
‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility - marcusgarvey
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/04/07/business/gods-edging-out-robots-at-toyota-facility/
======
ffk
This is a fundamental shift from how many other factories work.

In general, the workers are not given enough information to replicate the
product. They are shown how to attach a specific sprocket to a widget. The
tasks are kept so simple (nothing to do with pleasantness) that no one can
learn how the whole device is created or suggest improvements. This model
lends to people being replaced by robots because human capital is one of the
most expensive parts of running a factory.

In the case of Toyota, it sounds like these are high skilled engineers who are
watching, understanding and making improvements to how the robots behave.

While the article itself is good, the title feels like link bait to me because
the engineer's job is not to replace the robot but to enhance the robot. The
dynamic isn't human vs robot as in the first scenario, instead it is human &
robot cooperating.

With these types of factories, I think we'll likely see a resurgence of
factories in rich countries as the most expensive component of the factory
shifts from human capital to transportation of completed goods.

[edited for grammer, sic]

~~~
tjradcliffe
Thanks for the nice summary. No way was I going to click on a headline that
read like this one!

There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing: these
sorts of high-skill, creative, intution-and-experience heavy tasks; and low-
skill but mechancially awkward tasks.

In both cases, the key to job survival will be that it's something of a niche.
Anything remotely generic will be taken over by machines. So for example we'll
still see certain kinds of literature generated by humans, but 100% of
financial reporting, political reporting and sports reporting will be
automated. More sophisticated commentary of the kind that Nate Silver does
might last, but the Paul Krugmans and David Brooks of the world will be
engineered out in the next decade or so by bots that troll the web for stories
and generate canned ideologically-loaded commentary based on a smattering of
data sources.

At the other end, jobs like fruit picking will be completely automated because
it's a common task that can be implemented with a relatively generic machine,
but cleaning houses will remain the domain of humans because houses are such
awkward, complex spaces. Once we have a humanoid robot with very good AI
that'll change, but I'm a little doubtful about seeing that in the next few
decades.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
>There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing:

Three - add anything which is primarily social.

I think hairdressing will be one of the most resilient jobs. Not only is there
a huge market for it, but it requires a certain basic level of dexterity, and
it's primarily social. The talking is at least as important as the hair
cutting, and it's going to be a while before robots can replace it.

~~~
ghshephard
Hairdressing may be resilient for some people, but my eyes were opened in
Singapore when I went to "K-Cuts" \- which is as close to an automated hair-
cut as you can get. Full haircut, in 10 minutes for S$10. Nobody speaks
english, so talking isn't an option. They use vacuums to collect your hair. I
hold up three fingers, point to the top of my head, two fingers, point to the
side. That's the sum total of guidance.

And these places are _busy_ \- my guess is there will be an automated haircut
place in <10 years, and they will pick up 90% of the business within 5 years.

People will always go to custom hair cut places, but I bet there are a lot of
people who will be keen to pay a small amount of money to get a reasonable
hair cut.

~~~
npunt
Your anecdote is good to keep in mind, I learned something. While I don't
think the US has any auto-cut places (oh the liability!), we certainly have
had infomercials selling vacuum haircutting machines for a while[0]. I'm not
sure they've made a huge dent in the beauty industry to date.

Beauty is not an industry that a bit of tech pixie dust will magically
transform. Haircuts aren't just a utility, they're a personal statement and a
piece of one's identity. And as a previous poster indicated, it's also social
and cultural. Plus the variety of people's hair and variety of desired cuts
make it an incredibly complex and fine motor skill, one that robots will suck
at for a very long time. And people rarely know exactly what they want when
they go into a hair salon, so there's a service component there too. Beauty
just isn't ripe for disruption because people and culture are so involved.

I think this is similar to the soylent discussions. Food-as-utility people
think its great, but food has cultural value _far_ beyond calorie intake. So
its found its niche among products that already existed (sans tech pixie dust)
- the nutritional shake market.

90% is an order of magnitude off in my opinion. But I agree that a place that
offers reasonable hair cut for cheap is what many people would want, so I do
look forward to your future where that is offered!

[0] [http://www.flowbee.com/](http://www.flowbee.com/)
[http://www.haircut.com/](http://www.haircut.com/)
[http://www.aircut.com/](http://www.aircut.com/)

~~~
ghshephard
I'm really interested in finding out - at $10/haircut/10 minutes - It's the
sort of thing you can do casually every couple weeks without even thinking
about it.

Definitely agree that there will be some people who absolutely will want to go
to a hair salon - and, honestly, my 90% was just a thumb-in-the-wind estimate.
You're probably right that it's high, but, never underestimate the desire for
people to get a good deal.

I think your Soylent comparison is _excellent_ \- and is exactly the one I
would make. People who see food in a utilitarian perspective see the value
offered from soylent. Likewise, people who consider haircuts as the process
required to rid themselves of the excess hair, will get a lot of value out of
an automated hair cut establishment.

------
BrandonY
I seem to recall a very old science fiction story about a future where nobody
has to go to school. Instead, they play all day until they come of age, at
which point a computer programs their mind with all of the expertise needed
for whatever profession they'd be best at and would be most useful. The
problem turned out to be that, while this is great, the programmed minds
couldn't innovate further improvements, and so society grew stale. A small
percentage of the population, including of course the protagonist, were chosen
to learn stuff the hard way in order to be able to come up with new
advancements. For the life of me, though, I can't remember what story that
was. Any ideas?

~~~
spiritplumber
[http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html](http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html)

"Profession" by Asimov (1957)

~~~
BrandonY
That is exactly it! Thank you so much for finding that for me.

------
tehchromic
I think this is a real indicator and validation of what the next economy will
look like: humans at the apex of the arts, where imagination and craft will be
highly valued in the everyday folk worker, and mundane or trivial tasks will
be assigned to automatons. We will choose our own employment adventure.

~~~
imh
There will be few people needed at the apex of the arts, once the best of the
best can do the jobs of most everyone else combined. We still need an economic
plan for everyone else.

~~~
munificent
Their amino acids will make an excellent source material for the 3D food
printers.

~~~
jmckib
Nah, I'm pretty it will be more efficient to just grow meat in a lab.

~~~
saraid216
Out of what?

~~~
jmckib
Try googling "in vitro meat" and you may find some answers, but I don't know
if this problem is solved yet. This article mentions algae as a possibility:

[https://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/04/24/steak-
of-...](https://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/04/24/steak-of-the-art-
the-fatal-flaws-of-in-vitro-meat/)

------
noir_lord
“To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the
skills to teach the machine.”

That is an awesome quote.

Thanks for posting the article it was an interesting read.

------
samatman
This is so applicable to our industry. I heard Chuck Moore say once that most
microcoded division routines are bad, because it's the first and only time
that engineer writes one. He said his tenth division routine was far better
than his first.

It concerns me that in the rush to build abstraction upon abstraction, we're
neglecting the tools and practices that make it possible to work on and
improve the fundamental layers.

~~~
icebraining
Considering that one of the current trends is the development of unikernels
(like MirageOS), network stacks in userspace, etc, I'd say we're still
thinking about the lower layers.

------
johnong
Back in the early 90s, I was working in a Sony plant in Singapore that
produces CRTs. It's a fully automated plant and my section are in charge of
making the famous Trinitron apperture gril. Anyway, I still remembered there
was once a group of Japanese craftsman came to visit our plant. And some some
of my colleagues were assigned to attach with them and learn. These craftsman
turn out to be ladies (wow!) and they showed us how to do some of the work
manually (WTF!) and the skills they have really put to shame the local guys,
we stand and watch and totally stunned. The crafmanship and professionalism in
their skill is truely awesome.

------
neonbat
This is nice PR but to imply that this is anything more than that is silly.
These humans are clearly just improving the robots.

~~~
hhandoko
I don't see that this is just another PR article, more that there will always
be a place for craftsmen in Toyota, even in the face of the wave of production
automation.

One thing I admire from the Japanese culture, is that they take
`craftsmanship` very seriously in all aspects of work.

I gain this appreciation after working part-time as a kitchen-hand in a number
of Japanese restaurants throughout my uni days.

Those that are `authentic` Japanese (ran by Japanese owners) has a very
methodical process and obsess over every single detail.

Even a simple task such cooking rice has an elaborate process and specific
technique that I must always follow through. Just two examples:

* the amount of water to put into the rice depends on the season (i.e. dry vs wet season at harvest), must be exact to the millilitres.

* the specific motion of washing (or more appropriately `grinding`, as the water has been sieved out).

The chef always check the rice after it cooks and gave me feedback, every
single time.

~~~
neonbat
I completely disagree, the type of craftsmen you're referring to will cease to
exist at the company in the future. The very concept of craftsmanship is
antiquated by the idea of intelligent machines. That is, machines that can
learn.

No matter how hard a human tries to "obsess over every single detail" they
will simply be unable to compete with a machine intelligence in this regard.
All the things you listed are so obviously suited to be tasks that intelligent
machines can excel and surpass humans at. Even unintelligent machines would
fare quite well against a human at all the tasks you listed.

You may argue that there's an art to craftsmanship that machines "will never
duplicate the creativity of humans." I hear that like 20 times a week and it's
not true. This falsehood lies in a flawed premise. The premise that the
machines doing art/crafstmaship will seek to "replicate" human creativity is
simply false. Human creativity doesn't necessarily replicate the creativity of
other humans; why would a machine creativity need to replicate? Many
intelligent machines are already making art online. Machines do not need to
replicate. Intelligent machines can create on their own, independently. People
are doing this with twitter bots now.

Notice I use the word "machine intelligence" and not just machine. A machine
is process that has been animated in the physical world. A machine
intelligence is fundamentally different. It learns and is better than we are
at most (if not all) things. I understand that this eventuality is terrifying
to people. Being scared of the inevitable doesn't stop it. We need to be
thinking about this now so we can make plans to figure out what do with humans
once these machines proliferate through our society.

As an aside I also love Japanese culture. I had the opportunity to travel to
Japan after high school. It was great.

------
AndrewKemendo
What I don't understand is why the "Gods" don't say "No we won't train robots
to do our jobs."

One of the biggest hurdles to automation in general - especially where
replacing skilled workers is concerned - is in teaching (algorithmically or
otherwise) the machine to replicate what the skilled worker is doing.

If there really is the existential crisis of "machines taking our jobs" then
why are the robot trainers not pushing back? Isn't is immediately clear what
they are doing?

I personally think everything should be automated with no mandatory human
inputs for the majority of tasks - but that is hundreds of years away if ever.
The key sticking point though is whether people will be willing to be "the
last human to hold this job."

~~~
kijin
At least in Toyota, there seems to be no existential crisis of machines taking
over our jobs. What the article mentions is just a strategy to improve quality
and encourage innovation. These people are not particularly worried about
teaching the machine to imitate the skilled worker; they're too busy figuring
out what the skilled worker should be doing in the first place.

Also, gods of engineering are probably different from other gods. Like
passionate programmers, they're having too much fun making machines perform
new and exciting tasks.

------
i_am_ralpht
The recall problem was caused by software -- where are the software gods who
write machine code instead of using compilers? ;)

~~~
freehunter
Yeah and if you have to drive a nail, you should use your fist instead of a
hammer.

~~~
Noelkd
If you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail.

------
blackkettle
Reminds me of the John Henry myth:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29)

probably will end the same way.

------
Htsthbjig
This is the normal backwash of Toyota.

Toyota was one of the(or probably the) first company to totally replace humans
with computers in their production lines.

So, as a result, they are the first to say: "Well, it looks like some things
computers do very badly compared to humans".

Today little things quality inspection is done by humans but most of the work
is done by machines, so take whatever you read with a big grain of salt.

Yeah, there are professionals needed, my company is one of those. But most of
the jobs those companies created are forever gone.

------
SeanDav
It seems to be working:

> _" In an area Kawai directly supervises at the forging division of Toyota’s
> Honsha plant, workers twist, turn and hammer metal into crankshafts instead
> of using the typically automated process. Experiences there have led to
> innovations in reducing levels of scrap and shortening the production line
> 96 percent from its length three years ago."_

~~~
Animats
That's how it was done at Chrysler in 1935.[1] Toyota's Honsha plant has had
an automated crankshaft forging line since 1988.[2]

I suspect this is a misconception. The Honsha plant was downsized in 2007.
They have a lot of space there, and a "Museum of Production". They may have a
manual forging setup as a training and demo operation, to give their employees
a feel for how heated metal behaves during forging. A 1988-vintage automated
forging line probably has too little feedback and too much brute power, and
maybe too many die stages. Better employee understanding of the process may
lead to a better. It's unlikely that Honda is doing manual forging for volume
crankshaft production.

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/0555_Master_Hands_18_27_28_00](https://archive.org/details/0555_Master_Hands_18_27_28_00)
(start at 00:11:45)

[2] [http://www.toyota-
global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75yea...](http://www.toyota-
global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_business/production/production/japan/general_status/honsha.html)

~~~
gregpilling
which is exactly what I think the article is saying. So you are right.

------
emmanueloga_
Sometimes I do find programmers that do not know how to, say, install a linux
distro, or at a lower level, don't understand what a data bus is, or how one
bit of information is actually stored in a computer.

> Learning how to make car parts from scratch gives younger workers insights
> they otherwise wouldn’t get from picking parts from bins and conveyor belts,
> or pressing buttons on machines.

This is also the spirit of the nand2tetris [1] course, currently running on
coursera [2]. The book is a really entertaining read too. Depending on how
familiar you are with electronics you may be able to outpace the video course
quite a bit.

Also,

> “Fully automated machines don’t evolve on their own,”

not yet... :p

1: [http://www.nand2tetris.org/](http://www.nand2tetris.org/)

2:
[https://www.coursera.org/course/nand2tetris1](https://www.coursera.org/course/nand2tetris1)

~~~
gregpilling
I know a computer science professor that asked me how to make a website as
recently as 2007

~~~
kwhitefoot
Not entirely sure what your point is here but I assume that you mean he should
have known.

Can't imagine why a computer SCIENCE professor would be expected to know how
to make a website any more than my Newtonian mechanics professor would have
been expected to know how to build a car.

------
oldmanjay
There is a big implicit "for now" after nearly every sentence in the article.
Sure, we don't have machines that can autonomously optimize themselves. For
now.

~~~
neonbat
Soon...soon... _pets robotic white cat_

------
riazrizvi
Looks like the world is moving in the right direction again.

~~~
Igglyboo
Manual labor is the right direction? Wouldn't you rather have robots
automating all the difficult/dangerous/demeaning work?

~~~
nosuchthing
Encouraging skill growth, problem solving skills, and wisdom from the
workforce, rather just using humans as cogs.

------
rotten
So should developers learn more about how low level libraries work so they can
make better code? ie, should we be fostering more Kami-Sama developers? Or do
you really not need to know that stuff, and focus instead on putting together
higher level libraries into awesome apps because business is business and we
have deadlines?

------
danso
> _“If there is ever a technology that’s flawless and could always make
> perfect products, then we will be ready and willing to install that
> machine,” Kawai said. “There’s no machine that is eternally stable.”_

This seems like a nice reformulation of Turing's Entscheidungsproblem

~~~
lukeschlather
No, it's definitely a separate observation. The Entscheidungsproblem describes
a problem space that we cannot build a machine to solve.

What Kawai is saying is a more physical thing - even for problems we can build
a machine to solve, the machine will eventually stop working under normal use,
and it's unlikely even to produce consistently correct results.

~~~
rocky1138
Somewhat tangential, but give 1909's "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster a
read. It's excellent and speaks to this point.

[http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html](http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html)

------
novaleaf
The idea reminds me of this SciFi story from 1949:
[http://escapepod.org/2013/10/28/ep419-expediter/](http://escapepod.org/2013/10/28/ep419-expediter/)

------
SixSigma
It's an avowed aim of the Toyota Production System

Automation with a human touch

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomation)

------
kriro
I guess a programming analogy might be the "radical" idea that it might make
sense to let highly paid engineers read through the source code of libraries
that you use.

------
chucksmart
Headline term lost in translation; but well written concept.

------
TheLoneWolfling
JS;DR.

