Efficiency makes society richer as a whole. If it takes fewer workers to build cars or whatever, that’s more workers available to do other stuff — like build schools and hospitals, design apps, or mow my lawn. For the same number of workers, getting cars plus apps is better than just getting cars.

As a side note, it’s funny reading the marxist/whatever comments. Several complaints that robots will put people out of work (which is an understandable short-term concern for those individuals), but then Bensabio complains that capitalists steal workers lives by employing them… so I guess employing robots instead of workers must make this marxist happy.

Also, I work in a town that was hit hard by the recession, yet my plant loses 2 to 3% of it’s workforce every week on average, due to people quitting. Our turnover is so high that human resources has to work overtime on weekends making hiring calls. I guess those “much needed” jobs aren’t that important when they only pay $10/hour. And we wonder why they’re being replaced by robots?

Another point: in 14 years of working in automated/semi-automated manufacturing plants, I have never seen anyone lose their job to a robot. Typically, manufacturers add robots to their processes as a means to increase their output while keeping their headcount the same. In the event that they do cut their headcount, they generally do it through attrition….which, as I pointed out in my previous paragraph, is rather easy.

So I guess the world should just stop all forward movement in technology and science because it may cause some displacement of workers right? I write ‘displacement’ because that is what it is. Someone has to make the robots in the first place. People will be required to engineer, design, source, market, sell, and maintain the machines.

The marxist left and union mentality is a fallacy of utopia that has always resulted in dyspotian societies. Just because you are too lazy to accept reality that your skillset (in the case of these robots that skill is categorized as “unskilled labor”) is no longer needed and that you should go learn something new to better yourself you want to cry like a baby and act like a victim so that government will step in to give you a handout. I guess the government should have subsidized the factories making and developing camera film and banned digital camera technology to protect the workers right?

Woody Tanaka So negative.
The robots price is decreasing $22,00 or less, in time robots will become an inexpensive commodity like the microwave, cell phone, PC etc.. There is nothing to stop you from getting in the market. Or buying the commodity priced robots and programming to build say; transmissions, electronic components, blenders, yo-yo’s, lawn maintenance most anything marketable.

How many of you would take a $4 an hour job? I couldn’t even get a craigslist handyman to come install the $9 ceiling fixture I bought the other day and i was offering $30. The job was too small and it was not worth their time. How many of you “displaced proletariet” think we should destroy all of the nation’s tractors so we can employ more people to plow our corn fields by hand for pennies a day? That would solve the unemployent problem, wouldn’t it? Perhaps you’d rather sit in front of your lap top and complain about the 1% while you sip your diet soda, purchased no doubt with either a “loan” from your mother or your trusty ebt card, than go out and get a job.

I’m with Romney. I’m sick of your complaining. If someone won’t hire you to build a chair, perhaps you should just build a chair and sell it on etsy or ebay or craigslist. If someone won’t hire you to install lighting fixtures full time with benefits and a pension, perhaps you should go install a lighting fixture for someone like me who only makes $45k a year, but would rather spend my days off with my family than crawling around in the attic.

I’m not the 1%, but I’m sick of hearing you people whine about how progress is going to make the proletariet suffer while you’re munching on Doritos in your parent’s basement.

Second, adding automation is not about making more profit, it’s about staying competitive, keeping your costs down and not losing customers. In other words, it’s about being able to sell your product for a LOWER price. Factories that have the proper automation will have much less overhead, meaning less cost per part, meaning that they will be able to offer their product for a lower price. Factories that do not automate will be underbid on contracts by their competitors that do. In the end, the consumer wins, because they can buy their widgets for less, but only if they’re not one of those poor saps who is out of a job because they have no skills.