Apple Demands Suppliers Switch to Robotics for Manufacturing

hyperhello a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t have a good answer to someone saying this is either right or wrong.

Society needs simple jobs that people can build lives around. But we can’t build policy around forcing those jobs to exist.

When the expectation that you should have a house, a job, a family and everything else becomes unavailable, what then?

	▲	MBCook a day ago \| parent [-]
		I know what you mean. This seems like an argument for universal basic income. People clearly need money. But I don’t like the idea of people forced to stand around doing the same little thing over and over all day. It’s just a recipe for RSI, and as many of us here on HN know that’s not fun. Seems like those people could be put to work doing something better if a robot can do that job. Creative things, human things, whatever. I like the idea of automating more things. But I agree we need a solution for the people who are displaced. To make their lives better. Just dumping them in the corner without money certainly isn’t an improvement.

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tibbydudeza 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There goes the screw assemblers from the US.

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pstuart a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apple has a history of embracing robotics, so this is in line with their DNA (circa 1984): https://thenextweb.com/news/steve-jobs-designed-apple-factor...

This also implies that the work could be onshored if the supply chain can handle it.

As @hyperhello pointed out: automation comes at a cost of lost jobs and we need to figure out how to make an automated society work that is not completely dystopian. My hopes are tempered in that regard.

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MBCook a day ago | parent [-]

You’d still have the issues of needing all those individual parts to assemble, which are likely all from China already.

	▲	pstuart a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, that was my point about the supply chain.

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animitronix a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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