Fastening, Joining & Assembly

Is this really helping? I mean yea its helping the big wigs of the company but is it a solution to the problem? The problem is the loss of jobs from these companies sending the work overseas. All this is doing is changing the job market altogether--as well as shrinking it, and i don't think that the people who held jobs in these sorts of factories would be able to service this kind of machinery without expensive education...

Hi palooka.

Here in the UK we have had this problem for years now. The car industry uses robots to weld the body parts together, this replaced several thousand men in each car manufacturer! But the problem is that it is extremely difficult for these men to find work these days, and our governement is complaining that there are too many on receiving state handouts!

Spencer.

Yes, where I am from--Vermont USA--the problem is more that labor is shipped in to work on farms, but i view this as a similar to labor being shipped over seas from large factories elsewhere in the US. What has been happening in the last few years, is much of farming is becoming automated, such as the milking and herding of cows, and the labor force--typically illegal Mexican immigrants--gets dumped from their job, and their home (Most farm workers get an average of 85% of the wage as payment for farm housing-- essentially bypassing minimum wage laws.) So when a farm switches over to automation 1000's of Mexicans--many not able to speak English--are stuck with no home, no incoming money, and have families dependent week to week on that paycheck that is no longer coming in.

Automation causes a big mess, and that big mess is generally the discharge of many many workers that are unable to recover without large personal hardships whether they live in USA, China, Mexico, UK, or any of the other countries affected by this. Solution...?

Automation is the future of manual labor tasks. Yes it causes painful job losses, but we (USA) can't compete with almost 'starvation wages' abroad and south of the border. The major issue is that the USA is falling behind the 'intelligence curve' in math, science and computer science. Too many drop-outs; not enough emphasis on math/science. Too many 'bad' roll models (sports figures) and not enough good ones (Clarence Thomas, John Glenn, etc.). Kids think it's fun and games and don't understand 'work'. We can't take the lead or maintain the lead in any advanced subject (medical research also) if we don't have trained scientists. No scientists if no higher education. No higher education in math/science if it's a negative role; mostly portrayed by news media.

IMHO~!

Skip Stein

IQ-Home

Hi IQ-Home.

I can remember way back in the 1960s that it was stated that robots would take over all manufacturing jobs in the future?

This statement then begs the question, " Who pays the workers they replace?" This is a very serious question, of course the workers building the robots get payed by the company producing robots, until robots take over their jobs?

The question itself is one of ethics, is it ethical to replace workers with robots?

At the present time robots have to be programmed, in other words, they have no soul. But what if in the future these robots where self programmed? It would lead to mayhem.

The worlds population is growing all the time, except that there is an upward limit! So who is to feed them, house them etc etc, if not the workers themselves. So universal robots in my mind is a no-go!

Spencer.

First I want to consider your point on how the US can't compete with other countries wages. Do you think that automation is going to help the US compete? Suddenly You are going to have an immense amount of people without jobs and dependent on government help. Where is this government money coming from to help these people--the only people left working. Thus the government is taxing the people that are still working, and there are less of those people so taxes go up and those people are making comparatively a lot less. This of course doesn't help motivate anyone to go through the economical pain of college to land a job that you don't make that much in--thanks to taxes--especially when you could lay back and take government funds and do as you wish, not be tied to a daily work schedule or have college loans. If you seek to create an extreme line between the rich the working/"smart" and the poor/"dumb", automation sounds like a wondrous plan.

As to what you propose for emphasis on math and science, that emphasis is the problem--because school-age children feel like it is a set path and the only way to succeed is through college, yet all around them everyone they see is surviving--some better than others, but surviving is possible without higher schooling and so they don't feel the need that is impressed on them by society to go through with school. I myself felt this need, and thrust myself right out of high school into college to pursue a degree because I felt it was needed and I was failing by not going to college. I went to RIT, and was learning bit by bit there. i then decided to look at my options because I realized the impression that society gave to me on life and started thinking there might be a flaw somewhere in my present situation. I then started searching and found a wonderful engineering firm that agreed to let me stay with them for a year as an intern.

Out of college I am learning more than I did in college.

This real world experience is by all means better than continuing school. The amount of pressure I had to go, and stay in college is unnerving. Not only was I forced to pursue school through this emphasis on math and science in school, but i felt overwhelmed by it. I didn't have the "bad" influences that dictated the path my life would take. I also didn't depend on particularly good ones to decide which way to go. I was just bullied into math and science until I got to that age where I started looking/thinking about things around me, as well as myself, and decided I needed to start doing my own thing not some "smart person path to glory." So If you say We need more emphasis on math and science, I think that is ridiculous. We need more emphasis on life, and thinking for yourself.

As to the US "falling behind"--is that such a bad thing? I mean will life suddenly cease to exist because we are not at the top of the ladder anymore? Did we ever deserve to be there in the first place, especially with our entire economy built off a morally unjust practice for many years, that completely goes against the US "land of the free, home of the brave?" consciousness? How does that play into the fact that we are "declining"? ---Maybe we are just "returning" to where we should be in the worldly scheme of things...

Palooka: If no one learns, there will be no one to teach in your Life scenario. Leading is not for everyone, but from my experience, there are still plenty of motivated young people that want a higher education for the sake of growing and understanding the world around them. The key to keeping the US competative and keeping the american dream alive is creativity. As for automation, where ever it's necessary to keep business in the US verses loose it altogether, it makes sence. Better some jobs and business that feed the US economy than none.

Hi ImakeM.

I am afraid that you in America will make the same mistake that we in Britain have, over here 40% of teenagers make it into university, the government wanted the figure to be 50%. Now we have the ridiculus situation where only 11% of graduates are getting any type of work that suits their qualifications! Why? it is simply that there is no need for so many university graduates, half of all the graduates are now working as shelf stackers in Asda or another supermarket!

Another falicy is that going to college or university gives you a better understanding of the world around you. Like palooka I quit college, then I joined the merchant navy as a marine engineering aprentice, by doing so I travelled the world and gained a good working insight into engineering and the workings of the world. After nine years hard slog I became a Chief engineer in the merchant navy.

Then after another two years I quit that job and became land based with an engineering company that sent me round the world as a marine engineer consultant! I was never without a job until I retired at 60. I have been in more countries than you can care to name, I have studied their ways and foibles to such an extent that no amount of university ever could!

Now back to robots and ethics etc, here in Britain we have a huge problem that is two pronged. First is that too many youngsters do not want to work when they leave school? Second is that for many there is not enough work for them, this has created a vast army of uneployed, 2,500,000 to date. The government is to blame for the first because they have not been hard enough on those that won't work (they pay them dole money), The government is also to blame for the second, they are to blame for the destruction of our manufacturing base.

So now you want them to bring on the robots? What then? There will be an even bigger army of unemployed people! The way to prosperity is to get everyone working, not to make machines to do the work for them!

Spencer.

This Blog has turned into 3 subjects.

1. Robotics vs. human laborers

2. Education vs. real life experience.

3. Pressure to learn math and science

In reply to subject #1, I think the big push is to manufacture products overseas. I'm already seeing this in my own company with our "high cost" items. It seams to be cheaper to just move the line overseas rather than to refit it with robotics. So, no, I don't think Robotics will "save" U.S. Manufacturers. However, I wonder what will happen in the future as more and more manufacturers are manufacturing products in overseas countries with cheaper labor. Will their labor costs rise as more manufacturers enter their country? Will the employees demand more pay increases? How will the competition play out? As for the U.S. job market, I beleive we are transitioning from manufacturing jobs to "service" type jobs (i.e. sales, food service, consulting, health care, repair work, etc.) These will be the jobs in higher demand.

In reply to subject #2, I agree a person will learn more out in the real world rather in the classroom. However, you will be limited by what degree you earn in school. Case in point, I myself went to a trade school that offered a Bachelor's degree. A lot of people told me I was wasting my money and that I should just stick with an Associate degree. Well, I went ahead and earned my Bachelor's. I entered the job market as a technician and I really liked the job (only an associate degree is needed for this job). As I was in this job, I saw that there were Engineer's didn't really know the praticalities of the manufacturing floor. Well, an engineering positioned opened up and I applied for it. I got that job because I had the floor experience AND the Bachelor's degree with it. If I didn't have the degree, I wouldn't have gotten hired. I would still be on the manufacturing floor today. My suggestion is to earn as high as a degree as you can. If you don't, you'll be working for a manager or taking direction from an engineer that doesn't have as much experience as you.

In reply to subject #3, I do believe that the government / society is partially to blame in stressing math and science as a set path for success. That may have been true 20 or 30 years ago but that's not true today. What they should have emphasised is business. Everything is relative to business to some sort of degree. If you're not selling a product, you're selling yourself in the job market. Learning market trends and how to adapt to those trends is a skill that everyone should learn. However, government / society did not force us to choose our current jobs. We chose our current jobs. If we decided to only listen to government / society and not explore other avenues of information before we make a decision of our career path, then we have ourselves to blame. Yes, the government / society gave us wrong information but we made a choice to accept that information without doing our own research. If we just do what the government / society tells us, aren't we just robots ourselves?

The problem with automation.

You save money by not paying a person, but now you have ten million dollar equipment that better be running non stop, or you are really loosing money.

The line can NOT stop! Produce anything we can sell at any cost!