
These Robots Are Using Static Electricity to Make Nikes - hourislate
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/these-robots-are-using-static-electricity-to-make-nikes
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Animats
Their fabric handling is reasonable, but not a breakthrough. They're laying
flat pieces of fabric on top of other flat pieces.[1] A human flattens out the
pieces and feeds them in. This has been done before with vacuum pickers.[2]
There's also an approach where the fabric is starched first to make it stiff
for robot handling. After assembly, the garment is washed to remove the
starch.[3]

Dealing with fabric that isn't flat is a popular robotics research topic, but
results are not very good.[4] Willow Robotics used to have a demo of towel
folding with a robot, but it was extremely slow.

[1] [https://grabitinc.com/](https://grabitinc.com/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI7u9V5aYt4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI7u9V5aYt4)
[3] [http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/11/technology/robots-garment-
ma...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/11/technology/robots-garment-
manufacturing-sewbo/index.html) [4]
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.689...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.689.3116&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

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TFortunato
Just as a little fun fact -- in the semiconductor industry, this has been a
major method of wafer handling for quite a while, where the wafer handling bit
is known as an "electrostatic chuck." If you google that term, you can find a
LOT of info on how this type of system works since it's been around, used in
production and studied for quite a while!

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NegativeLatency
> Miller acknowledges that shifting work towards automated factories could
> threaten jobs, but argues that more efficient manufacturing plants will
> create better jobs for displaced workers.

How exactly?

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eridius
AIUI economic growth is strongly correlated with job creation. Robotics may
eliminate individual jobs, but if they drive economic growth, then this should
lead to more job creation that will provide opportunities for the displaced
workers (though they may need education).

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SomeStupidPoint
But why wouldn't those jobs be replaced by robots, given that we see pretty
much every job being replaced by robots?

If the time it takes to mechanize a new job is shorter than a generation, the
economy crumbles from the churn and permanently displaced workers. (I'd argue
we're on the cusp of this.)

Everyone is addressing that we've seen displaced labor before, but not a lot
about the fact that the rate at which we're displacing labor is rapidly
accelerating. (Or that massively displaced labor often only gets better after
a generation of massive hardships.)

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eridius
Unless you're expecting "true" A.I. to show up anytime soon, only some
categories of jobs can be automated, namely ones that involve fairly
repetitive physical labor. Knowledge work and many types of physical jobs that
require specialized expertise (such as electrician, plumber, etc) aren't going
to be automated.

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SomeStupidPoint
As I understand it, technology is already displacing lots of support staff
around knowledge work (clerks, paralegels, clinic administrators, filing
specialists, etc) and is rapidly digging at specialist knowledge (disease
diagnosis, algorithmic designs, etc).

I don't expect "AI" to take over _every_ job, I just expect technology to
displace 95% of the people from 95% of the (good) jobs in ~30 years. I think
once that 90% of the workforce becomes dislodged, we're not going to see the
notion of "jobs" ever recover, particularly ones that are more than service
industry positions.

I think we're already seeing the tip of it in lost office jobs being replaced
by service industry jobs -- hilariously, replacing knowledge and skilled work
with repetitive physical labor.

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zdkl
An interesting thought is that there might be an exodus of workers from areas
that favour capital/competition to areas that support more socialist views of
the labour market. Return your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...

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userbinator
It somehow reminds me of
[http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html](http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html)

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mrfusion
Seems like there are better uses for this technology than making sneakers.

Could we activate electrostatic adhesion on tires to enhance road grip when
braking? Can we use it for climbing walls? Walking in 0 G?

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chadgeidel
Boring old rubber car tires can already grip at 1+ G. Tire technology isn't
currently a safety limitation in road cars.

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tlb
Electroadhesion is a cool technology. The robot pictured, however, seems to
use suction generated by fans. I don't see any high-voltage electronics or
wiring.

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maxerickson
They have a bunch of YouTube videos. The fabric handling doesn't look like
suction:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5XBNxLpBGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5XBNxLpBGA)

This demo looks like the technology doesn't involve a lot of heavy duty
electronics:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iZp-
dCYp70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iZp-dCYp70)

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olivermarks
I'd love to see video footage of this tech in action with humans making shoes,
'demo' vids tend to be overly simplistic. Fascinating stuff!

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whatupmd
Most over-used adjective in internet journalism - 'quietly'.

