MOREFoxconn, an electronics manufacturer from Taiwan with huge factories in China, generates about 40 percent of the global consumer electronics revenue by creating things like iPhones and computer components on giant assembly lines staffed by humans. Until recently, you'd probably never heard of Foxconn, but a series of worker suicides made us all take a hard look at where our electronics were coming from. Foxconn has made some improvements (including nets around tall buildings), but by all accounts, the core of the problem (the work) remains "repetitive, exhausting, and alienating."
Yesterday, Foxconn announced (at an employee dance party of all places) that they're planning on buying some robots to replace their human workforce. And by some robots, they mean one million robots over the next three years. So for every one robot Foxconn currently has working at their manufacturing plants, they're going to buy a hundred more.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Foxconn To Replace Human Workers With One Million Robots
Via Global Guerrillas
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One word: WOW!
ReplyDeleteAh, the joys of working in a "worker's paradise" like Communist China. Suicide is preferable to slavery.
ReplyDeleteAt the company Christmas party in 2003, at the company where I worked as a contract programmer, the (Indian) VP announced that "by this time next year, most of our engineering will be in India". I think he was expecting applause from the (mostly) engineers and programmers in the audience.
At least, so far, programming has to be done by humans. The problem is so much of it has been moved offshore that many like myself are looking for manual labor jobs to subsist.
At least, so far, programming has to be done by humans. The problem is so much of it has been moved offshore that many like myself are looking for manual labor jobs to subsist.
ReplyDeleteWow is right and it doesn't look like these jobs will ever come back.