Britannia Radio

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/business/new-wave-of-adept-robots-is-changing-global-industry.html?pagewanted=all

It means that full employment is a thing of the past.  Well, it has been for many years.  There are already robots that can do just about everything that people can do.  so why the demand for people to have to work?

In the past the innovators were people of leisure.  They had time to think and plan.  They were also usually people who were well off.

Now that can be true of everyone.  The future could be leisure, learning, arts and research.  

Most education via the net.  Most research discussion via the net.

So where does that leave capitalism?  Or any of the other -isms?

More importantly, is there a place for the individual bearing in mind that conception to destruction can be monitored and planned, DNA adjusted and mindset rewired at the whim of the controller, be it human or machine?

 

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: August 19, 2012

DRACHTEN, the Netherlands - At the Philips Electronics factory on the coast of China, hundreds of workers use their hands and specialized tools to assemble electric shavers. That is the old way.

At a sister factory here in the Dutch countryside, 128 robot arms do the same work with yoga-like flexibility. Video cameras guide them through feats well beyond the capability of the most dexterous human.

One robot arm endlessly forms three perfect bends in two connector wires and slips them into holes almost too small for the eye to see. The arms work so fast that they must be enclosed in glass cages to prevent the people supervising them from being injured. And they do it all without a coffee break - three shifts a day, 365 days a year.

All told, the factory here has several dozen workers per shift, about a tenth as many as the plant in the Chinese city of Zhuhai.

This is the future. A new wave of robots, far more adept than those now commonly used by automakers and other heavy manufacturers, are replacing workers around the world in both manufacturing and distribution. Factories like the one here in the Netherlands are a striking counterpoint to those used by Apple and other consumer electronics giants, which employ hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers.

"With these machines, we can make any consumer device in the world," said Binne Visser, an electrical engineer who manages the Philips assembly line in Drachten.