
Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete - cwan
http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/robot-sewing-machines-could-make-made-in-china-obsolete
======
lispm
How so?

The article is poorly researched.

As if the strategy of automation hasn't been tried in various areas to get
back or keep jobs. In some areas this works, in others it hasn't. It also has
been tried in this industry.

China is also not even the cheapest place. Clothing now comes from Vietnam,
Philippines and other asian countries.

I'm also not sure making manual labor in that area obsolete is actually
useful. Somehow the people in the developing countries also want to earn some
money.

~~~
daliusd
Science/Technology is not area where you try once, fail and never try again.
Sooner or later it will be automated because there are lot of benefits:
productivity, saving of nature and human resources and etc.

People in developing countries will figure out other ways to earn money. If
people don't have food or money that usually because of stupid dictatorships
(long-term) or not having protection against nature crisis (short-term,
compare earthquake in Japan vs Haiti) but not because of lack of work.

------
mrgrieves
> ...robots could return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to
> U.S. shores

China will rule electronics for the foreseeable future. Even if its advantage
in labor costs were eliminated, China's parts ecosystem, lax recycling
regulations, and (increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals will
keep it on top for some time to come.

Their manufacturing technology is also arguably the most advanced in the
world. We can't assume that another player would win if this were just a
technological problem.

~~~
Figs
"(increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals"

Is that after accounting for the reopening of rare-earth mines in California
and other locations? E.g: [http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/rare-earth-
mining-ris...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/rare-earth-mining-rises-
again-in-united-states/)

~~~
mrgrieves
Thanks for that link; the article was solid.

It's the scale of China's monopoly on rare earth metals which scares me. I'm
-very- happy that mines are re-opening in other countries, and I hope that
they're around long enough that home-grown manufacturers become reliable
customers.

But they simply won't have enough mines and production capacity to secure the
supply. Molycorp is small enough that China can flood the market with cheap
rare-earth metals just long enough to mess up their $753 MM investment in that
mine and knock them out of business again. This has happened before:

<http://www.ndu.edu/press/chinas-ace-in-the-hole.html> "The Mountain Pass rare
earth mine in California, owned by Molycorp Minerals, was once the largest
rare earth supplier in the world. Through the 1990s, however, China's exports
of rare earth elements grew, causing prices worldwide to plunge. This undercut
business for Molycorp and other producers around the world, and eventually
either drove them out of business or significantly reduced production
efforts."

Of course Chinese manufacturing temporarily loses that "access to rare earth
metals" advantage if mines ramp up exports again, but if doing so can cripple
foreign mining operations it may be strategically worthwhile in the long term.

------
chrischen
Has outsourcing manufacturing to developing countries delayed research into
robotic manufacturing? Seems like such low-skilled labor is relatively easy to
build into robots, but likely the already cheap costs of foreign labor has
made it unnecessary to invest in large upfront costs to develop robots.

~~~
_delirium
That's the conventional wisdom among commercial AI-research spinoffs: the fact
that you can get _such_ cheap human labor in a globalized labor pool has been
a major impediment to commercializing pretty big segments of AI research. The
funding agencies even seem to agree, and have been putting quite a bit of
funding in recent years into crowdsourcing and "human computation" projects to
take advantage of that labor pool, instead of trying to replace it with
machines.

------
pooriaazimi
Just a minor problem: Chinese robots would cost less than yours, so you end up
again building everything in China.

~~~
adventureful
China hasn't demonstrated an ability to do widespread high quality
manufacturing. Countries like Germany run circles around China on that front.

It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate
building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants, rather than China.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate
> building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants

I vaguely recall reading that the country that has had the foresight to stay
at the top of the chain - making the tools that make the tools that make the
goods - is Japan. I can't find a link right now, sorry.

~~~
adventureful
You're right, they've been there from day one when it comes to robot
manufacturing.

"The Japanese company Kawasaki Robotics started the commercial production of
industrial robots over 40 years ago. Approximately 700,000 industrial robots
were used all over the world in 1995, of which 500,000 operated in Japan"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#History_of_ind...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#History_of_industrial_robotics)

------
baby
> Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

That could make a huge numbers of job in the US obsolete as well.

~~~
adventureful
The biggest threat to simple repetitive manual labor based manufacturing is
robotics. The US has seen that type of domestic manufacturing decline to
almost nothing over the last 30 years. China by far and away dominates that.

High level manufacturing could certainly be threatened by robotics, but labor
in the US is a much smaller portion of costs when you're talking about jet
engines or medical devices than sewing a shirt (eg if you're paying $80k per
year for labor, you're not going to be making $7 toasters in the US at that
rate, you're going to be making million dollar jet engines; and you can't get
labor costs below around $22,500 total in a manufacturing environment in the
US).

The US lost the garment industry because its labor couldn't compete on wages.
The average garment worker in China isn't making anywhere near $7.25 per hour,
which is the US Federal minimum wage. Legally the US literally can't compete
on wages.

------
stargazer-3
And what stops Chinese from making those machines?

~~~
adventureful
Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other
nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost
the garment industry.

China already has a massive supply of human labor, which is primarily why
their labor costs are so low. If you were to automate their labor, it would
cause substantial unemployment and or reductions in pay. I'd argue their
society couldn't withstand that shock at this point. In the extremely near
future, China's huge supply of labor is going to rupture their economy rather
than being a net benefit. The robot productivity wave in manufacturing over
the next quarter century will be extremely painful for them.

Whereas if the US re-acquires 50,000 jobs from robotics related to making
garments (commodities & materials (farming, cotton), shipping, R&D, assembly
of robots, maintenance of robots, etc etc) it's a massive win. Also, it would
mean keeping wealth / capital in the US market, rather than sending it to
another nation to the benefit of their future and labor pool. Then instead of
buying a shirt made in China from Walmart, you buy the same shirt at Walmart
and all the money stays domestically.

There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing.

~~~
shykes
I wonder how deeply this could transform the transportation industry: if the
production of certain goods no longer require cheap labor, wouldn't production
centers naturally move closer to demand to reduce transportation overhead?

~~~
icegreentea
Or they will move closer to supply. It becomes a question of what is cheaper.
Transporting raw/component materials near population centers, and then deal
with all your waste near population centers, or building everything close to
supply, far away from population centers, and polluting where "no one really
cares".

I am cynical, so I'm going to guess the second. Even if we get mass robot
manufacturing, we'll just let China continue to build all sorts of stuff,
cause it's easier to pollute there.

------
SudarshanP
Here is a wired about this topic:
<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/darpa-sweatshop/> and here is a 2010
paper[[http://smartech.gatech.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1853/39196...](http://smartech.gatech.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1853/39196/GarmentMfg_ISFA_finalv.pdf?sequence=3)]
that discusses the Computer Vision and automation involved.

------
est
> Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

How so? Those robots are still made in China. Or robots making those robots,
or orbot parts.

------
danmaz74
Am I the only one surprised to see that this kind of research is financed by
the Pentagon? What kind of military application does it have?

~~~
mbreese
The military does buy a lot of clothes. So, anything that they could do to
reduce the cost of military garments would be worthwhile to them.

------
drsim
In some time this may be the case. But I'm sceptical that the capital cost
will be less than the labour cost in these countries. And is China the last
post for cheap labour.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I guess it depends on the cost of shipping in terms of money and time and any
other costs associated with buying from another continent.

------
mulation
Those machines will soon be assembled or copycatted in China.

~~~
adventureful
Let's say that's the case.

To what end? Selling them to the West and putting their own garment makers out
of business?

Or using them domestically to put their own garment makers out of work? Do
their garment makers then build robots? Does the math equal out? (I have no
clue)

The labor dislocation would be extreme initially either way, and would be
resisted. Take China's agriculture for example, they intentionally hold down
productivity gains in agriculture to keep enough work available for the huge
agriculture worker population and limit labor disruption.

It wouldn't take very long to severely reduce garment making in China and
Vietnam once robotics gained a foot hold. The country with the least to lose
in the robotic shift, that is highly capable of making that shift, would win
very quickly.

------
seivan
Lets hope this comes soon.

~~~
MarkMc
Really? I usually love technological progress, but in this case it would mean
many (millions?) of desperately poor people losing their jobs.

I'm hoping this comes much later.

~~~
adrianN
And while we're at it, let's also destroy all mechanical looms?

~~~
MarkMc
Interesting. Destroying mechanical looms is not a practical solution of
course, but in theory yes: The benefit to so many poor people would be so
great that it could be worth having an inefficient textile industry. There are
probably less costly ways of helping the poor, but it would be better than the
status quo.

~~~
gouranga
I've thought this for years.

Automation makes people redundant and you end up with people who consume but
produce nothing. Those people are labelled as 'poor' as they are given minimal
cash to survive on as they have no value to add to mainstream society.

If you increase automation and drop the retirement age in most countries to
shorten the workforce and allow people to exist comfortably after retirement,
I reckon you'd solve both ends of the problem i.e. less "poor" people and more
people doing something constructive.

Smashing looms however doesn't do anything other than commit more people to
slavery and poverty.

~~~
krschultz
It would probably be preferable to subsidize education than to subsidize
retirement.

------
franzus
> return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to U.S. shores

The problem with all that manufacturing being moved overseas is that local
jobs are "destroyed". Moving back production for production's sake with the
help of robots won't solve this problem. It will only give you a warm cozy
patriotic feeling whenever you read "made in $your_country".

Now I think full automation is the future and in the remote future it will
liberate humanity from physical labor. But there will be more changes needed
than only stuffing factories with robots. We will need an economic system that
can cope with a mass of seemingly unemployed/unemployable people.

~~~
adventureful
I don't think that's correct at all. It will help a lot, specifically because
it's not a zero sum game of just swapping Chinese based manufactured goods out
for robot based goods.

The US would stop sending that capital to China (a huge wealth drain), which
is helping build out their economy. The US would gain wealth and capital
incentives for further robotic development. The US would gain jobs around
robotics in all forms. Profitable manufacturing would need and pay for energy,
buildings, transportation, and on and on. Profitable manufacturing would also
pay taxes, keeping more teachers etc. employed and bolstering the weak US tax
base.

Workers would be needed to create buildings, build roads and transmission
lines, repair robots, scrap robots, replace robots, R&D robot tech, provide
materials, and so on. It would cultivate a huge ecosystem.

~~~
ern
_Workers would be needed to create buildings, build roads and transmission
lines, repair robots, scrap robots, replace robots, R &D robot tech, provide
materials, and so on. It would cultivate a huge ecosystem._

Wouldn't robots eventually move into those fields as well?

~~~
adventureful
Are we talking 100 years out? Because you'll still need engineers to decide
where to put a building, what it should look like based on financial
restrictions (a robot reading your bank account to decide how much building
you can afford?) and future demand projections.

The robots aren't doing the financial decision making in the next 35 to 50
years. Assisted analysis (software), sure.

A robot isn't going to understand civil codes when it comes to laying down
power lines (humans barely understand the civil codes). A human would be
required to follow such guidelines and then could perhaps instruct a robot
toward the actual labor.

Maybe one day in a very far off future civil laws will be understood by
robots, but I'm betting that's not going to be very high on the list of things
to get around to automating. It would also likely require extremely advanced
AI, because the robot might have to negotiate civil code conflicts based on
decisions made (and this just seems far beyond the next few decades). Who
takes responsibility for a robot failing to navigate zoning laws properly?

~~~
ippisl
Were not that far from mostly automated architectural design. This is from an
article(in 2005) about an automated system to design custom metal
buildings[1]:

"The automated engineering done with the EDS, which is still being extended,
is close to 98% complete for the simplest buildings and 50-60% complete for
the most complex buildings. The tasks that are remaining are not automated, as
they are either highly custom, or occur so seldom that the added knowledge
capture for these few occurrences does not justify the automation cost."

There's also a similar tool for design of private construction[2].I think the
software even understand civil codes.

[1]<http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2005/RCCstudy.html>
[2]<http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2005/Norway_prefab.html>

------
adventureful
Something that a shift to robotic manufacturing plays to is the theory of
inflection points in systems. In this case, the inflection points are very
very long markers in time.

1) You start at highly domestic manufacturing for most goods (mostly the case
right up until the mid 19th to 20th century).

2) Global outsourcing brings huge efficiency gains through specialization and
optimizations with regulation and labor costs.

3) The inflection swings back to domestic manufacturing of most goods. If the
US could automate the sewing of its clothing, why not most every other
country? There's no reason Italy couldn't buy enough materials to then sew all
of its own clothing domestically; ditto Spain or Belgium or whomever.

The swing back also brings all sorts of benefits for security when it comes to
being less dependent on other nations for your basic goods. If you could make
your own clothing at a cost parity with outsourcing it to China, why wouldn't
you do so? And even more important than a cost parity, is a net value parity:
the capital kept domestically, the jobs kept or created domestically thrown
into the value calculation.

~~~
Iv
> the jobs kept or created domestically thrown into the value calculation.

The thing is, this is not creating much jobs. Far less than it replaces. On
the global level, this causes job loss. I loath luddites, but we need to
understand that, and to understand that the obstacles won't be technological
but political.

