaps) but you can make fenders or EGRs or whatever. Lots of companies do it already.
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Yes, it's still legal. 3D printing is still not putting a dent into the sales of car spare parts that cost 5 cents to mold cast that are being sold for 20+ bucks.
Just wait 'til car spares manufacturers start to feel the sales drop.
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Assuming you meant to equate drinkypoo with homosexual speech, can you elaborate? Which word choice or phrasing used by drinkypoo lines up with homosexual speech? What *is* homosexual speech? Do homosexuals use a different language?
And you might want to stay out of their toilet. That's a terrible way to measure fecal intellect.
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Do you know the meaning of TROLL?
YHBT YMBNH HTH HAND
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Great! Open source shoe designers :)
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Remember, there's only a market for about 6 or 7 computers world wide. I mean, who am I to question a giant like IBM...
Aside of that, your analysis is probably going to prove correct. We can't have it that people wanting to make new things cuts into profits.
Star Trek No Money Society (Score:4, Interesting)
Many Years ago I read a sifi novel about a planet with unlimited energy reserves and through the miracle of Sifi, the ability to fabricate anything. In the novel they had no concept of money. Everyone was able to choose their vocation, which they did out of altruism, or at least, a desire to not be seen as a free loader.
Start trek alludes to a no money society, but the various series are cluttered with Capitalistic enterprises (Ha!) and other examples.
Assuming that one day there is essentially no scarcity of essential materials (food, clothing, shelter, etc.), what structure do you believe a society would take?
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The problem is that Siri will always get my requests wrong and keep manufacturing me the wrong junk.
But seriously, I don't think much will change. Even now, you can pitch a tent and live off government assistance and charity for food and clothing pretty easily. YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO WORK TO SURVIVE if you live in a first-world country.
So, someone from two hundred years ago probably thinks you're in this no-money paradise you describe. So you tell them - what is this no-money paradise like? What, yo
Now they just need to perfect robot-bought shoes (Score:5, Interesting)
Cause out of work factory workers sure aren't going to be buying them.
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Why should they, they could just take a few pieces home every day and sew themselves a pair.
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But the low-paid workers in China had a job. Now they don't.
Sure, but that's a problem Adidas cannot solve by keeping production sites in China. The workers would be replaced by robots in China - there certainly is a reason why German robot manufacturer Kuka was recently acquired by a Chinese company, and you've seen Foxconn replacing workers by robots, too.
I think the global issue of diminishing work due to replacement by robots will more likely be solved when production and consumption happen in the same country, so politicians can see "both sides of the medal" -
Re:Now they just need to perfect robot-bought shoe (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the global issue of diminishing work due to replacement by robots will more likely be solved when production and consumption happen in the same country, so politicians can see "both sides of the medal" - cause and effect. Producing in country A and selling in country B on the contrary makes it less likely the problems of unemployment are solved.
You raise a very interesting point about onshoring manufacturing, although you didn't specifically say it: quality.
With robotic production, production quality can become almost a constant. So what differentiates a good made in Country A vs. Country B? We could go for tariff protections, but I hate the idea of rent-seeking governments inserting themselves into transactions merely to soak up money. The quality of the good is ultimately going to be determined by the precision of the robot; meaning how well maintained is that machine (bearing, sensors, hydraulics etc).
So the competitive advantage is going to go to the countries who are investing in training (essentially) mechanics. I don't think drag'n'drop programmers (see another /. story) are going to cut it in that world...
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The quality of the good is ultimately going to be determined by the precision of the robot; meaning how well maintained is that machine (bearing, sensors, hydraulics etc).
So the competitive advantage is going to go to the countries who are investing in training (essentially) mechanics. I don't think drag'n'drop programmers (see another /. story) are going to cut it in that world...
The quality of the good is going to be determined by the quality of the input materials, the programmed tolerances, and the rigor of QC... just like it is now.
In a world where enough people cared about quality to let it affect their purchasing choices, your prediction may be true. In this world, where "cheap" is the only consideration, all of those parameters will be meticulously set by how cost effective (shoddy) a product can be and still be sold for an acceptable profit. The competitive advantage goes to
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But the low-paid workers in China had a job. Now they don't.
Sure, but that's a problem Adidas cannot solve by keeping production sites in China. The workers would be replaced by robots in China - there certainly is a reason why German robot manufacturer Kuka was recently acquired by a Chinese company, and you've seen Foxconn replacing workers by robots, too.
I think the global issue of diminishing work due to replacement by robots will more likely be solved when production and consumption happen in the same country, so politicians can see "both sides of the medal" - cause and effect. Producing in country A and selling in country B on the contrary makes it less likely the problems of unemployment are solved.
150 years earlier, when almost everyone lived and worked on a farm: "I think the global issue of diminishing work due to replacment by steam tractors will more likely be solved when politicians can see "both sides of the medal" - cause and effect."
Please, god almighty please, keep politicians away from command and control of the economy.
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Dude, come down. You really think corporations need any "suggestions" from religious nutjobs to come up with something to lower cost?
Re:Now they just need to perfect robot-bought shoe (Score:5, Insightful)
But the low-paid workers in China had a job. Now they don't.
Actually they still do. They won't have a job some time in the future, if the robotic factory works out.
Hooray for the SJW campaign against exploiting low-paid workers! No longer are those poor souls being exploited! Rejoice that the SJW elite's enlightened ways have scored a victory against capitalist exploitation of developing countries!
The has nothing to do with American politics, and everything to do with Asia's economic development. Companies like Adidas are simply running out of extremely low pay, exploitable workforces. The children of the people who have been working in sneaker sweatshops for the past 20 years are getting educations and aspiring to better jobs, better pay and better lives. Laying this at the feet of SJWs just makes you look unhinged, because this is one of the expected results of the exploitation of low wage jurisdictions; eventually, wages rise to an equivalent level to every other jurisdiction.
So how are those people expected to feed themselves and their families now?
Here's a hint: wages are rising because employers are competing for workers, so they'll probably go work somewhere else, most likely at similar wages, unless the jobs removed when Adidas shut down it's factories represent a large enough percentage of total employment to have a significant impact on the labour market.
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If it does. History shows layoffs are temporary in the long run of a free economy, though the granularity of the ups and downs may not be to everyone's liking. Hence the safety nets demanded by the population to ameliorate the rough edges of capitalism providing jobs and products.
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And that's the bit that the current batch of BA-idiots doesn't get. Hell, even Ford knew that a hundred years ago: You have to have a market to sell to. You need someone who has the money to spend on the stuff you produce. Producing makes you poor, only selling makes you rich!
I don't get it... (Score:2)
Sure, if the workers are using their own creativity to make the products, then that would make sense, but I expect every Adidas shoe in every footlocker store everywhere to be assembled to the same standards. This happens better with robots than it does with human
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Don't put words in my mouth, I never said I don't like children working in sweatshops.
Stupid headline! (Score:3)
The relevant news here is not that robot-made shoes are sold in Germany.
The actual news here is that Adidas moves part of its production of shoes, which previously was completely done in south-east Asia, back to Germany. And of course, that is reasonable to do for them only when almost all the work is done by robots, where there's no huge salary difference between doing it in China or Germany.
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And Germany should now rejoice or what? What do they get out of this? Jobs? Nope. Taxes? Yeah, right.
Basically what they get is waste and landfill. Oh, and overpriced shoes.
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And Germany should now rejoice or what? What do they get out of this? Jobs?
Yes, actually the number of people working in Germany for Adidas increases when production happenes there again - even if it's just a hundred robot-mechanics (instead of ten-thousand workers in China).
Basically what they get is waste and landfill. Oh, and overpriced shoes.
The environmental rules imposed in Germany are pretty strict, you can be sure if waste production is a significant side effect of producing shoes, the bean counters will have put the costs for disposal into their calculation. There are certainly industries (e.g. the mining of rare earth metals) that wouldn't b
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Jobs? Nope.
Of course.
Or do you think material flow, unloading of trucks, supervising the assembly lines, managing the factory, having a secretary, removing the garbage, processing orders ... heck having a cantina and a cook, is done by robots, too?
What is the fuss anyway? Japan and Germany have the highest rate of "manufacturing" done by robots since DECADES!!! Or do you think a car or motorbike or a fridge or a computer or a plane or a washing machine is actually manufactured by: people??? Not to speak ab
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Yeah, they're probably going to be built somewhere in Asia. Care to explain why Germany gives a fuck about jobs being created in Asia?
And whether it's less waste is moot, so far there was no waste in Germany, that waste was in Asia.
Re: Stupid headline! (Score:4, Informative)
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And stock in transit is capital tied up and not working for the company.
Just-in-Time and reducing stock levels will net huge savings for any company.
Automation (Score:2)
Former McDonald's USA CEO: $35K Robots Cheaper Than Hiring at $15 Per Hour [slashdot.org]
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35k robot... is he buying it from Elon
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sweatshops have been a known problem for almost 40 years.
If you define "problem" as multinationals paying 40% higher [oecdobserver.org] in average wages than local firms, and the differential is higher in low-income countries of Asia and Latin America.
But now with robots allowing manufacturing to return to developed countries, workers in developing countries do not have to work in "sweatshops" and can return to earning under $1 day toiling in the heat of summer and cold of winter wading through rice paddies just barely living
Headline not interesting enough (Score:2)
Quality of Germany made goods.... (Score:2)
From my graduation keynote speaker... (Score:2)
The shoes of the future will not be manufactured in Asia or at sea. They will be manufactured in Germany, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual manufacturing process will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Now Approaching the Shoe Event Horizon! (Score:2)
As was foretold in scripture [youtube.com].
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Complain all you want, but the current issues are better than it has ever been.
Automation has completely reversed how we used to live in just the last 200 years or so. Around the year 1800, 90% or more of the population was engaged just to grow crops to feed people. Only 10% of the population was able to do anything but subsistence farm. Most of those were still engaged in food preparation, and a scant 1% did anything else.
And farming related jobs are STILL the most dangerous jobs out there... so there is a
Re:Immediately? (Score:5, Insightful)
The continued automation will keep reducing the need for manual labor, freeing people to do other things as the scarcity economy starts to be eliminated.
We've been potentially post-scarcity for many years. There has been enough to go around for ages. It just doesn't go around.
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Agreed, but the attempts to get past it have universally failed.
Without a drive for humans to work, they tend not to. Someone has to do it.
Now with robotics, we can start that shift to where the robot does the work.
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Way too deep in the weeds man.
The question is: will humans adapt to it?
My guess is maybe 50 to 80% could deal with a totally "free" lifestyle.
But there is a significant portion of the society that will want to be productive, and that is just built into our genes.
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Not 90% of your time.
90% of the POPULATION. That is 9 out of 10 workers.
You probably think you are not going to be part of the 90% scratching out an existence on a small dirt farm somewhere selling , but that is where you would be.
A failure of your crops would risk starving to death.
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Don't be stupid. Adidas will sell their shoes to Converse's employees!
The first companies to fully automate will win big. I spend my slashdot reading time honestly amazed that the process hasn't gone faster.
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begging for handouts or planing a long stay in a jail / prison. At the very least you do get an doctor that does more then the ones at the ER do.