Given the last post about the displacement of human workers and the consequences, as well as my long running commentary on the long term destruction of human labor we have the following:
Foxconn, which assembles iPhones and iPads and many other consumer products, including Android devices, wants to increase the use of automation "at its factories amid challenges of rising labor costs and workplace disputes in China, where it has more than a million workers," the Journal noted. Poor working conditions for Foxconn employees has drawn condemnation, and in one case may have caused a riot that temporarily closed a factory.[My emphasis]
As I have been saying, the reasoning for the increasing use of robots and other forms of automation will be couched in terms of "labor costs" and "safety"
Foxconn's ambition to populate its factories with robots that can assemble electronics projects make the company an ideal testing ground for Google's robotics tech, analysts told the Journal.
And believe that it is not just Foxconn that has that ambition. There will be no patents needed. People will be let go here and there. A hundred at this factory. A thousand at another one. Friday firings when the news is asleep. Nobody notices the little drips, just ask a mechanic who has to tell his customer that there is no oil in the engine. It is then that the owner thinks about the "little bit" of oil that was always sitting in the car park.
