Future World in 2030?

[Haagen Diaz]

Chinese Company Continues Plan To Replace Workforce With 500,000 Robots | Singularity Hub


How to deal with the rising cost of running your factory? Get rid of all those inefficient humans and hire robots instead. Citing labor shortage and rising wages Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, recently announced that it intends to build a robot-making factory and replace 500,000 workers with robots over the next three years.

Supervisors will never have to hear about bathroom breaks again.

Hon Hai, parent company of manufacturing giant Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone and iPad for Apple as well as products for Sony and Nokia. Hon Hai already has 10,000 robots busy at work in its factories, and they’re not wasting any time with their plan to increase the number of robots to one million by 2013. Earlier this month the company announced their plans to build a $3.3 billion “intelligent” technology park in Taichung, Taiwan. That intelligence will come from CNC (computerized numerically controlled) devices, servo drivers and motors, and robots.

Part of the driving force behind the company’s robotization is China’s booming economy. With about 800,000 employees and a yearly revenue of about $60 billion, Foxconn may be largest electronics maker. The company has made its name largely on cheap national labor. But as China’s economic growth has led to increases in worker wages and, at the same time, increased demand for the electronics that Hon Hai makes. Hon Hai’s company chairman Terry Gou, among China’s richest men, spoke at a ceremony where he signed a letter of intent to invest $3.3 billion in greater Taichung. He said the robots will increase the production value of Foxconn by about $4 billion over the next three to five years and create about 2,000 new jobs.

Rumors in the past had pointed to FRIDA as Foxconn’s robot of choice, made by the Swiss robotics company ABB. But evidently Foxconn isn’t going to wait around for the robots to come to them. And considering the sheer number of robots they plan on building and putting in their factories, it makes more sense for the company to custom-design and build themselves. The program’s initial cost is estimated to be about $223 million, but it should pay off in the long run.


After a spate of jumping suicides, Foxconn began setting up nets like these.

Foxconn is long due for some positive change. A string of suicides at several Foxconn campuses have drawn international scrutiny and criticism. The companies factories are models of efficiency, with a production line scheme designed in such a way that “no worker will rest even one second,” Li Quang, executive director of the labor rights group China Labor Watch, told the New York Times. Between March and May of 2010 nine Foxconn employees leapt to their deaths from Foxconn factory rooftops. Foxconn responded by installing catch nets around their high-risk buildings. Over the past 15 months 14 Foxconn workers have died in what looks to be suicides. Of course, installing half a million robots will most likely lead to much of Foxconn’s workforce looking for other jobs. But the company insists its intention is not to replace humans, but to move humans from jobs that are “dangerous and monotonous” and free them up to do jobs that take more thoughtful research and development. I’ll believe that when I see it.

If his workers might not be, Gou is certainly excited about his company’s coming robot revolution. “The investment marks the beginning of Hon Hai’s bid to build an empire of robots,” read a statement from the Central Taiwan Science Park authorities. At the ceremony, Gou declared that Hon Hai will build an “intelligent robotics kingdom” in the coming years.

“Empire of robots”…”robotics kingdom”…I wonder if Mr. Gou has some bigger plans for his army of robots. Sorry, probably a bad choice of words.

When the robots roll out onto the factor floor, they’ll join the warehouse floor-scooting Kiva and other robots that are revolutionizing industry automation. Pretty soon it’s going be strange to see a human on a factory floor. But at least they’ll still need humans to do the more intelligent and creative decision-making jobs. You know, the kind that Watson is studying for right now.

 

[Providence]

then we will have to starve to death or you will see riots and fights breaking out in Singapore (survival of the fittest) which i think most Singaporeans will not survive, when compared to pinoys/prcs

Any civil uprising or riot will be put down severely by the military forces. Please remember that all the military officers own their careers to the government. Including the NCOs as well. The NSmen may refuse to fire upon the civilians but most of them are afraid of dire consequences in disobeying orders and insurbordination. We are brought up in a way to fear the regime in my opinion.

 

[Providence]

Hmm...I'm afraid so. Sigh. Many people protest at the White Paper so it could be more likely that robots will be "imported" from Japan to solve the aging population.

What if the robots break down during the service to people?

The US military is trying out whether robots can be fully utilized for warfare in the near future so that the casualty rate on the foot soldiers can be reduced drastically. I guess the use of robots for commercial and industrial purposes will be realized soon enough.

That is why my friends always say there is nothing impossible on this world. It is just a matter of time, money, determination and know-how.

 

[cherry6]

Regulating tightly 'not always feasible- PM Lee.

When the banks fail, Singapore will surely follow suit....
...
PM Lee has already alluded to using SG reserves to bail out banks: too big to fail and too big to jail: they just have to threaten collapse at the same time for the doors of the MAS treasury to be opened:
Lee Hsein Loong: "'if all the banks threaten to die at the same time, governments cannot help but go and rescue them', as they did in 2008 and 2009." ['Regulating tightly 'not always feasible'' (ST 08Oct2012)]
...
PM Lee loves his 'too big to fail, too big to jail' banks, so when banks fail, Singapore will surely if not automatically, follow suit.
...

Full text of 'Regulating tightly 'not always feasible'' as follows:

News: The Straits Times - 8 October 2012
Regulating tightly 'not always feasible'
by Elgin Toh
THE desire to regulate banks more tightly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis is understandable but not always practicable, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last night.

The pressure in the West to separate commercial banking from investment banking, for example, might in reality be impossible, he argued. The latter is "intrinsic to the financial system", he said.
In his response to a question on bank regulation at a dialogue session with Kiwi businessmen last night, Mr Lee weighed in on a debate raging in developed nations, especially ones where taxpayers' money have been used to bail out banks, to the outrage of many.
One argument is that a wall should be built between the safer commercial banking functions - that mainly involve taking deposits and giving out loans - and the more risky sort that hedge funds and investment banks engage in - which Mr Lee said sometimes amounted to "gambling".
The viability of commercial banks is then effectively guaranteed by the government to prevent any possible meltdown of the whole financial system. The latter, however, must be allowed to fail if they make the wrong bets.
Mr Lee expressed his scepticism with this argument yesterday, pointing out that "financial markets have variegated into all kinds of sophisticated activities, products, derivatives, investment activities, trading - and the (commercial banks) are also in these".
"It's very hard to draw a line," he said.
Furthermore, "if all the banks threaten to die at the same time, governments cannot help but go and rescue them", as they did in 2008 and 2009.
The Singapore Government's approach was therefore to accept that mishaps were in the nature of the capitalist system, and to build up the nation's reserves instead, in anticipation of such events.
In the 2008 crisis, said Mr Lee, Singapore could do the "right thing" and protect jobs by helping employers with Central Provident Fund payments because the reserves were there. Singapore was also fortunate that the storm passed relatively quickly, he said.
"Next time, better make sure we have got ammunition and powder dry, ready for a crisis."
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/content/pmosi...tober/regulating_tightlynotalwaysfeasible.htm

PS: this article is quoted in:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/c...g-govt-save-money-4460974-3.html#post81285057

 

[weerock]

I guess the time when robots are fully utilized, is also the time when nature reaches extinction.

 

[Providence]

In my opinion, the full deployment of robots in real life will be used for military purposes first.

By then, you don't need humans to fight wars physically. Just deploy battalions of robotic tanks, humanoid robotic soldiers and robotic aircrafts to the battlefields. Everything will be either remote-controlled or pre-programmed.

The Age of Cybernetics will be upon us but we may not see it in our lifetimes but it will definitely happen in the future.