For an unvarnished view of how some American leaders talk about automation in private, you have to listen to their counterparts in Asia, who often make no attempt to hide their aims. Terry Gou, the chairman of the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, has said the company plans to replace 80 percent of its workers with robots in the next five to 10 years. Richard Liu, the founder of the Chinese e-commerce company JD.com, said at a business conference last year that “I hope my company would be 100 percent automation someday.”

user-inactivated:

They're automating my facility at work. It occurred to me today, while I was getting paid to loaf around because the automated system ate shit yet again: I don't recall seeing much investigation of bad automation will affect society. Some of it will be poorly done. That's just life. Even when our system is ostensibly working, I'm suddenly getting paid to walk 5-6 miles a day trying to find places that the system has been able to deliver work at a worthwhile rate.

Union walking pace.

On a 5 hour shift. Labor controlling, that ain't.

I'd wager that looking back on this period, we'll see that automation initiatives won't be anywhere near parity between companies within a single industry. And that further consolidation of employers will result.

posted 1909 days ago