Workplace Robot Orders Jumped By 40% In First Quarter (businessinsider.com) 47
According to the Wall Street Journal, workplace robot orders increased 40% in the first quarter of 2022, and were up 21% overall in 2021. The robot industry is now valued at $1.6 billion. Business Insider reports: Robots are providing at least a temporary solution for businesses confronted by difficulty hiring in the tightest job market since World War II, marred by the pandemic, record-high quitting rates, and vast economic turmoil. [...] Advanced technology, however, is allowing machines to assist a growing number of industry sectors, while at the same time becoming more accessible.
But as robot usage climbs, some have expressed concern about the machines displacing human workers as the labor crisis eventually eases. "Automation, if it goes very fast, can destroy a lot of jobs," Daron Acemoglu, an economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Journal. "The labor shortage is not going to last. This is temporary."
But as robot usage climbs, some have expressed concern about the machines displacing human workers as the labor crisis eventually eases. "Automation, if it goes very fast, can destroy a lot of jobs," Daron Acemoglu, an economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Journal. "The labor shortage is not going to last. This is temporary."
ok (Score:2)
"Automation, if it goes very fast, can destroy a lot of jobs," Daron Acemoglu, an economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Journal. "The labor shortage is not going to last. This is temporary."
ok, but a 40% jump is not very fast, especially since it's not compounded (that is, robot orders haven't increased a lot in the last 5 years).
The article says they are looking for robots because they can't find people to do the job. That's a good thing.
Re:ok (Score:5, Interesting)
ok, but a 40% jump is not very fast
And $1.6B is not much money. That is about $5 per American. We spend more on chewing gum.
The numbers in TFA are so ridiculously low that I don't believe them. The figures must have been garbled by an incompetent journalist.
The article says they are looking for robots because they can't find people to do the job. That's a good thing.
Indeed. Replacing human labor with automation is why our standard-of-living has increased twenty-fold since the industrial revolution began. But while most people see past automation as good, they see future automation as bad.
Re: ok (Score:1)
not really (Score:2)
In other word t
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absolutely no job whatsoever is being created for them
Yet after 300 years of automation, here we are with a full-employment economy.
The cliff will happen in 10 years IMO, but it will happen.
People have been predicting that for centuries while the opposite was happening.
Rising productivity does not cause poverty.
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It really comes down to everyone being afraid of the future.
The future has a lot of possibilities but those good things do not come to us fast enough.
The future has a lot of things that can go bad, which seem to be approaching us much too quickly.
We look back fondly on the good old days when we were the ages of 15-25 (before having to pay bills, and any job you got was spending money for stuff for your own recreation) You went to school to study all the new great things to come, and laugh at those stodgy ol
Not afraid but aware of the future (Score:2)
But ... how? (Score:2)
Where the hell can they find robots to buy? I can't even get a RasPi anywhere.
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1. There is a human worker shortage, leading to delays in factory production and shortage of electronic components for robots
2. Order robots to compensate for lack of human workers
3. Factory receives order to increase production of robots
4. ???
5. There is a human worker shortage, leading to delays in factory production and shortage of electronic components for robots
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It's a virtuous cycle. Soon we will all live off the land, like nature intended.
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It's a virtuous cycle. Soon we will all live off the land, like nature intended.
The world is quite different ever since the robotic uprising of the late 90s
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Soon we will all live off the land, like nature intended.
All 10,000 of us.
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There's a meme going around: jobs offering salaries of $20/hr and up, no shortage. Jobs offering between $15 and $20/hr, some shortage. Jobs offering under $15/hr, shortage.
Gee, what could be the problem? And btw, what's your rent, and how much salary do you need to pay it, and still pay utilities and food?
And where are the entry-level jobs?
Re: But ... how? (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's not just chips, it's a general component shortage. Just yesterday was looking to buy some 0.1" 3x2 right angle pin headers. The first one I clicked on in RS website had a lead time of 28/10/2022!!! Since the start of the pandemic I have waited several months for things like fans, batteries (needed a specific solder on coin cell to replace a dead on in a serial concentrator), connectors you name it. Whenever I have brought capacitors to fix PSU's I have had to spend half my time working out what is in s
Re: But ... how? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's your punishment for writing dates in that format.
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How much of those 45k actually go to the chip maker? Because I don't care what you sell your product for, what I care about is how much you pay for mine.
They took er jerbs (Score:2)
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No dupe-checking robots yet, though (Score:4, Funny)
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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Was gonna post the same thing, so thanks for that.
We need robots to replace BeauHD.
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RoBeauHD?
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At last something there is no shortage of!
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Slashdot uncovered the grandest flaw in AI: no, not common sense, but dupe detection detection.
Please replace the "editors" with robots (Score:1)
Sorry for the dupe.
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Agreed! Their time has come!
Improved productivity equals greater incomes (Score:2)
The Luddite paranoia about more robots / automation is irritating. It is only as machines do more work can our incomes actually rise because their greater productivity means we get paid more. Of course if the owners can find enough workers to ensure they don't need to pay more, then this may not happen. But if sources of new workers dry up (think Covid inspired blocking of new immigration) then the workers can get their overdue pay rise...
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I work in the coal mining industry and I don't know of any robots being used to mine coal in the US.
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I'm not in the coal industry so I don't know what it's like in the US, but a simple search turns up lots of hits. Many of them appear to be outside of the US. I didn't read through them to see if maybe the US is the exception and all the robots are elsewhere. Some of these may be forward looking, but it looks like a lot of robotic coal haulers are already in use.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
When you think of robots being used to mine coal, are you picturing a machine with two legs, two arms and a pickax
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Really they are still using pick axes to hew the coal of the coalface and shovels to load it into the minecarts? Outside the third world that is almost certainly not the case in decades.
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Minecarts? Baskets you fool! Baskets carried in good American hands belonging to good American humans.
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Two interesting videos about the subject are this video [youtube.com] (15 minutes) and this one [youtube.com] (11 minutes).
But to sum it up, this time it's different. The industrial revolution ultimately created advanced tools that allow humans to do advanced things. Future automation not only completely replaces human elements, but is so much better than human workers that it makes having them an inefficient waste of resources.
The improved quality of life argument is ultimately moot since we will either be out of jobs and will have o
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It's not really that different. The original industrial revolution replaced a lot of both skilled and unskilled labour, creating a lot of social upheaval. The guys on the barricades in Paris were mostly skilled tradesmen.
In response, most countries changed their political, social and economic systems, and eventually we invented a bunch of make-work jobs for people to do.
Many countries kept the advanced social and economic systems and should be fine now that it's all happening again. Certain countries didn't
"This time it's different" (Score:2)
Really? I'm sceptical! ;)
It's always gone the other way in the past, and the current labour shortages point in the opposite direction. Add in the imminent decline in the working age populations of most of the countries of the West, and difficult to see a labour surplus emerging soon.
Slashdot Dupes Jumped By 40% In First Quarter (Score:2)
Temporary? (Score:2)
What about installing a robot is temporary? Environment prep, installation and configuration, initial purchase price - these are investments that have to pay for themselves. You don't call Robot Temps Inc when one of your employees is out with a runny nose.
Again? (Score:4, Funny)
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I see wha T you did there...
pgslotauto (Score:1)