replacing workers with smart machines

Robot-Run Factory Specializes in 3-D Custom Printing

Behold: the future of manufacturing is within view! The good news is that it will occur mostly in the United States (and other areas of tech expertise); the bad news is very few human workers will be needed.

Below, a robotic arm tends a cluster of nine 3-D printers in the automated factory.

Yoo hoo, government and captains […]

Collaborative Manufacturing Robot Is Introduced

Industrial robot manufacturers have a marketing problem: they want potential customers to be able to purchase the labor-saving machines without frightening the hired help. If employees think they are about to be replaced by a smart machine, unpleasant workplace tensions might result.

So manufacturers have to adjust their language to a non-threatening vocabulary. One choice has […]

Future Automation Plans Include Ocean Shipping

The death by a thousand cuts continues to shrink the employment universe even in the rather obscure maritime sector, where few people seek jobs at sea any more. A recent report noted that Japanese firms are planning an automation remodel for ocean-going cargo ships, just like the self-driving cars nobody asked for. Japanese shipbuilders intend […]

California Pol Gavin Newsom Seeks Governorship, Frets over Automation

Gavin Newsom is the sort of serial politician that many citizens wish would give it a rest, because he was mayor of San Francisco for eight years and since 2010 has occupied the post of California lieutenant governor. Playing second banana to Governor Jerry Brown has been a rather low-visibility gig, so he may be looking […]

Left Media Admits Automation May Affect Need for Immigrant Farm Workers

It’s nearly summer and that means the time has come for media boilerplate articles about a shortage of immigrant workers down on the farm — so couldn’t Washington kindly arrange for a few hundred thousand to be sent to California?? Right on schedule, a Google News search (which covers the last 30 days of listings) […]

Automated 3-D Knitter-Printer Can Produce a Custom Blazer in 90 Minutes

The high-tech 3D printers do amazing things these days, like building a house in a day. Now the smart machine revolution is moving into clothing production.

A recent report explained how a new machine can pop out a custom knitted blazer in 90 minutes. A customer can punch a few buttons to chose fabric, design and […]

Amazon Pursues More Advanced Robotics

Wired’s video below, sketching out the automated future vis-a-vis jobs, uses the idea that smart machines are helpful collaborative robots, or “co-bots” that allow humans to work more efficiently. But that relationship will end when the machines become able to replicate human abilities and perform them far more cheaply.

One of the bumps along the road for roboticists […]

Silicon Valley Newspaper Floats Free Money Idea to Remedy Robot Job Loss

Sunday’s San Jose Mercury had a front-page article (graphic shown) about the possibility of instituting a universal basic income to remedy the huge job loss predicted from automation. As usual, nobody promoting the idea has any suggestion of how the government would finance the trillions of dollars annually required. Perhaps a start would be to […]

Robots Threaten Millions of Retail Jobs

Tech experts all say that simple jobs are the easiest to automate. Therefore we can expect to see a lot more self-checkout when shopping. How hard is it to scan bar codes and calculate the total cost? My local Safeway added several DIY checkout stations a couple years ago in a major remodel.

Self-checkout — get […]

Report Explores the ‘Human Cost’ of Automation

The video piece from an Albany, New York, TV station starts out well enough, showing how automation is moving into jobs like supermarket checkout, restaurant cashier and cab driving.

But the piece wanders into sketchy territory when it poses a hopeful retraining message. Certainly the schools need to teach more tech-oriented curricula that will prepare young […]

President Trump Approves of Continuing Big Immigration

It was disappointing, although not entirely surprising to read President Trump’s disinterest in limiting legal immigration, as remarked in a May 11 Economist interview and quoted by Mark Krikorian in National Review:

Do you want to curb legal immigration?
Oh sure, you know, I want to stop illegal immigration.

And what about legal immigration? Do you want to […]

San Francisco Considers Robot Tax to Counter Job Loss

San Francisco County Supervisor Jane Kim is investigating how a tax on robots might help to mitigate the job destruction of the coming automated workplace, perhaps following the suggestion of Microsoft founder Bill Gates who recommended a few months ago that job-killing robots should be taxed.

Is this not an ironic turn of politics? The famously […]

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Limits to Growth