
Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots' - jrwan
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966
======
unabst
Robots are owned, and this is key. They are productive assets, much like
houses produce rent. If they become a problem, all we need to really do is tax
them. This means robots will be working for the people, because that's what
taxes are -- asset distribution facilitated by government.

Of course, two major problems here. First, the government, for obvious
reasons, and second, the corporations that have a stronghold on the
government. If the government did it's job, it would simply be re-funneling
money where it needs to go; to pay for education, social services, safety, and
so on. And if corporations didn't have their way, they wouldn't be able to
twist laws and regulations in ways to maximize profit and avoid taxes, because
that's precisely what taxes are designed to do -- cut profits.

But if history can teach us anything, it's that even when manufacturing jobs
were shipped overseas and call center jobs were shipped and agricultural labor
jobs were swept by undocumented immigrants, the government here didn't do much
of anything, and the businesses got their way with increased profits. In turn,
our labor force got displaced, but we survived because ultimately people find
a way to make money.

Every non-government job is created by an entrepreneur, either directly,
indirectly, or down the line. Entrepreneurship is really what has driven
America. Many will take that over government and taxation (solving the two
major problems outlined above), and this is the free market argument in a
nutshell.

The takeaway is, if we tax robotic labor, they'd be working for us, the
people. Just as anyone paying 15% in income tax is working 2 months out of the
year for the USA. Or we could hustle it out and have everyone desperately seek
work to save their lives. Our choice. One leads to greater inequality.

~~~
Udik
The problem with these solutions is that production moves where it's cheaper.
If you tax my robots, I'll just pack up and move them to another country where
they are not taxed, or they are taxed less.

~~~
jlebar
This argument applies to all kinds of taxes, right? If you tax labor, I'll
just move my factory somewhere that labor isn't taxed. If you tax my income,
I'll move myself to a lower-tax place. If you tax my land, I'll just buy land
somewhere else. And so on.

Yet somehow most countries are able to tax labor, income, land, and so on,
without losing their entire populations.

Not to say that people won't leave because of taxes. Just that there are also
reasons that make people stay.

~~~
unabst
The issue has a lot to do with the finances of scale. Mom and pops aren't
going anywhere, and neither are you, but Apple will go to Ireland, and wealthy
individuals will bank in tax havens. And hence, the wealth gap widens. Most --
the "99%" \-- stay and pay taxes. The 1% don't, but they look like they're
still here. They just have one foot - the tax paying foot -- in Ireland.

~~~
louprado
An accountant recently confessed to me that many wealthy Californians do the
same using Nevada. Just declare an NV home as your primary residence and make
sure to document your time in NV (photos, flights, ATM receipts). CA income
tax is 13.3% for the wealthy. NV is 0%.

~~~
hospes
If you are making let's say 10 mln a year, that means by lying that NV is your
primary residence, you did not pay more than 1 mln in taxes. For getting back
that kind of money, Criminal Investigation Bureau of Franchise Tax Board can
afford keeping dedicated agent who will follow you and see how often do you
actually go to NV and after couple weeks of surveillance when he sees that you
do not go there much, he can get court order and:

\- Look at your cell phone location information for last several months.

\- Use Police's license plate trackers to track your car (Probably they do not
even need court order for this one).

\- They can get your car's location information (I assume high income people
have one of modern expensive cars and most of them have tracker in case it is
stolen).

\- They can talk to your made(s) (I assume you have one, since you make 10+
mln) and pressure them to tell the true story.

Sounds really dangerous to lie about your location now days when it is so easy
to check it, without even leaving the room.

~~~
ojbyrne
You, in turn, donate $50k a year to politicians who work to cut the Franchise
Tax Board's investigative budget.

------
dogma1138
This is what I've been thinking for quite a while but what allot of people
seem to ignore - the "AI revolution" can very well "only" hit developing
nations while skipping the developed ones.

Better, smarter robots are a threat to Chinese workers, not so much to say
Dutch or Canadian workers.

The west can afford and is willing to pay more even for less, just look at how
many people are willing to pay 10 times the price for "Organic Fare Traded
Tomatoes" or any other "artisan" goods.

The west is also not as much dependent on manufacturing and the manufacturing
it does do is usually high tech, low(er) volume and highly specialized one
where it both might not make sense to automate everything and where people are
more than willing to pay the extra to know that something was "hand crafted".

But overall we've developed a consumer culture especially in the past decade
that is pretty much focused on retro/old school craftsmanship, small scale
production and "artisan" touches, it almost makes one wonder if the whole
"hipster revolution" wasn't hand crafted by some cabal of shadowy figures that
foresaw the "rise of the machines", because our willingness to pay 250$ for a
hand crafted hemp bag on etsy is just might be the thing that would protect us
from AI automation.

~~~
epalmer
It is not just manufacturing that is going to be replaced by AI and Robots and
it will affect developing and developed countries.

Already there are a lot of junior lawyers being replaced [0].

Check out what a former CEO of McDonald's said about robots and the fast food
industry [1].

> “I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at the
> robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry – it’s cheaper
> to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s
> inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries,” the former US chief
> executive Ed Rensi told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo.

[0]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html)
[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-
mcdona...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-mcdonalds-
ceo-threatens-replace-employees-robots)

~~~
dogma1138
Yes things like legal discovery, medical history research and many other
things can (and could be for the past 10+ years) and will be "replaced" or
more like integrated with software / machine learning assist. Large firms that
hire 30 new associates instead of 50 won't be a big blow to the economy, even
McDonalds switching to more automation won't have that much of a negative
impact McDonald's can and should be the "cheapest" option, but don't expect
the local diner to automate at the same time, and don't forget that we are
willing to pay more for a barista even tho when you use the same beans even 25
year old automated coffee machines produces a better and more consistent
product than the vast majority of barista's out there. The Restaurant industry
in the US overall employs about 15M people and that figure is expected to grow
by 10% in the next 10 years even with automation.

~~~
throwawaykeno
Automating _good_ baristas in a cost-effective way is actually a pretty hard
problem, but automating your typical Starbucks espresso machine button pusher
is trivial -- machines that can make passable cappuccinos already exist. But
people don't go to Starbucks for the coffee; they go to Starbucks for the same
reason they go to bars.

I think a lot of the service sector automation that will happen in the next
20+ years is analogous. Anything customer-facing is bound to stick around as
long as people have spending money, while anything that's not customer-facing
will slowly become automated.

E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the _easiest_ person to
replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories. But if I
were a betting man, I would bet that McDonalds will replace food prep jobs
before replacing humans with kiosks in most locations.

~~~
bsder
> E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the easiest person to
> replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories.

Except that most people are _REALLY BAD_ at operating a kiosk. You want a
person at the kiosk so that they can gently guide the SUV driving suburban
wife with the high maintenance order gently out of the way of the rest of the
customers.

The backend jobs will be the first to get automated.

~~~
vitus
Actually, Sheetz (think fast food meets convenience store; based out of Ohio
and only present in a few mid-Atlantic states) has been using kiosks for
ordering food for years. Granted, payment is still at a register manned by an
actual person, but it's not like that's uncharted territory, either -- Chili's
allows you to pay at your table without needing to hand your credit card over
to your waitress.

~~~
throwawaykeno
Right, but that's a captive market. No one goes to Sheetz for food; they stop
there for gas and grab something to eat while they're stopped. So making the
food ordering process a bit less pleasant is NBD.

McDonalds has to compete with other chains and prices are already bottom
barrel. In McDonal's case, taking human interaction out of the equation seems
like a losing proposition.

~~~
phyllostachys
In western Pennsylvania, where I'm from, people definitely do go to Sheetz
just for food.

------
mgolawala
Robotics and AI have improved significantly and will continue to improve into
the future. How much have humans improved over the last 30 years? People
simply cannot compete, and this is a trend that cannot be reversed, or
shouldn't be reversed.

Just as mass industrialization necessitated huge social change in response.
The emergence of a middle class, the growth of cities, organized labor and
work hours, etc.

As automation and AI continue to replace jobs and more and more people find it
difficult to compete at _any_ price. I predict you will see similar societal
changes in response. I don't know what those will be, and they probably will
not come easy. We could see a utopian future similar to Star Trek, or a
dystopian one instead.

We live in interesting times. :)

~~~
allisthemoist
This begs the question: as human productivity is increasingly usurped by
machines, what will happen to the human manufacturing population? Will we
finally figure out a way to distribute wealth in a agreeable way (through, for
example, basic minimum income) or will we go back to the a feudal model of
living?

Interestingly, _someone_ has to purchase the goods that these systems create.
Thus, giving people the funds to do so, regardless of where they come from,
seems like a necessity.

~~~
arethuza
Wasn't feudalism mainly a hierarchical means of controlling land and the
people that worked the land? If you don't actually need peasants/serfs to do
anything then you wouldn't need feudalism.

~~~
hodgesrm
One of the drivers for feudalism was the prevalence of cavalry in warfare
starting after about 700AD. Mounted knights are expensive to maintain, hence
the solution of providing land grants in exchange for military service. It's a
medieval version of the military-industrial complex.

The connection between mounted warfare and feudalism is controversial [1] but
it's common enough that societies adopt social structures optimized for
defense. There were almost certainly multiple reasons for the prevalence of
feudal relations.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stirrup_Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stirrup_Controversy)

------
ChrisBland
Some might ask; well if this is the case, can we move production (back) to the
US? The answer (imo) is no. The Chinese have done an amazing job building the
supply chain. Need a part, go right down the street and meet the vendors, need
packaging, its just down the other street. The infrastructure built to bring
products to market is their real advantage here. Try sourcing a new chip in
the states and then try over there. This is true not just for electronics, but
also with textile production.

~~~
tpatke
The answer is not 'no'. The answer is, 'It will take some investment'. There
is a big difference between those two answers.

People who say it is impossible to move production from one country to another
don't understand what the word 'impossible' means.

~~~
petepete
> The answer is not 'no'. The answer is, 'It will take some investment'.

That's also the answer to 'can we move production under the sea?'

~~~
mc32
Not really "some investment" is not equal to "extraordinary investment". One
is possible with little change and costs, the other would require lots of
change and waste.

~~~
terrywilcox
Which one is which?

------
huphtur
Related: Adidas to make shoes in Germany again – but using robots
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-
sell-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot-
made-shoes-from-2017)

~~~
studentrob
> The shoes made in Germany would sell at a similar price to those produced in
> Asia, he said.

Interesting.

------
deskamess
This is the angle I thought first world countries would take to get
manufacturing back in-house. It still makes sense to do it if the recurring
infrastructure costs (like power) are similar. However a plant may no longer
bring in 100-200 workers so not much for the politicians to preach about. It
is going to be a few high skilled personnel, a handful of physical workers (to
replace and maintain robots), and a temporary building supervisor (required
while humans inhabit the plant). Eventually second generation plants will
reduce that even further with only a supervisor coming around for extreme
cases.

~~~
ThomPete
The way worldwide logistics and shipping is constructed makes this more more
or less impossible.

The supply chains are based around china, india being the primary
manufactoring.

~~~
macspoofing
That can change. The supply chain wasn't always based around Chinese and
Indian manufacturing.

~~~
my_username_is_
Working at a 'traditional manufacturing' company that makes a lot of products
in Asia, I can see that we are already starting to move manufacturing back to
America (where the bulk of our customers are), despite our supply chain still
being deeply entrenched overseas. I would expect this trend to continue in the
coming years.

------
SCHiM
The people there are really starting to feel the encroaching mass-automation
of low wage jobs then :/

I hope that the spokesperson was speaking the truth when they said that the
increased automation would not lead to long-term loss of employment.

But I can't imagine reeducating that much (previously) low(?) skilled
employees, rather than hiring a new graduate (of which there are reportedly
many) for R&D.

~~~
Scirra_Tom
Not only are jobs being lost through robotics on factory floors, they will
also be lost through self driving vehicles. Massive swathes of people are at
the risk of facing unemployment, and I think it's going to catch a lot of
people off-guard.

Increasingly to me a universal income guaranteed by the government seems like
sensible policy to ease in sooner than later. I see no other option, lobbying
to allow lower minimum wages or eradication of minimum wage to keep humans
competitive against mass produced robotics and AI is quite frankly idiotic.

~~~
athenot
Perhaps we've overstated the benefits of linking our personal fare to the
economy. Humans have lived for many years in autonomous or small tribes,
living off the land. I'm not advocating a return to ancient times, but I think
we can reduce our dependency towards the economy. The only thing that is
really needed is land. Food is nearly free if you have the land to grow it on
and the time to tend to it.

Shelter, well that's a huge variable: building your own house is almost
impossible with many regulations that require a certain expertise to navigate.
But once you have food, shelter—and friends/family—you're in a decent spot
from a survival standpoint.

We don't have to live like the Amish, but perhaps a happy medium can be found,
by being less dependent on the economy. Instead of buying 100% of your
survival needs, perhaps it's possible to buy 50% of them and make the rest
yourself. With the better telecommunications we have today, I often wonder
about a society that's only 50% plugged in to the economy—and 50% self-
reliant.

Disclaimer: I'm no macro-economist.

~~~
JacobJans
Here's the rub: The people who are the least dependent on getting a job in
order to survive are the best positioned to succeed in the economy. They can
take time to educate themselves. They can spend time networking, and building
relationships. They don't have to struggle to be well fed, well clothed. They
have lower levels of stress.

Contrast that to someone who is 100% self reliant. They don't have friends or
family to lean on. Every day they have to figure out where their next meal
comes from, where they will sleep. Basic safety is not even guaranteed. (You
can't be 100% on guard, without break.) The constant demand to take care of
one's basic needs slowly wears them down. They have to struggle just to stay
clean and well dressed. If you live in a city, you see people like this all
the time. They're not part of social support system that benefits economically
successful people – and the results are tragic.

~~~
athenot
There's another point, which I should mention: the kind of job that is most
suitable to part-time remote working is also the kind that happens to pay very
well and, as you point out, not the lot of those who are the most dependent on
getting a job.

So yes, there's a bias in my proposition.

------
altonzheng
I'm always confused at how people pity those that work in menial, repetitive,
uncreative manufacturing jobs (to give an example, see the flack that Amazon
receives for the drudgery of its warehouse jobs) and at the same time worry
about job loss from automation. These uncreative, "inhumane" jobs we have are
precisely the low hanging fruit ripe for the picking by robots.

Of course, there is always friction in the redistribution process of the
labor, but in the long run, I can't help but be optimistic about the increased
human potential that can result from moving people away from menial tasks.
Unless of course, you believe that some people are better off with tasks that
require low creativity and human initiative.

~~~
wiz21
My father was a "manager" of people doing that kind of ultra repetitive, not
very smart, dirty-hands tasks. I was fortunate enough to meet some of them
when I was 20 years old. This opened my eyes :

\- those people were not well educated so that kind of work was something they
could do and for a decent salary

\- that was a job and they had pride in being employed and useful

\- that job was not mentally exhausting so they could think about something
else or talk while working; many found that quite enjoyable, socially
interesting if you will

\- they were doing different things, going from one "simple" task to another
and so they all shared a knowledge ofthe build process they were involved in.
They were proud of that as well.

So well, those "not very interesting" tasks were actually taken care of very
seriously and with pride. So in the end the "how it was done" was just as
important than "what was done".

That's why if robots take over, I can't help but see that these people will
miss something they loved. You can say that's the price to pay but, go and say
that in front of them; you'll understand what the "it's-logical-unescapable"
kind of argument really means...

~~~
altonzheng
Definitely, what makes sense economically on a macro scale ignores all the
micro, very human, factors involved. I have nothing to say but to be grateful
for the position that I, and a lot of fellow HN'ers probably, are in.

------
criddell
If I'm a company making $1000 gadgets and then adopt some technology (like
robotics) to reduce the cost of my gadget to $500, have I just reduced my
country's GDP?

~~~
tuna-piano
Great question. The answer is no. This is one of those many cases where
thinking in money terms confuses the issue.

If the country had 100 people making gadgets, and now it only requires 50 to
make the same number of gadgets, the country can now double the amount of
gadgets it makes, or the 50 people can go make something else.

Therefore, a doubling in productivity will not decrease GDP (total production
of an economy), but increase it.

~~~
arximboldi
By doubling the amount of gadgets in the market you are also reducing price of
the gadgets (according to offer and demand). The parent's idea is not new, it
was already introduced in the first chapter of Marx's Capital. The only
capitalistic solution to the devaluation of work introduced by increases in
productivity is to increase the demand for things: by increasing peoples
consumerism via marketing, reducing the durability of the things, etc.

This vicious circle has to stop, or the planet will stop it for us. We should
think about how to work less and consume less.

~~~
tuna-piano
What? If people want the same amount of things but are now more productive,
they can also choose to work less (which is what has happened over the last
few hundred years.)

~~~
danharaj
They didn't choose to work less, they fought vicious and sometimes violent
political struggles against owners and government to get reduced hours.

------
Animats
Foxconn has finally been able to achieve the tolerances they need with their
robots. They've been trying to do this for a few years now, but the
positioning precision wasn't good enough.[1][2]

Their FoxBot robots are conventional robot arms on fixed bases. There are four
standard models, differing in size and precision. Foxconn is making them in-
house, for about $20,000 to $25,000. Not clear what sensing they have; the
ones they've shown in public just had simple suction end effectors.

There's nothing exotic here except the scale on which Foxconn is operating.

[1]
[http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1829834/foxconns...](http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1829834/foxconns-
foxbot-army-close-hitting-chinese-market-track-meet-30-cent) [2]
[http://www.4erevolution.com/en/foxconn-foxbot-
apple/](http://www.4erevolution.com/en/foxconn-foxbot-apple/)

------
BatFastard
Welcome to the automated future. As a world we are going to have to adjust to
the changes brought about by automation. We need to start talking about how
society will be structured with 50% unemployment.

~~~
biggio
Solution: most of the revenue generated by robots should go to welfare
benefits

~~~
BatFastard
I like the idea, but it gets tricky, what if the robots are in a different
country?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Tax the goods at the border.

------
skoocda
There seems to be a lot of discussion in this thread hinting at the detriment
of economic slowdown. Can we all agree that ever-increasing industrial GDP,
inflation notwithstanding, will ultimately be problematic?

It must be driven by either population or productivity per capita increase,
period.

Industrial economies cannot continue to grow in this unregulated way forever,
due to it increasing both the environmental impacts and wealth disparity. That
said, information economies can grow much more aggressively without the
negative impacts- but we don't have a system for adequately valuing
information GDP, i.e. rewarding people for creating content.

If our society is becoming entertainment-centric (which is great, and
inevitable) then we need to figure out how every person can ascertain a
quality-of-life standard through providing entertainment.

Eventually natural resources and industrial production will be completely
automated. Obviously the trickle-down economic theory does not hold up in that
situation.

~~~
studentrob
> Can we all agree that ever-increasing industrial GDP, inflation
> notwithstanding, will ultimately be problematic?

I'd agree that ever-increasing GDP is not reality.

The thing we all disagree about is when a downturn will occur, and to what
degree.

When you talk about a forthcoming downturn, it sounds like you think it'll
happen this year. It's natural that some people will disagree.

------
dreamcompiler
People buy iPhones. Robots don't. At some point, replacing your workers with
robots becomes replacing your _customers_ with robots, and the economy goes to
hell. Are we there yet?

~~~
studentrob
Give the robots enough salary to buy a phone, and program them to buy it.
Problem solved.

------
Shivetya
Two other recent robot stories.

Adidas comes back to Germany but with a heavily automated factory
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-
sell-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot-
made-shoes-from-2017) and ex McDonalds executive pointing out robots are
cheaper than 15 bucks an hour employees
[http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/mcdonalds-ex-
ceo-15h...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/mcdonalds-ex-ceo-15hr-
minimum-wage-will-unleash-the-robot-rebellion/)

Automated at the bottom and outsourced at the top, going to be an interesting
squeeze and I am more worried about all the screams for protectionism in trade
which pretty much shut down the world the last time it was tried

------
adrianlmm
Not only Robots, but software can also replace workers, I know, mine has done
that.

~~~
sageikosa
Mine too!

------
sbrk2
Also reduces jumper-type suicides, due to the robots being bolted to the
factory floor.

------
techlover14159
I believe what makes the current iteration of technology making jobs redundant
unique is the speed/frequency with which this is happening. In the past the
process was slow enough for the next generation to train for the next set of
skills that were required in the economy. It is very hard for a mature
professional to change job tracks and certainly almost impossible for a whole
society to do so several times in the typical lifespan of a person. This is
what is happening with the pace of change/redundancy today and the effect that
I foresee is revolt like conditions in many societies.

We are already witnessing this revolt/discontent in the US in this
presidential cycle in my view. People are very angry and I fear it will only
become worse in the coming years/decades as promised solutions by the new crop
of leaders elected by angry people don't work out as expected.

------
tn13
Light bulbs did not kill candle makers job. Light bulb made it possible for
humans to work at night speeding up humanity's progress by several factors in
more ways than we can imagine.

The dominant left narrative is to see automation as "job loss" but in reality
automation is bring manufacturing back to USA. Helping Americans live in a
more safer and better workplaces and rapidly increasing technological
progress.

Also, people whose jobs are replaced don't just go and jump into river. They
simply find some other jobs possible at lower wages thus helping other
businesses get even more competitive.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Stories like this make me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Charlie's father was a factory worker who struggled to make ends meet, the
irony being that his job was to screw toothpaste caps on toothpaste tubes.

After the events of the book, Charlie's father went back to the factory but as
an engineer to work on the machines that do his old job. Not everyone at the
factory could have received that kind of promotion. I wonder what happened to
them?

~~~
retube
I dunno. But what happened to all the people that used to till the fields
until tractors and combine harvesters came along?

Thousands, literally thousands of professions have been made redundant by
mechanisation and automation over the last few hundred years, but we're still
all just as busy as ever.

Look at all the professions that have been created in just the last 20 years
thanks to the internet. Sure automation changes the nature of work, and the
type of jobs that need doing, but I've yet to see a shred of evidence that
continued advances in automation are going to put us all out of a job, other
than vague "this time it's different".

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
What happened to the horses after cars and trains took their jobs? Sure we
still keep them around but mostly just for fun. We don't need horses anymore.

If robots can farm, mine, refine, and manufacture everything, what's left for
people to do? Secretary? Replaced by AI. Customer service? AI. Fast food? AI.
Bartender? AI. Doctor? AI. Lawyer? AI. Accountant? AI.

Programmer?

AI.

~~~
retube
Horses were good at one thing: dragging stuff around. Humans are a bit more
adaptable.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
AI is (only currently theoretically) capable of infinitely more than a human.

Let's say you have an expert blacksmith. He comes from a long line of
blacksmiths, each a renowned expert in their trade. One day, he starts
teaching an AI (which has human dexterity) how to do his job, as his
forefathers taught their children. Eventually the AI matches his skills, maybe
even surpasses. The AI will never die. It can copy its instances infinitely.
We don't need human blacksmiths anymore.

When humans began to take over the earth, the single best survival trait among
other organisms was being useful to humans. How useful are we to an
intelligence that never gets tired, that can manage all the resources and
means of production on earth?

What if humans are seen as a net drain on the earth and its resources? What if
1% of the population doesn't need the 99% for anything anymore?

~~~
studentrob
True AI is a long way off according to top ML people like Yann LeCun

We have no idea how a computer can be designed to come up with its own goals.
We can teach it English, French, and Chinese, or get near perfect photo
identification, but the computer cannot decide to learn to write a novel on
its own. We could teach it to write novels, but there would still be other
tasks it can't do. Even if a computer could self-direct 99% of known possible
things in the universe, if there were one thing we could prove it would never
learn, then it's not AI.

It may not even be possible and we could be stuck with humans around forever.
Ug.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I guess we'll see who's eating who's words in time.

Most "basic" AI stuff like voice and image recognition was "a long way off"
for like, forever. Every "advancement" in machine learning since the 50s ended
up as a dud.

Then BAM! Voice recognition is here. Not perfect but definitely good enough.
Image recognition is way, way, way better than it was 10 years ago (which was
only marginally better than it was 10 years previous). The current trend of
machine learning is accelerating progress, not a plateau.

Just think of the Geth from Mass Effect: their creators made them to perform
basic tasks and share data. As their scope widened they were tweaked to handle
more work. Eventually they became self-aware before they or even their
creators really understood what was going on.

Besides, why use novels as a use case? Why not, I don't know, organized crime
drama? They all follow the same arc anyway: someone does something evil or
greedy, rivals descend into civil war, leader(s) assassinated, vague hope for
better tomorrow.

It'll be like Winston Smith in 1984, writing the same stories over and over
again and changing little more than names.

~~~
studentrob
> Most "basic" AI stuff like voice and image recognition was "a long way off"
> for like, forever. Every "advancement" in machine learning since the 50s
> ended up as a dud.

That was the general public's perception. Certain people in the field of ML
knew such advances in application-specific domains such as voice and imagery
would come at some point.

The difference between the application-specific solutions and general AI is
top researchers don't have any real theories about general AI.

Even the OpenAI folks have toned down the rhetoric on their about page [1].
Their goal is no longer general AI, as Musk and Altman defined it at the
outset. It's to contribute to existing developments. They write,

"In the short term, we're building on recent advances in AI research and
working towards the next set of breakthroughs."

I can't explain my view any better in text. I've studied ML, ML researchers
are nearest to AI, and they're all saying it isn't around the corner. They
don't even have theories on how to make it truly general. Society will
continue to see really great advances as a result of ML developments, but
general AI isn't going to be one of them.

[1] [https://openai.com/about/](https://openai.com/about/)

~~~
phatfish
It seems to me the amount of data available through the internet is what
powered the recent advances in ML. Hence the reason data companies like Google
have been making the progress.

The domain is also limited, Siri can't play Go, and AlphaGo can't do voice
recognition.

I believe the ML researchers if they are saying AI is not close.

~~~
studentrob
> It seems to me the amount of data available through the internet is what
> powered the recent advances in ML.

Great point. This was part of it. There were other elements, all of which did
not come together until a few years ago, yet their result has been expected
since at least the 90s if not the 50s by some very visionary and optimistic
people. The other elements were (1) having enough _labeled_ data, (2) fast
enough hardware, not just to solve the problems, but also to be able to test
repeatedly with different initialization weights to identify good values for
these parameters (3) good enough libraries for programming the hardware,
enabling more developers to easily make use of GPUs for matrix operations, and
distributed computing for problems that benefit from parallelization (4)
various mathematical advances whose details I couldn't do justice, but things
like rewriting the math so problems are more easily parallelizable helped a
bunch, (5) sharing of research. ML researchers shared their advances openly
via places like arxiv.org and this led to faster advances (6) the use of
patents for defense rather than offense - I believe google led the way here

Now, and going forward, yes, it's believed that those with the most data have
the biggest advantage. Even so, researchers are making advances and
specializing in all kinds of areas of ML, like ones requiring little data, no
data or lots of data, varying degrees of labeled data, different classes of
algorithms, etc. The field is growing rapidly

That's the gist. I'm definitely missing a few things

Yann LeCun [1] is a good person to follow if you're interested in a top ML
researcher's opinion about AI and the media's perception of it. He frequently
posts articles with which he agrees or disagrees

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun](https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun)

------
louprado
The OP doesn't mention, but could it be that hedging against bad PR and
government incentives for capex purchases are accelerating this.

For example, if this trend continues Apple will no longer get bad PR for
supporting sweatshops. In the US there were also years (might still be true)
where a company fully could write off capex purchases in the first year and
not a multi-year depreciation schedule. Perhaps China is doing something
similar.

------
lanestp
It seems to me until we need a real conversation of the ethics of automation
and how we can do it without destroying the lives of the workers we are
displacing.

A few years ago I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't work on software that
puts people out of jobs. When I worked on job automation projects I would get
very depressed watching people lose jobs because of me. I can't imagine the
damage of something at this scale.

~~~
duaneb
> A few years ago I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't work on software that
> puts people out of jobs.

Arguably the whole point of software is to automate tasks that would have been
done by humans. How do you avoid this when making useful software?

~~~
sxates
Who lost a job because of an Xbox game? I think you could argue that software
like Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office are net positive on job growth.
Software can empower people to do entirely new kinds of jobs.

~~~
qyv
Word processors somewhat help replace the typing pool. Not to mention the
affect that have had on the printing/typesetting industry. Image manipulation
software allows a single person to produce far more work that hundreds of
people working by hand. This is the exact purpose of software: to make people
more efficient and powerful in their tasks.

~~~
ghaff
In general, "office automation" software (as it was once often called)
combined with, over time, email, self-service travel sites, and associated
changing expectations has largely eliminated whole classes of jobs. I never
had a personal secretary/admin but I've had ones who handled a group of 5-10
people. And even mid-level execs had personal admins when I was starting out.

------
sergiotapia
Will this decrease the cost of the chips and pass along the savings to the
consumers?

------
matco11
Just in case there was anyone still left thinking that China's manufacturing
advantage is in low labor costs

------
codecamper
So if it's just robots building the phones, then why build the phones in
China? Maybe some tax breaks?

------
microDude
From the picture in the article, it seems that a "pick-and-place" machine [1]
that is typical to SMT operations would do the same job as the workers in that
photo.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMT_placement_equipment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMT_placement_equipment)

------
known
One more reason for not opposing
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world)

------
looquagra
Already happens: Capitalism destroys human labor force and goes to the next
phase [http://bit.ly/1JPiUzp](http://bit.ly/1JPiUzp)

------
anonbanker
and still probably a good 295 years until the these machines receive basic
rights.

------
njharman
Good for them.

------
dmode
Did they demand a $15 minimum wage ?

------
devnull255
Robot workers of the world, unite!

------
bunkydoo
[https://imgur.com/gallery/7drHiqr](https://imgur.com/gallery/7drHiqr) It's
happening.

------
Cozumel
Guess they won't be needing the suicide nets anymore!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides)

------
nametakenobv
Have you grown food, ever?

~~~
athenot
Yes. It's hard work. It also dispenses with the need for a gym membership.

~~~
nametakenobv
It's not a replacement for gym membership. It's a full time job. You can't do
anything else than work in the field, eat and sleep. People did that their
entire lives so they can send their kids to school to have a better life and
you are advocating to go back to this?

------
nametakenobv
Gees, I don't know. The world is ending. Give all the people free monies. It
will end well. We are all brothers and humans are great.

~~~
ghurtado
Way to make parent's point about handwaiving.

~~~
nametakenobv
I just realized I'm not interested in this internet back-and-forth "but you
are wrong" thing. It's absolutely pointless. Hopefully we don't get to enjoy
the socialism people are trying to bring back.

~~~
st3v3r
So what is your answer? Or are you just going to handwave it away?

------
biggio
There should be laws on replacing a human worker with a robot. Certain revenue
of what the robot generates must be paid to the replaced worker directly.

~~~
jorge_nunez
A bit drastic don't you think? Wouldn't it be better that whatever the person
was making and now the robot makes becomes cheaper for everyone?

~~~
crimsonalucard
Money flows in a cycle.

The worker must get wages to buy the product. The company must sell product to
get the money needed to pay workers their wages.

When you put robots in the mix you break this cycle. When workers/customers
don't have money to be customers of employers, everybody loses. It doesn't
matter if products are cheaper.

The tragedy of the commons is that corporations in seeking to become more
efficient by eliminating employees are actually shooting themselves in the
foot.

The change the OP suggests is drastic, but it is a valid methodology to
maintain the money cycle. The only thing wrong with it, is that it is not
fair. Why should someone who produces no economic output get paid?

~~~
logfromblammo
Because otherwise they pick up a gun and rob the robot-owner.

That's the essential element that the rich folk concentrating capital and
eliminating labor are forgetting. When the people have no bread, they do not
eat cake. They start chopping off heads, without being very discriminating
about whether they deserve to remain attached to their necks or not.

