I was reading an issue of Forbes, and the cover story was about one of the inventors of the Roomba, I think it was Rodney Brooks. He had developed a mass producible, amazingly affordable, easily programmable industrial robot. In essence, it was just a robotic arm like the kind you see making cars. However, this was a sub $800 dollar arm, that you programmed just by scanning what you want it to pick up, and moving it once the way you want it to move over and over. They talked about how revolutionary this was, the near infinite applications in warehouses and manufacture plants, but while they were obviously aware of it, they strayed from the thousands, maybe millions of jobs this would destroy. This robot can do any factory worker's job, for a one time purchase that's what, only a month's pay for a human? People would be out of jobs. All because of one brilliant computer science/electric engineer.

Is doing this right or wrong? It's the ongoing question.

I say, usher in the singularity already and let us all be machines!

Woo!

EDIT: It was indeed Rodney Brooks, but it was actually Inc. Magazine. Info here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201210/david-h-freedman/the-rise...

TL;DR Roomba inventor makes factory robot. This will clearly run hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs.