260516
Monitoring AI and hyper-automation
Apple and
Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory
workers with robots. From BBC
:
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One factory has "reduced
employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the
introduction of robots", a government official told the
South China Morning Post. Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the
Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow
suit."
China is investing heavily in a
robot workforce. In a statement to the BBC, Foxconn Technology
Group confirmed that it was automating "many of the
manufacturing tasks associated with our operations" but
denied that it meant long-term job losses.
[...]
Since September 2014, 505 factories
across Dongguan, in the Guangdong province, have invested 4.2bn
yuan (£430m) in robots, aiming to replace thousands of workers.
[...]
Economists have issued dire warnings
about how automation will affect the job market, with one report,
from consultants Deloitte in partnership with Oxford University,
suggesting that 35% of jobs were at risk over the next 20 years.
Former McDonald's chief executive Ed
Rensi recently told the US's Fox Business programme a minimum-wage
increase to $15 an hour would make companies consider robot
workers. "It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm
than it is to hire an employee who is inefficient, making $15 an
hour bagging French fries," he said.
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Adidas
unveils new factory in Germany that will use machines to make shoes
instead of humans in Asia. From Guardian
:
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Adidas, the German maker of
sportswear and equipment, has announced it will start marketing
its first series of shoes manufactured by robots in Germany from
2017.
More than 20 years after Adidas
ceased production activities in Germany and moved them to Asia,
chief executive Herbert Hainer unveiled to the press the group’s
new prototype “Speedfactory” in Ansbach, southern Germany. The
4,600-square-metre plant is still being built but Adidas opened it
to the press, pledging to automate shoe production – which is
currently done mostly by hand in Asia – and enable the shoes
to be made more quickly and closer to its sales outlets.
[...]
Large-scale production will begin in
2017 and Adidas was planning a second “Speed Factory” in the
United States in the same year, said Hainer.
[...]
In the longer term Adidas is
planning to build robot-operated factories in Britain or in
France, and could even produce the shirts of Germany’s national
football team in its home country, said Hainer. The shoes made in
Germany would sell at a similar price to those produced in Asia,
he said.
Adidas is facing rising
production costs in Asia where it employs around one million
workers. Arch-rival Nike is also developing its robot-operated
factory.
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Totally
confirmed what has been already reported
two years ago:
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Yanis Varoufakis in his article "What if the
capital of future doesn't need us?", describes what he saw in
Austin-Texas and what that means:
“While
I was watching from my window in Austin-Texas, I saw a big cloud
of dust deep in horizon. Two days ago, I was walking in that area
and I was surprised by the view of the big factory where
bulldozers and machines were continuously working, producing the
dust. From the front side of the building under construction it
was obvious that (fortunately) they were not building a new trade
center or apartment blocks. No, it was a big industrial center.”
“Although
I didn't notice it the first time, after a few seconds I realised
that something was missing from this factory: people!
Specifically, I counted three. All of them were wearing helmets
and protection suits and were located in a small office in a space
outside with a few computers, while they were covered by a tent
like those used by the army. Ten bulldozers, three cranes and more
or less ten moving tools, at least from what I could see, were
moving without drivers, operators, workers generally.”
“When
I returned to my office, I went straight to find a colleague who
knows well what's going on. He informed me that the workplace I
saw, was the new factory of Apple to produce MacBook Pro. It was
true that, it was constructed through almost complete
automatization. The materials had been selected through a way with
which, the automatic machines - therefore robots connected to
eachother through a local wireless network (intranet) - to be able
to construct without human interference - even the hydraulic
structure of the building will be constructed by plumpers-robots.
A factory that under normal conditions should employ thousands of
workers is functioning with the presence of less than one hundred
souls.”
“I asked him about the move of
Apple to produce computers in America, by bringing back in the US
the production from China for the first time after decades. 'How's
that?' And the answer was the expected one, although quite
impressive: 'Wages are of no
importance. The export of productive processes from America to
China (off-shoring) was only an intermediate stage. The production
has returned to America, but not the jobs. The new factory of
Apple, not only is constructed without American workers' sweat,
but will also produce MacBook Pro through complete automatization,
without hiring Texans. Welcome to the New, Brave World',
ended with a smile, referring obviously to the Brave New World of
Aldous Huxley.”
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Coming faster than we thought:
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The general conclusions from the
report The
Future of Jobs, of the 2016 World Economic
Forum, leave little room for optimistic thoughts about the future.
They reflect what already most of us have realized: that the
combination of the current socio-economic model with the rapid
hyper-automation of production, lead to further imbalance and
inequality in favor of the very few. [...] The study estimates
that there will be no “widespread societal upheaval—at
least up until the year 2020”, due to the takeover of
jobs by artificial intelligence, but is this realy a reason not to
worry seriously? Think about it: 2020 is only four years from now!
Say, at the end of the new US presidency.
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On the
occasion of a latest report
by Oxfam:
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... the loss of jobs in other
sectors due to hyper-automation creates oversupply of available
workforce. The machines are pushing towards a fierce competition
between the workers who seek desperately for a job in sectors that
are still occupied by human labor. But this is only an
intermediate stage as robots will soon occupy these positions too.
[...] The description in Oxfam's report is characteristic. Humans
are denied even basic needs and pushed towards robotic behavior.
The phrase “Workers are reduced to pieces of the machine,
little more than the body parts that hang, cut, trim, and load
...”, shows characteristically that workers in the US do not
have to compete with other cheap labor abroad anymore, but with a
workforce which appears to be unbeatable: hyper-automated
machines.
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