Robots in demand in China as labour costs climb.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/upshot/danger-robots-working.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1
Quote:Robots have caused at least 33 workplace deaths and injuries in the United States in the last 30 years, according to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That may not sound like many, but the number may well understate the perils ahead.The Robot industry responds:http://www.robotics.org/content-detail.cfm/Industrial-Robotics-News/Response-to-New-York-Times-article-As-Robotics-Advances-Worries-of-Killer-Robots-Rise-by-John-Markoff-and-Claire-Cain-Miller/content_id/4853That's a useful link, because it lead me to this page:
Quote:A total of 5,938 robots valued at $338 million were ordered by companies in North America in first quarter 2014, coming in just shy of the all-time record of 6,235 robots valued at $385 million in fourth quarter 2012. Units ordered grew one percent while order dollars fell one percent when compared to first quarter 2013 figures. When sales by North American robot suppliers to companies outside North America are included, the totals are 6,491 robots valued at $372 million.[…]The automotive industry is still the largest customer for robotics in North America, representing 58% of total orders, but non-automotive industries have continued their rapid growth. The top industries in terms of growth for first quarter 2014 were food and consumer goods (+91%), plastics and rubber (+55%), and life sciences (+36%). “Robotics for use in non-automotive industries is a hot topic right now,” said Alex Shikany, Director of Market Analysis for RIA. “In total, the overall number of robots ordered for use in non-automotive industries grew 18% over first quarter 2013,” he added. […] RIA estimates that some 228,000 robots are now at use in United States factories, placing the US second only to Japan in robot use. “Many observers believe that only about 10% of the US companies that could benefit from robots have installed any so far,” Burnstein said, “A very large segment of small and medium sized companies who may have the most to gain are just now beginning to seriously investigate robotics.”Well, proof that killer robots are thoroughly moving out of the SF cupboard and into the real world, a UN report on their use:http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-47_en.pdf(Via the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Seriously. (http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/%5Dhttp://www.stopkillerrobots.org)).
Quote:Lethal autonomous robotics (LARs) are weapon systems that, once activated, canselect and engage targets without further human intervention. They raise far-reachingconcerns about the protection of life during war and peace. This includes the question of theextent to which they can be programmed to comply with the requirements of internationalhumanitarian law and the standard s protecting life under international human rights law.Beyond this, their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legalaccountability can be devised, and because robots should not have the power of life anddeath over human beings. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States establishnational moratoria on aspects of LARs, and calls for the establishment of a high levelpanel on LARs to articulate a policy for the international community on the issue.And, back to China:http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9d7f-China-Diary-1-2-3#.U_23rdjgdhc
Quote:Restaurants in China are sparking a craze for robot workers. At a noodle restaurant in Xiamen in east China’s Fujian Province, a robot chef repeatedly shaves dough into a boiling wok with efficiency and precision. A human simply wouldn't be able to keep up.The robot shaver, capable of making four bowls of noodles a minute, is also inexpensive. “A human shaver costs me at least 2,000 yuan (about £195) a month but the robot, working 10 hours a day, only costs 3kWh of power,” said Zheng Guozhao, owner of the restaurant.“In a year, the money saved from hiring cooks will be enough to buy two more robots,” he said, which is a telling comment on the labour situation in China, which used to have an abundance of low-paid workers.Probably not the right thread but i thought this might be of interesthttp://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/a-third-of-uk-jobs-to-be-replaced-by-robots-and-computers-in-next-20-years-9851119.htmlA third of British jobs to be lost over next 20 yrs due to robotics and nearly half of American jobs.
This article by Leo Lewis suggests that robots are not being introduced in China as fast as some have suggested as human labour is still cheaper:http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/columnists/chinainnumbers/article4242419.eceI imagine you can access the whole article, YMS, but even the bit everyone can see suggests what it is going to say.
Well, the article says that rather than a million robots, there's only been 50,000, so instead they are hiring 2,300 workers per day: it's suggested there have been teething problems, and that humans are still better at the intricate and varied work involved.
Quote:Industrial robots designed to do the sort of work that goes on at Foxconn cost about £30,000 apiece.Still, 50,000 robots is a lot…
War Robots are here (link)
Quote:Britain, Israel and Norway are already deploying missiles and drones that carry out attacks against enemy radar, tanks or ships without direct human control. After launch, so-called autonomous weapons rely on artificial intelligence and sensors to select targets and to initiate an attack.Britain’s “fire and forget” Brimstone missiles, for example, can distinguish among tanks and cars and buses without human assistance, and can hunt targets in a predesignated region without oversight. The Brimstones also communicate with one another, sharing their targets.Quote:On Sept. 16, 2011, for example, British warplanes fired two dozen Brimstone missiles at a group of Libyan tanks that were shelling civilians. Eight or more of the tanks were destroyed simultaneously, according to a military spokesman, saving the lives of many civilians.The genie is out of the bottle. There's no point hoping the troops will come over to the side of the revolution, they won't be programmed to.
Robots in demand…in Australia:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30098772
Quote:In a country where wages and living standards are high, there is a genuine need to put machines into jobs few humans want to do.Note the driverless trucks and trains. This is almost a textbook example. Jobs are displaced to the technicians/engineering end of the spectrum. Note, also, per some of my prognostications, the key is the labour shortage as a driver. China can draw on almost limitless cheap labour, and so can adopt the counter strategy, but Australia really is limitted.
And now, the streets of England:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30316458As well as testing the practicalities, the trials will road test insurance and financial implications. Of course, it will be years before we can download an app that summons a driverless car to take us wherever we want, I suspect in the meantime it will be coupled with human drivers: so black cab drivers already threatened by sat-nav are about to be made obsolete by driver plus computer cars. Mail delievry trucks, even some lorries will become automatic, so lorrie drivers will be deskilled.This is a tremendously disruptive technology.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30326384Interesting and useful peice here.
Quote:And that debate is given added urgency by the sheer pace of technological change. This week the UK government has announced three driverless car pilot projects, and Ben Medlock of Swiftkey sees an ethical issue with autonomous vehicles. "Traditionally we have a legal system that deals with a situation where cars have human agents," he explains. "When we have driverless cars we have autonomous agents… You can imagine a scenario when a driverless car has to decide whether to protect the life of someone inside the car or someone outside."Those kind of dilemmas are going to emerge in all sorts of areas where smart machines now get to work with little or no human intervention. Stephen Hawking's theory about artificial intelligence making us obsolete may be a distant nightmare, but nagging questions about how much freedom we should give to intelligent gadgets are with us right now.And if you can have that ability to make judgements, you can have the ability to kill as well…
In an article in today's Times by Ben MacIntyre entitled, echoing the that of one of our current talks, "Embrace the robots exterminating our jobs", writes (not echoing the content of our talk):
Quote:As machines increase productivity and profit, achieving higher output with fewer people, we may all have to work less and think more. With greater material comfort and more spare time, humanity can focus on creativity, imagination and thought. The Age of Enlightenment helped to forge the Industrial Revolution; the new industrial revolution could produce a new age of enlightenment.We've heard all this before. See this extract from an article in the Socialist Standard of fifty years ago:
Quote:A writer in Sunday Citizen (6 Dec. 1964), Mr. Stanley Baron, after he had talked "to the top brains in Britain; made the forecast that before the end of the century," in every industrial country, certainly in the West, most of the essential work will be performed by about 20 per cent of the people – chiefly the most intelligent. The rest of us will work only as much as we wish – or as much as society requires." This would, he wrote, call for new attitudes to work and leisure, new cities, new forms of educationThe whole article "Automation in Perspective" is well worth reading. Just change the title to "Robotisation in Perspective":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1965/no-725-january-1965/automation-perspective
http://theconversation.com/we-must-be-sure-that-robot-ai-will-make-the-right-decisions-at-least-as-often-as-humans-do-34985The above is by one of the participants in the pilot projects for autonomous machinery.
Quote:The EPSRC-supported research thgat we have recently launched at the universities of Sheffield, Liverpool and West of England in Bristol are trying to establish answers and solutions to these questions that will make autonomous robots safer. The three-year project will examine how to formally verify and ultimately legally certify robots' decision-making processes. Laying down methods for creating this will in fact help define a legal framework (in consultation with lawyers) that will hopefully allow the UK robotics industry to flourish."Can an industrial robot succeed both at removing the breast fillet from a chicken and at the same time get more out of the raw materials?"…..Since fish and poultry processors also happen to be better paid in Scandinavian countries than they are in the US and China, highly efficient machines are even more attractive to companies there than easily fatigued humans. …"Our aim is to automate absolutely everything we can think of on the food production line"http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/robotics/newsid=38385.phphttp://munchies.vice.com/articles/this-is-the-robotic-chicken-butcher-of-our-nightmares
i came across this article on the "smart factory"http://www.sdcexec.com/news/11796052/the-market-is-segmented-into-technology-as-product-lifecycle-management-manufacturing-execution-systems-and-industrial-automation
Quote:In the age of digital world, the smart manufacturing or smart factory is a bridge between the physical and digital world. The new age of industrial revolution is moving towards the cyber world in which every part of the value chain will be connected with in each to ensure informed manufacturing with zero defect and no time lags. The smart factory represents the absolute pinnacle of technological and manufacturing development, a perfect integration of high-tech tools and high-tech machinery.The article is sort of disappointing in that is merely a reference to a report and has no link except the title but i am sure if anyone is interested in deeper analysis, it can be tracked down
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