
In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be - helmchenlord
http://60secondstatistics.com/for-manufacturing-and-retail-companies-using-automated-robots-is-cheaper-than-actual-slave-labor-would-be/
======
kevinr
As is only appropriate, given the word's etymology.

> ro·bot (n.) 1923, from English translation of 1920 play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's
> Universal Robots"), by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik "forced
> worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery," from
> robotiti "to work, drudge," from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church
> Slavonic rabota "servitude," from rabu "slave," from Old Slavic _orbu-, from
> PIE_ orbh- "pass from one status to another" (see orphan).

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=robot](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=robot)

All that's old is new again.

~~~
hedonistbot
> from Czech robotnik "forced worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory
> service, drudgery,"...

I am not sure if this is correct. In Bulgarian we have almost the same word
работник (rabotnik) and it just means "worker". No forced, slave connotations.
Also checked with google translate and it doesn't find Czech translation for
"robotnik" but it suggests to switch to Polish and translates it to "worker"
as in Bulgarian. And работа (rabota) means "work" in Bulgarian and google
translate shows the same for the Polish translation.

Someone from Czechia here?

~~~
rljy
It does mean that in Czech. Which is strange, because in Slovak it just means
work.

I've translated a paragraph from wikipedia for you:

"Robota neboli poddanství je ve feudálním systému osobní služba sedláků a
rolníků pro jejich pány. Robotník je pak výraz pro poddaného robotujícího pro
svého pána, někdy též vyššího správního či soudního úředníka, drába apod."

"Robota is a feudal system of personal employment to the owners of estates and
country houses. A robotník is a person who works for his/her lord."

[https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robota](https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robota)

Edit: I listened to the play by Karel and Josef Čápek, and it is most inanely
stupid, sexist, pseudo-religious drivel I've come across in a long while.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R).

Edit2: The verb robit means to make something and has nothing to do with
slavery.

~~~
omegaham
I liked Asimov's quote on it.

> Capek's play is, in my own opinion, a terribly bad one, but it is immortal
> for that one word. It contributed the word 'robot' not only to English but,
> through English, to all the languages in which science fiction is now
> written.

------
DanielBMarkham
There are some interesting lessons to learn from history here that I'm not
seeing brought up.

Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, _slavery has
a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders_.

Of course, nobody cared about the impact on slaveholders while there were
actual humans being enslaved, but as we move to a robotic society? This is
going to be a huge deal. Slaveholders and multi-generation slaveholding
families have a fundamentally different way of looking at themselves and their
culture than people who do not own slaves. Once we enter an era where every
person is effectively coddled by multiple robotic "slaves" that do their every
whim, we're going to be hacking into the human social ecosystem in ways never
anticipated before.

~~~
aaron695
> slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders.

What's the negative as a slaveholder again?

~~~
mafribe
Not the OP, but one might argue that slavery disincentivises the slave-holder
from innovating the labour process.

The (Nietzschean?) counterargument here is that slave-labour enables division
of labour and frees enough from non-specialised labour (e.g. individuals being
responsible for all of producing food, building dwellings, providing security,
raising children, caring for the elderly etc, and thus not being particularly
good at any of them) to allow the emergence of a 'caste' of full-time
scientists, engineers. Such a 'caste', such division of labour is required to
drive technological progress to a level where slavery becomes unnecessary.

My historically uninformed and naive suggestion would be that ancient Greece
was an example of the latter while most other societies with substantial
slavery (such as South America and Africa) were examples of the former.

 _Aside_ : Any serious discussion of slavery must begin with the question:
what do you mean by "slavery", for the term is used in wildly different ways.

~~~
ThomPete
Then it's a negative to society but only if all of society was run by slave
owners.

In any other case the slave owner would have a benefit over the non slave
owner when it came to cost of production.

~~~
xyzzy123
It's both hilarious and excellent to watch both of you try to justify the
utility of human labour.

~~~
mafribe
I'm not sure what you mean. Human labour has utility, that why we work.

~~~
xyzzy123
From a certain perspective human labour is the most perfect waste of time. But
keep going.

As long as you keep it up I'll pretend I want to keep working.

~~~
mafribe
Is that "certain perspective" interesting? Nobody wants to work that's a given
that doesn't need to be argued, whence work needs incentives (in a generalised
sense) from salary to force.

Most human labour has historically related to food production, production and
maintainance of dwellings, sanitation, health, care of the young & elderly,
and security (from animals, natural forces, other humans). Since division of
labour became possible additional forms of labour emerged, such as science,
engineering, and organisation of labour whose raison d'être is to lighten
humanity's workload. One can and should certainly ask if work could be
organised better, but there is a base load of things that need to be done to
perpetuate humanity.

~~~
Qworg
I disagree that no one wants to work - in many ways, working (being of use),
is enobeling.

What will replace it culturally when we don't have any work?

~~~
mafribe
I'm not denying that some work has enobling aspects (e.g. social recognition
(in various forms)), but much work doesn't. Speaking from years worth of
bitter experience ...

Moreover there is probably quite a bit of rationalisation going on: since I
can't avoid work I might as well pretend I like it, for that makes life more
bearable. More importantly, there is a virtue-signalling aspect to finding
work enobling: since human emotions are contagious and human behaviour
involves a lot of mimesis (= copying others), my public display of taking
pleasure in my own work increases the probability that others find their work
enobling, which in turn increases the amount/quality of their work, and that
leads a better / more productive society which in turn is in my own selfish
interest.

Aside: Max Weber uses a somewhat similar (but more elaborate) argument when he
seeks to explain the emergence of modern society out of the protestant spirit.
The issue of whether we do good because doing good is intrinsically good or
because we crave the social recognition of good works, has been discussed
since antiquity, see for example Plato's Republic.

    
    
       What will replace it culturally 
       when we don't have any work?
    

Why not look at the facts? Society has always had some members who did not
have to work, for example children, pensioners, the sick, the offspring of the
very rich, wives of middle/upperclass husbands (until recently), women who
divorce a rich husband (under current US alimony laws), the
Saudi/Qatari/Bahreini/Kuwaity royal families. Etc. Most of them don't have a
major problem spending their time. Typically they engage in a variety of play,
fornication, sleep, sport, shopping, eating, hunting, socialising, playing
music, drawing and the like. Moreover, even those who work have leisure time
(e.g. weekends, evenings, holidays) and generally have no problem filling that
time. There is no reason to believe that this will change when all work has
been automated away.

------
rejschaap
"If it takes $2,000 to install what is basically an iPad and stand for
customers to order from at McDonald’s or Chipotle, a restaurateur is looking
at less than a month before recouping their entire investment if they
eliminate just one cashier position."

Obviously it takes a little bit more than that. You need to develop the
software that runs on the kiosk. You also need a back-end system so the
kitchen knows what to prepare. So the investment is a bit higher than that.
But you will recoup it very quickly on McDonalds scale. And they will be able
to provide better and faster service.

~~~
bad_user
I do think that automating cashiers at McDonald’s would be a big mistake.

We tend to underestimate the human interaction, however it's far harder to
refuse a " _would you like fries with that?_ " type of question coming from a
human, rather than from a stupid interface on which we'll tap " _Skip_ " as an
automatic gesture and without regrets.

Talking with another human is also good when you're _undecided_ about what to
buy. Of course, it's not like McDonald's is a varied restaurant, when in fact
they are famous for having those 15 dishes taste the same wherever you go, but
there's still choice involved when picking one of those burgers. And think of
how in restaurants, even with a detailed menu with pictures, etc. people still
ask the waiter " _what do you recommend?_ ".

So yes, you can automate a cashier, but this means that the customer <->
McDonald’s interaction also gets automated in that process, this being a
doubly edged sword and my guess is that it's not the customer that loses.

Oh, and the irony of this automation trend is that in the end there won't be
enough people left to pay for McDonald’s shitty burgers, unless we progress
towards some socialist society with minimal income and so on, in which case
McDonald's raison d'être will cease to exist.

~~~
cm2012
I like McDonalds and have been to quite a few. I have never, ever been asked
if I want fries with that or otherwise upsold. Not sure where this meme comes
from.

~~~
bad_user
In every McDonalds I've been they ask:

1\. Would you like a menu? (+fries +juice)

2\. Make it big menu for just $X ?

3\. Would you like a pie for desert?

I also have acquaintances that worked there. From where I'm from, if you don't
ask such questions and smile at the same time, you tend to get fired.

~~~
cm2012
I wonder if it's an NYC thing.

~~~
bblough
> I wonder if it's an NYC thing.

I think it's a US thing.

I remember that when I was younger I would get asked those questions every
time, but not any more.

In the past few years (decade?) there has been a lot of push back against
upselling fast food due to obesity concerns. If I had to guess I would say it
probably started around when the movie "Super Size Me" was released (2004).

Now, if I order a meal, I might get asked "what size" without any suggestion.
Or if I order a sandwich by name, I usually get asked to clarify if I want
"the meal or just the sandwich." But I can't remember the last time they
actually tried to upsell me.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if upselling still happened outside of
the US.

------
6d6b73
Automation will turn capitalism will turn into somewhat benevolent corporate
city-states. Imagine a city run by a corporation which tries to automate, and
optimize everything that is not its core business. To make the employees and
their families happy, the corporation will provide the best care (child,
health, environment) possible. In time this will turn some of these city-
states into efficient, clean, healthy, happy places to live, but only
relatively small groups of people will be able to enjoy it. Some of these
city-states will be very dystopian and people living in there will be
miserable. Technological and societal progress in these "utopian" cities will
be much faster than in "dystopian" which will possibly lead to wars.

We will not solve automation driven unemployment by taxing robots, and UBI
will generally not work on a country wide scale. Partial solution will be
Corporate UBI, which basically will mean that if you work for Corp X, you and
your family will have everything they desire provided for them. As for
everyone else..

This is already happening on some smaller scale. All these corporate campuses
are beginning of that. They will eventually grow to become self-sufficient
cities.

Now the question is - when you and your family depend on one entity, i.e
corporation that has hired you, are you not a slave to them?

~~~
oblio
> This is already happening on some smaller scale. All these corporate
> campuses are beginning of that. They will eventually grow to become self-
> sufficient cities.

Heh, that's actually funny. Corporate campuses are nothing new. Corporate
cities have been a thing for the last 60 (70?) years. They're actually on the
decline, not on the rise. I doubt automation will change anything about that.

~~~
6d6b73
I could be wrong, but I believe automation will change that simply because it
will be easier for the corps to provide more services to employees without
having to hire/control more people that are not necessary for the corporate
city to function. It will also be easier to manage all these people using
advanced automation/ai, and make the whole enterprise more profitable. It
might not look like the old school corporate campuses with one corporation
controlling everything, but more like cities with high concentration of
similar businesses. These corporations usually have so much power in these
cities that they basically control them.

Also, when automation starts to really impact most jobs on the market, we can
expect that there will be some increase in crime. People will move towards
safer areas, and corporations will be happy to provide them.

------
cobookman
This rings home with me soo much. I've interacted with a few startups
designing robots to replace human labor. Was scary to see that automation is
here its just too expensive compared to human labor. But technology generally
decreases in cost over time while human labor gets gradually more expensive.
So its only a matter of time that all manual labor is replaced by robots.

~~~
BurningFrog
People have said that it's only a matter of time before all manual labor is
replaced by machines since the industrial revolution started.

Yet it keeps not having happened just yet.

EDIT: I'm talking about all human work, not just physical labor. The "manual
labor" part of the quote confuses my intended point.

~~~
_bpgl
> People have said that it's only a matter of time...Yet it keeps not having
> happened just yet.

That's incredibly facile. Were there solid state digital electronics at the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Was there machine learning? Motion
control? Systems engineering? A robotics industry?

Just aping the "power source of the future" line from the fusion joke and
pretending it's the trenchant result of long experience is the tactic of a
15-year-old.

~~~
crdoconnor
Why do you think that the future will similarly not have jobs that you can't
conceive of now?

As far as I can tell the only special thing about automation in today's world
is that the jobs being created are more often being created abroad than they
are in the US (e.g. the million or so people employed by Foxconn in China) and
_predictions_ of automation destroying jobs are very blatantly being used
politically as a way to draw flak away from job destroying trade agreements
and austerian measures.

~~~
_bpgl
The first thing I feel I need to point out is that my horse in this race is
not whether or not jobs will go away, but whether or not the original
commenter to whom I was replying advanced the discussion at all with their
remark. I think that the remark–that people have always been saying that
automation will take over but it never has–is facile in that the thing that
"people have been saying" is not the same over time. In the late 18th century,
it could only really have been a comment about capital concentration and the
death of the trades. In the 1950s, it was very probably a naive comment about
the power of as-then-understood computer technology's capability to replace
manual labor or work. In the 1990s, it was very probably a naive comment about
the state of the art of AI at the time.

Now, the remark is about actual inexpensive robotics in the context of what
seems to be a genuine AI and computer vision and control renaissance, funded
by government and corporations. Those are all just different remarks. To
package them all up as one "thing that people have been saying" does a real
disservice to the discussion. And it's a pose.

In the current case, I find it difficult to say whether the remark will turn
out to be naive. However, any competent discussion of whether or not it is has
to rely on an assessment of the current situation of computer vision, AI,
control theory, economics, and law.

~~~
crdoconnor
"In the 1990s, it was very probably a naive comment about the state of the art
of AI at the time."

And it's exactly the same right now.

Any competent discussion also needs to take into the account the various
special interests who _want_ it to be believed that AI is taking over
irrespective of whether that is the truth or not... and _why_ they want that.

It also needs to take into account the various crass errors in many of the
economics papers on this topic - including basing the probability of
automation on how "creative" an economist considers a job (Oxford) or creating
economic measures which make no mathematical distinction between a Chinese
factory worker and a robot (Ball State University).

------
k_sze
So it's now harder to say with a straight face "we're using robots because
it's more ethical than exploiting people".

"No, it's just cheaper."

~~~
thehardsphere
It can be both. The fact that we say "it's cheaper" doesn't preclude "it's
more ethical" especially when everybody agrees already that the presented
alternative isn't ethical.

Burning coal to generate electricity is both cheaper and more ethical than
burning live toddlers. You don't say "we use coal for electricity instead of
toddlers because it's more ethical" because that's self-evident to anybody but
a true psychopath.

------
AKifer
Sooner or later, the robots and AI will be able to provide 100% of humanity
material needs. AND The very nature of each societies will be shuffled by that
new reality.

When every material need is fulfilled, a lot of questions arise:

1- What's the essence of private property when the working robots can already
fulfill all the needs of the humanity ?

2- What's the essence of political power where nobody feels anymore the need
to elect good policymakers because their life is already perfect ?

3- What will be the safeguard to prevent a maleficient/egoist minds to lock
the access to all that abundancy ? That's quite philosophical question as
humanity never experienced that kind of pure evil mindset. Every dictatorship,
slavery, oppression were always driven by the context of competition towards
the control over a limited economic resources.

4- And fundamentally, what will be the next thing that will drive the humanity
towards evolution ? Knowledge curiosity ? Space exploration and adventures ?
Spiritual achievement ? Perfection (and what's perfection ?) ? Are these goals
philosophically equal ? Do willingness/laziness to adopt such a noble goals
affect your share in the pie ? Does even "share in the pie" matter when the
pie have an infinite surface ?

Only the future, and futuristic/philosophical writings will tell us where all
that game will lead this world.

~~~
tegeek
There is a really good short novel Manna [1] that explore two models of Post
robotic world.

1\. [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

~~~
aurelianito
Well, the 'good' model is quite depressing in my opinion.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

In the end, the protagonist chooses to be just waisting lots of resources just
doing something of no value when he could choose to join the people that make
all the advances and, with this choice, generating the conditions for more
people to not live caged.

~~~
jsymolon
> protagonist chooses to be just wasting lots of resources just doing
> something of no value

In your opinion. Obviously they find it a good value for their resources.

Study history for interesting human actions. Some strive to improve the human
condition, most go through life with no wake, and some, are evil and proceed
to actively inhibit the human condition.

~~~
aurelianito
I meant no value for anyone else. For instance, they could use these resources
to support more people that was jailed in the complex he came from. Or to
advance the state of the art of science and technology. But he choose to waste
lots of resources like light and materials just for himself.

------
mschuster91
The consequences for societies that define the status/value of their members
based on their employment/job will be disastrous. In, let's say, 20 years
robots most likely will have overtaken agriculture, manufacturing and driving
- by far the biggest job providers.

And I see no movement at all by our politicians to prepare societies for this
shift, except a couple countries playing small scale UBI... and the USA
actually try to go the opposite route.

~~~
manmal
I agree. In agriculture, the revolution has already taken place though. Even
supersize tractors navigate themselves. A farmer can get by with a lot of
machines and only a few extra hands, most of the time.

~~~
slurry
Depends on the crop.

------
heynowletsgo
The concept that machines will become the problem and not people is absurd.
Completely absurd. People make the machines and people prevent machines from
increasing the quality of life for most people. The only change needed in the
progression of technological advance is people allowing labor saving devices
to actually save everybody from laboring, not just a few. The problem remains
the use of slavery by people to increase wealth.This notion of "we must fear
computers because they are going to rule us" is frankly moronic, just a
distraction from the inability of capitalists to share the rewards of
advancement.

------
WalterBright
Slave labor is economically inefficient, and slave based economies have fared
very poorly compared with free labor economies.

~~~
elsewhen
> slave based economies have fared very poorly

that may be true for the economy in general, but what about the slave owners
specifically? that is the central point in the context of this discussion,
since it is the factory owners that are making the decision about replacing
human workers with robots.

------
squarefoot
Which will hopefully brings us to an inevitable change in our economics. If
technological advance is going to create millions if not billions of
unemployed people, the answer won't be rioting down the street and burning all
machines in sight, although for many people this will appear the only viable
solution.

~~~
drieddust
This can also bring back collosiums where unwanted die for the pleasure of
ruling class.

People rioting down the street can be crushed by autonomous machines remorsely
and effortlessly.

There is a need to start political lobbying instead of hoping for an automatic
economic change.

Those who will control the means of production will not relinquish control
once they realize their power. Once they understand that those millions
doesn't matter anymore.

~~~
usrusr
> This can also bring back collosiums where unwanted die for the pleasure of
> ruling class.

Not dying, but the abundant talent shows where a whole generation seems to
sacrifice all regular career ambition for a nonexistent fairy tale already
comes close. On the other hand, maybe the kids somehow have a very prophetic
hunch that taking a crapshot at becoming the nation's "next top model" or
whatever will eventually turn out to be a less terrible bet than fighting for
scraps in an environment of increasingly automation-driven capitalism that
simply does not need them anymore.

The Black Mirror episode (spoilers!) with the training bikes nailed that quite
well. When I watched it I was disappointed with the implausibility of a high
tech society powered by the meagre 2 kWh you might realistically extract from
a human per day. But this could actually be a subtle point made by the
authors: the bikes are not really powering their economy, they are just a
semi-plausible bullshit job made up in-world to make handouts look like a
hard-earned wage, probably intended to fool those spinning the bikes as much
as the elite who enjoys having the plebs nicely boxed up out of sight in
underground caverns.

------
almavi
My first thought was: "Oh, great! If slave labor is not efficient anymore
there will be no more slave workers in the world". On a second thought (and
based on our history), that probably will be true, but only because people
that today are working just for a plate of rice will starve to death.

~~~
Quarrelsome
the sad truth is that slave labour needs no startup cost beyond a fist.

~~~
kevinr
Fists ain't cheap.

Slaves are capital, and, like all capital, acquiring and maintaining them has
nonzero cost.

In the antebellum American South, some tasks like ditch-digging were
sufficiently hazardous that a plantation owner would rather not risk their
investment in their slaves, and so would hire Irish ditch-diggers by the day,
as the plantation owner would be out less money if they died while digging the
ditch.

~~~
richthegeek
Somewhat off topic, but I can't figure out how ditch-digging would be
particularly hazardous? The only danger I can think of would be a wall
collapsing, but that could surely be avoided..

~~~
JetSpiegel
I'm assuming heat related conditions.

------
legulere
> On the other hand, if institutionalized slavery still existed, factories
> would be looking at around $7,500 in annual costs for housing, food and
> healthcare per “worker”.

What makes a lot of things like food so expensive is human work. If you had
access to slaves you could probably also reduce those costs.

We still have a lot of people living for under 1$ per day on this world.
That's a factor 20 off from the cited amount of money per year.

~~~
ohitsdom
> We still have a lot of people living for under 1$ per day on this world.
> That's a factor 20 off from the cited amount of money per year.

Those same people living under $1/day now would have their costs greatly
increased if they became factory slaves. Can't be malnourished, so food costs
go up. Can't live just anywhere, so housing costs go up to live on-site at the
factory. Can't work with untreated illnesses and injuries, so healthcare costs
go up.

~~~
undersuit
>Can't work with untreated illnesses and injuries, so healthcare costs go up.

Unless it's cheaper to train a new slave and euthanize the old slave.

------
singularity2001
Just to throw in a thought/data point:

Nvidia is currently selling their 'industrial' deep learning system DGX-1 for
$129,000. It doesn't have the IQ of a mouse yet, yet it can beat humans in
some tasks (as can mice?).

[0] [http://www.nvidia.com/object/deep-learning-
system.html](http://www.nvidia.com/object/deep-learning-system.html)

------
maxerickson
Cost effectiveness is also why farmers use tractors and other large machinery.

------
jgalt212
Robots, or no robots, it's very important from a national security perspective
to have a sizeable domestic manufacturing base.

------
elastic_church
forget about the former title of coffee shop barista, our cotton and tobacco
trade is about to go into overdrive!

------
dsjoerg
anyone know who/what is behind this site?

------
thr3290
> _On the other hand, if institutionalized slavery still existed, factories
> would be looking at around $7,500 in annual costs for housing, food and
> healthcare per “worker”._

There is a wrong assumption that factory has to cover those expenses. In
reality this cost is often offloaded to government or another party.

~~~
thehardsphere
Uhh, when they're property of the company and not actually considered people?

I'm pretty sure you have to be considered a person in order to qualify for
food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing vouchers. I mean, idk because all
of those things came about after slavery.

~~~
thr3290
Prison?

~~~
thehardsphere
Prison labor is mostly out of fashion, isn't it? Not that many chain gangs
anymore. The ones I do hear about are usually doing dumb things for the
government instead of "manufacturing and retail."

