Robots and their impact on the economy

[slapshot]

Fascinating look on 60 Minutes, on how robots are dampening the job growth in the US.

Productivity is up.

Corporate profits are up.

But robots (in one form or another) have eaten into job growth in areas where robots can do it better, cheaper and faster than
humans.

The upside is that robots now make it economical to bring many manufacturing efforts back to westen countries, that moved their work to Asian countries, decades ago. The downside is - most of those jobs will go to robots, and not humans.

[dsummoner]

Increased mechanization is definitely the way to go. Of course, as so-called labor starts making increasing demands for its services, it makes it that much easier, from the cost perspective, to replace said so-called labor.

[slapshot]

Increased mechanization is definitely the way to go. Of course, as so-called labor starts making increasing demands for its services, it makes it that much easier, from the cost perspective, to replace said so-called labor.

Increased robotisization is the future. No question about that.

For one actual example they highlighted on 60 Minutes, the robots in this plant did the work of two people, and had a life expectancy of about 5 years. Factoring in the cost for the robot, along with other misc costs, such as electricity, the operating and depreciation cost, per robot, was $3.45/hr. The employer also need not pay health, social security and retirements costs. The conclusion was....that's about what a laborer in China makes.

At some point, these types of jobs, that can be done by robots, will return to the US.

[dsummoner]

Increased robotisization is the future. No question about that.

For one actual example they highlighted on 60 Minutes, the robots in this plant did the work of two people, and had a life expectancy of about 5 years. Factoring in the cost for the robot, along with other misc costs, such as electricity, the operating and depreciation cost, per robot, was $3.45/hr. The employer also need not pay health, social security and retirements costs. The conclusion was....that's about what a laborer in China makes.

At some point, these types of jobs, that can be done by robots, will return to the US.

While it may be semantics, certain functions may indeed return to a domestic basis, as you indicated in your original post, on a mechanized basis. When it comes to functions for which a globalized production basis is apt, the process will be dynamic in nature. Foreign based providers of equivalent functionality through human labor will have to adjust their cost of labor, downward, accordingly, in order to compete. One certainly does see the potential for growth in the highly specialized sectors related to robotics both on the manufacturing side and on the service side.

The real revolution happens, however, when it comes to functionality in regards to the labor side of the domestic services market. Replacing the functionality of labor intensive but semi-skilled tasks of cleaning, food preparation and planting/harvesting of certain agricultural commodities will be a profound change for this country.

[slapshot]

While it may be semantics, certain functions may indeed return to a domestic basis, as you indicated in your original post, on a mechanized basis. When it comes to functions for which a globalized production basis is apt, the process will be dynamic in nature. Foreign based providers of equivalent functionality through human labor will have to adjust their cost of labor, downward, accordingly, in order to compete. One certainly does see the potential for growth in the highly specialized sectors related to robotics both on the manufacturing side and on the service side.

The real revolution happens, however, when it comes to functionality in regards to the labor side of the domestic services market. Replacing the functionality of labor intensive but semi-skilled tasks of cleaning, food preparation and planting/harvesting of certain agricultural commodities will be a profound change for this country.

We are in full agreement.

If you get a chance, watch a re-run of 60 Minutes. If you have the iPad, there is a 60 Minutes app to watch all the episodes. Free. The 60 minutes story on robotics was interesting to me from the economics aspect. I'm a EE, so pretty aware of all the technologies involved with making robots. But I never thought about what it could mean to (perhaps) bringing some manufacturing back to the US, because we could now compete on the manufacturing cost, vis a vi, robotic manufacturing.

I also hadn't realized how many different markets that robotics had penetrated - from medicine, law, to education. and, of course, manufacturing.

[Baltimatt]

Here's the link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138922n

[skeemer]

Even better news will be when I can begin the transformation to cyborg.

[The Eternal White Belt]

If you believe Kurzweil, you should be around to partake in such modifications.

[Wild Eyed Southern Boy]

Even better news will be when I can begin the transformation to cyborg.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. You must comply.

[dsummoner]

We are in full agreement.

If you get a chance, watch a re-run of 60 Minutes. If you have the iPad, there is a 60 Minutes app to watch all the episodes. Free. The 60 minutes story on robotics was interesting to me from the economics aspect. I'm a EE, so pretty aware of all the technologies involved with making robots. But I never thought about what it could mean to (perhaps) bringing some manufacturing back to the US, because we could now compete on the manufacturing cost, vis a vi, robotic manufacturing.

I also hadn't realized how many different markets that robotics had penetrated - from medicine, law, to education. and, of course, manufacturing.

This discussion takes me back to the days of yore.

My undergraduate was in ME and included manufacturing engineering (hence the familiarity with G Code). There was also a bit of EE with circuits, linear systems and signals analysis, control theory and mathematical modeling of biological systems. My graduate work for my first graduate degree turned out being a mix of the biological sciences (gross anatomy, neuroanatomy and physiology), applied EE (biomedical signal processing, the engineering aspect of neuroscience, EE techniques for modeling physiological systems), some ME (fracture mechanics and advanced robotics) and one CE class thrown in for good measure (finite element analysis). The rest of it was the research side trying to meld all of these areas into a coherent body of work.

[dsummoner]

Even better news will be when I can begin the transformation to cyborg.

You will need to perform an Eigendecompostion in order to achieve such greatness (along with avoiding Euler angles for your coordinate transformations... or perhaps avoiding the Eigendecomposition altogehter by using the appropriate numerical methods for evaluating your full 6-DOF rigid body dynamics problem).

As I have become wizened with wisdom of the futility and limitations of always seeking the closed form analytic solutions to problems... I have come to appreciate numerical methods (especially the simplicity of direct time integration for fast-transient non-linear analysis). Hell... even a simple three degree of freedom discrete element problem, with the nodes connected by simple Kelvin-Voigt elements, for which one specifies differing stiffness and damping values for the load and unload paths, requires a numerical solution.

[dogstarman]

Increased robotisization is the future. No question about that.
,,,,
At some point, these types of jobs, that can be done by robots, will return to the US.

These jobs will be performed by robots in "low-cost geographies" as well. The only thing that will bring back the manufacturing is if transportation becomes expensive enough to consider production in the target countries.

[Up2DaRack]

These jobs will be performed by robots in "low-cost geographies" as well. The only thing that will bring back the manufacturing is if transportation becomes expensive enough to consider production in the target countries.

Robotics and highly mechanized, automated production lines will return to the US based on logistics of abundant raw materials and cheap readily available energy. Those factors favor and put the US pretty high on the list. The workers who will be affected the most will likely be the Chinese laborers, who will be replaced by robots. The US workers have already been displaced, though the return of manufacturing in this fashion may create a few jobs, though not in the proportion folks might be thinking of with the return of manufacturing here.

Society will be quite interesting two or three generations from now.

[Fang]

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. You must comply.

LOL You beat me to it.

7 of 9. Hot.

[slapshot]

This discussion takes me back to the days of yore.

My undergraduate was in ME and included manufacturing engineering (hence the familiarity with G Code). There was also a bit of EE with circuits, linear systems and signals analysis, control theory and mathematical modeling of biological systems. My graduate work for my first graduate degree turned out being a mix of the biological sciences (gross anatomy, neuroanatomy and physiology), applied EE (biomedical signal processing, the engineering aspect of neuroscience, EE techniques for modeling physiological systems), some ME (fracture mechanics and advanced robotics) and one CE class thrown in for good measure (finite element analysis). The rest of it was the research side trying to meld all of these areas into a coherent body of work.

While they didn't mention it in the 60 Minutes episode, two very important technological advances (over the last 10-15 years) have made robotics more functional/useful and affordable to the work place - better/longer lived batteries and wireless. I work in wireless, and it's becuase all of these robots can be tasked to do certain things from a central computer, via a wireless com link, that makes command and control affordable and attractive.

That, and the evolution of smaller, faster and cheaper micro-controllers (CPU's, if you will). More and more micro-controllers are coming with (ie, integrated with) wireless chips, of one form or another. Look how the ability to take and move pictures (wirelessly) on your smart phone, almost killed off the market for those small, hand-held cameras (e.g., Nikon Cool Pix, Canon, etc)....that use to require plugging into your computer to download the pictures you took. Nobody wants to plug anything in, anymore.

[slapshot]

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. You must comply.

The Borg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8


Actually, more like Skynet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DQsG3TKQ0I

[Spot72]

Interesting article. I think this is partly about repetitive, precise, monotonous, routine processes that workers don't like, can't do uniformly, aren't stimulated to do. There's no artificial intelligence yet that can replace decision making, quality inspecting and independent action taking of humans in the myriad anomalies of everyday living. I would like to see the grammatical writing, simplified constructions, quicker actions that robots promise. Business has already charged full speed ahead automating jobs formerly done by laid off workers and upgrading equipment for heavy, distasteful and difficult processes people don't like.

Look at big agriculture business, heavy equipment manufacturing, precision electronics construction and media publication to see improvements. Harvesters are satellite controlled; heavy duty cranes lift ship components into place, nano-sized medications and electronic devices are ubiquitous. Planning, building, maintaining and programming robots are the 21st century jobs--workers get more training. Unions--establish standards to merit pay in new fields with robotics foundations.

Thanks for sharing.

[flyboy56]

My father told me that if you could fix things you would always be able to find work.

[SemiAuto]

Increased robotisization is the future. No question about that.

For one actual example they highlighted on 60 Minutes, the robots in this plant did the work of two people, and had a life expectancy of about 5 years. Factoring in the cost for the robot, along with other misc costs, such as electricity, the operating and depreciation cost, per robot, was $3.45/hr. The employer also need not pay health, social security and retirements costs. The conclusion was....that's about what a laborer in China makes.

At some point, these types of jobs, that can be done by robots, will return to the US.

Not to mention that if something bad happens to the robot you won't get sued by it.

I'd like to see dangerous operations like coal mining done more by robots.

[slapshot]

These jobs will be performed by robots in "low-cost geographies" as well. The only thing that will bring back the manufacturing is if transportation becomes expensive enough to consider production in the target countries.

Well, actually, the move back has already started for some companies, ie, Remington (the shaver company) for one (had been in China).


Robots are a great equalizer to low wages and non-existent benefits paid in most Asian counties.