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Forums - General Discussion - Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots

TallSilhouette on 25 May 2016
Teeqoz said:
And now we can soon bring our manufacturing industry back from China because cheap robotic labour is just as cheap in the US or Europe as in China. Also allowing us to regulate it and spare the environment *and* people. This is awesome. I mean, it might temporarily suck for those that lost their job, just like it temporarily sucked for those who lost their jobs during the industrial revolution, but eh, soon the change will be over with and people and the economy will adapt.

This is something I hadn't considered. This could really reduce outsourcing and support local economies. Adapting is going to be tough, but it's unavoidable and in the long term we'll hopefully be better off.

OT: Given the reportedly awful working conditions there I consider this a good thing over all.



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JOKA_ on 25 May 2016
deskpro2k3 said:
simply boycott those companies.

PS4s are produced at Foxconn.  Time to smash our systems.



Platinums: Red Dead Redemption, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, Terminator Salvation, Uncharted 1, inFamous Second Son, Rocket League

deskpro2k3 on 25 May 2016
JOKA_ said:
deskpro2k3 said:
simply boycott those companies.

PS4s are produced at Foxconn.  Time to smash our systems.

 

no need to do that. you can buy a used one if you don't wanna support such practises.



CPU: Ryzen 7950X
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TheLegendaryWolf on 25 May 2016
ohmylanta1003 said:
Zkuq said:

I don't think it's the companies' problem to worry about social issues. Ideally they would think about things like that, but I doubt they will. Social responsibility is something companies aiming to maximize profits aren't very eager to consider. We should also remember that the actions of each company alone won't be enough, it's the actions of all the companies that matter. If a lot of other companies are going to replace workers with robots, it will be very hard for any single company to not replace their workers with robots because human workers cost more in the long run. The environment will pressure the companies into robotization unless governments interfere, and I don't think they're going to be very eager to do that with all the lobbying.

I don't think there's any realistic way to fight robotization. You'd need to get practically every government in the world to agree to prevent robotization, and that's just not going to happen. Robots will replace human workers in the near future, and we need to learn how to cope with it. It will be painful but I doubt there's much we can do about it. It'll be easiest if we simply accept it and come up with ideas to cope with it.

The problem is that we keep on saying that these people are being replaced by robots. For some reason, the word robot scares people. What we really mean to say is that these workers jobs are being automated. We've been automating monotonous processes for literally centuries. Why stop now? Why would people or the government want to stop this progression? Why would we fight this?

Because the population has increased at an exceeding rate in under 100 years and unlike then, people can't go back to living and eating from their own crops. Where will these millions of "basic" work move on to? Robotic repairs? Nope, they won't hire someone without experience. Go to college? Nope, unless the government provides it for free to all citizens it'll be impossible for the now jobless to afford.  Iv'e seen a few people drop off the idea o free living wage for everyone, but where will that money come from? I just can't see how more automated machines sending more people onto the unemployment line than ever before could be seen as a positive unless we take another big technology jump. I'm not talking about holograms and flying cars, I'm talking about turning deserts and tundras into hospitable land, interstellar travel, and planetary terraforming and colonization. 



TallSilhouette on 25 May 2016
Shadow1980 said:
Machinery used to be labor-saving devices that freed up workers from certain tasks and shifted them to other jobs, but now they are labor-eliminating devices, destroying more jobs than they could ever possibly create. Very few people's jobs will be safe in the robot revolution, as the vast majority of jobs can theoretically be performed by a robot. As I mentioned in the thread about the minimum wage, if the vast majority of all jobs are done by machines in the future, thus making most human beings permanently unemployed and unemployable, then there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of our very economy. Eventually governments will start running out of taxpayers to keep the roads paved, the mail delivered, the streets policed, the nation defended by a military, the emergency services functioning, and so on, and even the very companies that replaced all their workers with robots will themselves start running out of consumers. A post-labor economy needs to be a post-capitalist, post-socialist, and post-scarcity economy. It will need to be something unlike anything seen before, and it will need to benefit all of humanity and not just a small class of elites. A world where robots can perform 95+% of all labor simply cannot operate on the same economic principles of today.

Agreed. Well said. Gonna be interesting to see what the new world looks like and probably pretty scary along the way.



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ohmylanta1003 on 25 May 2016
Zkuq said:
ohmylanta1003 said:

The problem is that we keep on saying that these people are being replaced by robots. For some reason, the word robot scares people. What we really mean to say is that these workers jobs are being automated. We've been automating monotonous processes for literally centuries. Why stop now? Why would people or the government want to stop this progression? Why would we fight this?

They are being replaced by robots in a lot of cases. You can try to sugarcoat it, but in the end, people are being replaced by robots. And I don't think it's a bad thing in the long run, even though it'll be quite painful in the short run.

Oh. I totally agree. In the long run, it's a great thing. I just think it's weird that we pretend these humans are being replaced by robots. I'm certain many of the people in this world think these robots are very human like. They aren't though. They're just machines. Built to do one thing.



I bet the Wii U would sell more than 15M LTD by the end of 2015. He bet it would sell less. I lost.

JOKA_ on 25 May 2016
deskpro2k3 said:
JOKA_ said:

PS4s are produced at Foxconn.  Time to smash our systems.

 

no need to do that. you can buy a used one if you don't wanna support such practises.

Oh man what about the new PS4K.  I bet Foxconn is going to be making those.  Nobody buy a PS4K.



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Zeroroute on 26 May 2016

Yeah if they've got early teens working on consoles then I'm all in favor of this



mai on 26 May 2016

In order for this to work to the extent optimistic comments over here suggested you'd need one fundamental thing -- free energy, which is one thing humanity is lacking as a whole as current trends are downward, be it energy production or consumption per capita. At least never such fundamental changes have worked in the past without abundance of energy and always it has been coupled with upward trend in energy flow per capita.

Of course, if the plan IS a fundemtnal change akin to industrial revolution that supposedely should increase the value of goods and wealth of average human being. Speaking about industrial revolution, the basic process invloved quite some social changes with the flow of free hands into the industrial sector of economy. For that to work the first thing that was done was mechanization of farmers' work and replacement of smaller farms with bigger enterprises to increase margin, thus basically "freeing" (aka bankrupting) quite some farmers from their work thus fueling industrical revoluton. Given current dive in global demand, questionable future of export-oriented economy, I don't realy see a future for the people fired due to robotization. Not that I see any future for robotization any time soon on any meaningful scale outside what have been already created at current point.

So I'm afraid it's same old Chinese cheap labour until the time that shaking construct collapses on our heads rather sooner than later. Sorry, for ruining your wet dreams.



WolfpackN64 on 26 May 2016
hershel_layton said:
WolfpackN64 said:

XD. I'm a long time Apple, user. But don't tell me about it, I'm tired of their BS (and it's not only their BS in the tech industry).

Just a small correction. GHz don't matter all that much. What matters is the IPC (Instructions Per Clock). One of the reasons current 3GHz Intel CPU's are faster then 4.2GHz CPU's from AMD atm.

Good point. However, dear god are the new macbooks slow. I would get a macbook if the 1000+ dollar macbooks were only good for light browsing.

I someone asked for a good cheap and basic laptop, I'd point them to an ASUS EeeBook. They remind me of the old white plastic Macbook's. If only they had a force touch trackpad :)