Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

[mesyn191]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

The Speciminder you refer to above costs $50,000 and only carries specimens.

Yes it was a similar unit but not the same one. The one we had was cheaper, less than half that price.

It doesn't load nor unload; all it does is transport.

Yes but that is a pretty big deal. Again that CS dept went from ~8 a shift to 2 or 3. Even if they're just menial jobs those are still jobs gone, and management wasn't menial. And an articulate limb is hardly impossible these days. Again its all in the programming. You have to tell the machine what to do and how to do it which is hard and time consuming to do. But once the software is made you can duplicate it cheaply and adapt it for many different things.

It would be interesting to see exactly what the supposed experimental system you referred to can actually do.

It wasn't experimental at all...

I would also be very interested to see how the Speciminder does in a non-clinical environment - i.e. a hospital. In a lab where hopefully everything is organized relatively well, the environment is static enough that a modern navigating robot could survive.

I said I worked in a hospital. And it worked just fine. It had sensors that would pick up people/carts/walls as well as a pressure sensor on it. If you kicked it it would say "Ouch!" and try to manuver around you. If you blocked it successfully it would park itself against the wall and call for help via the cell service. It would also automatically contact the dept that ordered supplies of a delay. Same if it got stuck in an elevator.

not to mention radio signal interference - it might not work so well.

Why would you think radio interference would be a problem with them? We had repeaters all over the place in the hospital. Initially elevator shafts were a problem but they put repeaters in there too.

A robot which can do speech recognition, visual recognition, manual handling of delicate products, etc etc - neither the cost nor the reliability are anywhere near reasonable.

You don't need it to do speech recognition, text and command works fine which was how orders were sent to our robot via a computer or keyboard on top of the machine. Visual recog. is easy but manual handling isn't, but fundamentally its a solved problem. A one size fits all robot laborer is decades away if ever, but task dedicated machines already exist and are getting better all the time. They are already taking jobs and you're just trying to handwave them away, but then that is to be expected. A future where most of the population is useless and disenfranchised is a future that most will try to deny rather than face up to.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

... task dedicated machines already exist and are getting better all the time. They are already taking jobs...

Semantics get in the way of these discussions. "robot" brings to mind a mechanical humanoid like C3PO. "automation" or "automatic machinery" brings to mind specialized production equipment under PLC control replacing manual labor, and better supports blazespinnaker's original thought at our current state-of-the-art.

[mesyn191]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

Semantics get in the way of these discussions. "robot" brings to mind a mechanical humanoid like C3PO. "automation" or "automatic machinery" brings to mind specialized production equipment under PLC control replacing manual labor, and better supports blazespinnaker's original thought at our current state-of-the-art.

Robot is a generic term that goes to either extreme. The reality of the situation is that you don't need an advanced Jetson's -esque robot to automate away a large chunk, maybe even a majority of the jobs available.

[c1ue]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

Yes it was a similar unit but not the same one. The one we had was cheaper, less than half that price.

It would be nice to see what this paragon of a system is, given that the example you gave is nowhere near the functionality nor price point you asserted.

Yes but that is a pretty big deal. Again that CS dept went from ~8 a shift to 2 or 3. Even if they're just menial jobs those are still jobs gone, and management wasn't menial. And an articulate limb is hardly impossible these days. Again its all in the programming. You have to tell the machine what to do and how to do it which is hard and time consuming to do. But once the software is made you can duplicate it cheaply and adapt it for many different things.

That's the theory, but the Honda Asimo indicates the gap between theory and reality.

Asimo was 'functioning' in 2003, but nearly 10 years later is still unusable in public, not to mention still costing $100K/month to rent.

I said I worked in a hospital. And it worked just fine. It had sensors that would pick up people/carts/walls as well as a pressure sensor on it. If you kicked it it would say "Ouch!" and try to manuver around you. If you blocked it successfully it would park itself against the wall and call for help via the cell service. It would also automatically contact the dept that ordered supplies of a delay. Same if it got stuck in an elevator.

So if this is such a wonderful system, why then have I never seen one anywhere? I've visited literally every single hospital in the Bay Area when I was running an in home senior care company, and never saw any such thing.

I'd think such wonderful cost savings would be jumped on by the likes of UnitedHealth, HCA, Sutter, Kaiser, etc.

Of course the little detail is that a warm body that runs vials up and down the stairs doesn't get a pension, or probably even a salary.

Why would you think radio interference would be a problem with them? We had repeaters all over the place in the hospital. Initially elevator shafts were a problem but they put repeaters in there too.

So I guess the prohibition on cell phones is just to stick it to customers.

You don't need it to do speech recognition, text and command works fine which was how orders were sent to our robot via a computer or keyboard on top of the machine. Visual recog. is easy but manual handling isn't, but fundamentally its a solved problem. A one size fits all robot laborer is decades away if ever, but task dedicated machines already exist and are getting better all the time. They are already taking jobs and you're just trying to handwave them away, but then that is to be expected. A future where most of the population is useless and disenfranchised is a future that most will try to deny rather than face up to.

I'd like to see a real example of such jobs being taken away. A fancified version of a child's remote control toy is hardly a significant labor savings.

I furthermore am very interested in where you get this idea from.

I come originally from an electrical engineering background. I've worked in the semiconductor industry, and also the professional level software industry.

The multi-billion dollar computer chip fabrication plants - the vast majority of the labor consists of reading dials and pushing racks of wafers from one production point to the other.

Why is automation not used here if it is so wonderful? In a chip fab a machine would have even more benefits since it doesn't sweat, doesn't flake off skin, doesn't breath, doesn't need to eat or go to the bathroom - all activities which threaten clean room status.

Probably because there are huge issues with reliability, flexibility, and cost as the Honda Asimo example above shows.

[mesyn191]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

It would be nice to see what this paragon of a system is, given that the example you gave is nowhere near the functionality nor price point you asserted.

I already said I forgot, it was 5-6 years ago.

Asimo was 'functioning' in 2003, but nearly 10 years later is still unusable in public, not to mention still costing $100K/month to rent.

If you an EE, have business exp. and all then you know that thing is a test bed constantly in redevelopment and that what they're attempting to do is much more advanced than what I'm talking. Apples v. oranges and all that.

So if this is such a wonderful system, why then have I never seen one anywhere?

Because this wasn't in the Bay Area? Also IIRC it wouldn't work with some elevator systems, the elevator guys would say its the robots fault and the robot guys would say its the elevator guys fault etc. But it worked then, and was based around common cheap tech back then. Are electrical motors some impossible unreliable POS where you live or what? You never saw a windows 2000 machine (which is what it ran BTW) have an uptime of a few months or a year? What here is so hard to believe about such a system technically? It basically a big box on wheels that had a cabinet in it and a screen and keyboard on top, not a humanoid robot a la Asimo. The sensors were visual, laser, pressure, and I wanna say sonic but I don't know for sure. I linked that other system that you poo poo'd just as an example of one that I could actually find that has been in use for years.

So I guess the prohibition on cell phones is just to stick it to customers.

No mostly due to being paranoid of litigation. This things transmit power was very low which was why we had the repeaters all over for it to work, without them it couldn't get to the phone system or communicate with the annunciator more than a few hundred feet.

I'd like to see a real example of such jobs being taken away. A fancified version of a child's remote control toy is hardly a significant labor savings.

You can go into most any grocery store or Lowes or Home Depot and watch those self check out lanes for an example if you want to reject my example(s). If you won't except them as one then you're just moving your goal posts and in denial. edit: Here is another example. Apparently they started putting these in around 2007, I've used one before and its quite nice, almost no wait.

The multi-billion dollar computer chip fabrication plants - the vast majority of the labor consists of reading dials and pushing racks of wafers from one production point to the other.

I don't work in a fab nor have I been near one even but AFAIK they do have materials transport robots in them already. IIRC on some guy posted pics of the inside of one a few years back mentioned them mounted to the ceiling and being very noisy on tracks. I can't find it anymore though.

[c1ue]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

If you an EE, have business exp. and all then you know that thing is a test bed constantly in redevelopment and that what they're attempting to do is much more advanced than what I'm talking. Apples v. oranges and all that.

Hardly - because the Asimo still cannot consistently do even relatively simple tasks like walking without falling over, much less the human replacement it is touted for.

It works some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, but that is simply not useful.

Because this wasn't in the Bay Area? Also IIRC it wouldn't work with some elevator systems, the elevator guys would say its the robots fault and the robot guys would say its the elevator guys fault etc. But it worked then, and was based around common cheap tech back then. Are electrical motors some impossible unreliable POS where you live or what? You never saw a windows 2000 machine (which is what it ran BTW) have an uptime of a few months or a year? What here is so hard to believe about such a system technically? It basically a big box on wheels that had a cabinet in it and a screen and keyboard on top, not a humanoid robot a la Asimo. The sensors were visual, laser, pressure, and I wanna say sonic but I don't know for sure. I linked that other system that you poo poo'd just as an example of one that I could actually find that has been in use for years.

I've pointed out that if this system truly saves so much money and works so well, why then is it not ubiquitous?

You've done nothing to explain this anomaly.

You can go into most any grocery store or Lowes or Home Depot and watch those self check out lanes for an example if you want to reject my example(s). If you won't except them as one then you're just moving your goal posts and in denial. edit: Here is another example. Apparently they started putting these in around 2007, I've used one before and its quite nice, almost no wait.

A self checkout lane is hardly any type of productivity increase. I've used the USPS self checkout - it is actually slower than the clerk - much as the link Chris provided above notes.

All the self checkout lanes do is filter out the older and more demanding customers.

I don't work in a fab nor have I been near one even but AFAIK they do have materials transport robots in them already. IIRC on some guy posted pics of the inside of one a few years back mentioned them mounted to the ceiling and being very noisy on tracks. I can't find it anymore though.

They do have transport systems, but none of these are used in the actual production process. The transport systems are used in the warehousing portion - and even then are primarily powered dollies as opposed to autonomous or even remote controlled.

More importantly the factories employ tens of thousands of essentially manual laborers.

Frankly you've done a very poor job in showing examples of real progress in robotic or mechanical automation.

[ST]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

lol, Jewish Robots - love it.

[mesyn191]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

Hardly - because the Asimo still cannot consistently do even relatively simple tasks like walking without falling over, much less the human replacement it is touted for.

It works some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, but that is simply not useful.

What part of "test bed" and "apples v. oranges" didn't you understand?

I've pointed out that if this system truly saves so much money and works so well, why then is it not ubiquitous?

You've done nothing to explain this anomaly.

That is because I don't have to. Just because this robot isn't everywhere doesn't mean it doesn't exist anywhere. Quit pushing logical fallacies.

A self checkout lane is hardly any type of productivity increase.

Yea you're shifting goal posts around. Before it was jobs being taken and now its "hardly any type of productivity increase".

All the self checkout lanes do is filter out the older and more demanding customers.

I'm around 30 and use one all the time. I see all sorts of ages using them too. But don't take my word for it, a google shows at least one study saying that avg. age for self check out lanes is around 39 yr.

More importantly the factories employ tens of thousands of essentially manual laborers.

The bot I saw was in the actual clean rooms itself and AMD is currently building a fab up in NY right now that employs far less people than that. Around 1200 people at peak numbers actually. And that is a BIG fab designed for 60K wafer starts a month. You're either padding your numbers or your info. is decades out of date.

Frankly you've done a very poor job in showing examples of real progress in robotic or mechanical automation.

Unless you want to move your goalposts some more and attempt to use your own personal definition of the word "robot", which BTW is arguing dishonestly to say the least, then all I've done is prove you wrong.

[c1ue]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

What part of "test bed" and "apples v. oranges" didn't you understand?

So you take a marketing figure from an experiment and extrapolate to the real world, even when a real world product is far more expensive.

Who exactly is comparing apples and oranges?

That is because I don't have to. Just because this robot isn't everywhere doesn't mean it doesn't exist anywhere. Quit pushing logical fallacies.

Equally because an extremely simplistic and low functionality robot exists doesn't mean much higher functionality and complexity robots exist anywhere, or are anywhere near replacing significant amounts of human labor.

Yea you're shifting goal posts around. Before it was jobs being taken and now its "hardly any type of productivity increase".

Hardly - because you're insisting on looking at the self checkout lane from the store's cost point of view.

The store is happy because instead of the store employee providing the labor, it is you.

The actual labor savings is zero or negative. Rather than a human store employee providing the inventory expertise and checkout labor, you provide the labor while the machine provides the bar code scanning. Inventory expertise still requires outside intervention.

I'm around 30 and use one all the time. I see all sorts of ages using them too. But don't take my word for it, a google shows at least one study saying that avg. age for self check out lanes is around 39 yr.

Nice cherry picking. You left out:

Conducted at a Kroger store in Starksville, Miss., the study was based on surveys of 114 shoppers, two-thirds women, average age 39, who were each paid $5 to use a self-checkout and fill out a questionnaire afterward.

So the average age of a chosen group of women paid to use a self checkout is in any way useful for extrapolating on general trends?

How about a survey which only looks at those who voluntarily use a self checkout? And compared with the people who use the normal lanes?

The bot I saw was in the actual clean rooms itself and AMD is currently building a fab up in NY right now that employs far less people than that. Around 1200 people at peak numbers actually. And that is a BIG fab designed for 60K wafer starts a month. You're either padding your numbers or your info. is decades out of date.

You really should stop digging when you're in a hole.

I worked in AMD as my first post-college job and was intimately involved in fab manufacturing until 2006.

The 60K wafers/month number you posit above is not an actual wafer count - it is 8 inch wafer equivalents.

A similar TSMC plant planned for Hsinchi, Taiwan will output 100K 8-inch equivalent wafers/month, but it actually outputs 44,500 12 inch wafers each month.

More importantly - the actual physical number of wafers produced in a Year 2000 era fab line is about 15000 wafers (TSMC's Wafertech in Washington state, for example). The large modern fabs contain 3 to 5 fab lines vs. the typical Year 2000 fab having only 1.

So the actual physical wafer count output is almost identical today vs. 11 years ago - the productivity improvements are all in the complexity of the chip and the size of the wafer processed.

The 'robot' you refer to represents a completely insignificant portion of the overall work load in producing a wafer - and is only beneficial in a high labor cost situation as in New York.

Unless you want to move your goalposts some more and attempt to use your own personal definition of the word "robot", which BTW is arguing dishonestly to say the least, then all I've done is prove you wrong.

Every example you've put up I've looked at - and frankly not found to be impressive.

Next no doubt you're going to start posing the Roomba as an example of how robots will remove the need for humans to vacuum.

There are some clear examples of how automation does actually contribute but none of the examples you've posed are in that category.

[flintlock]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

I'll believe it when I see it.

Frankly there are so many poor people around that can be employed for $0.50/hour - what exactly is the benefit of replacing one with a $100K or $500k robot? What is the annual maintenance cost of said robot?

Rosie the servant has been talked about for decades; quite debatable whether the reality is getting closer at all.

Much like fusion power - every decade we are told it is a decade away.

Exactly. We have a surplus of labor. The economic incentives to develop these "robots" for menial tasks will not exist. Now if robots would lead to a lower population, with corresponding lower welfare costs, then you'd see them everywhere.

[mesyn191]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

So you take a marketing figure from an experiment and extrapolate to the real world, even when a real world product is far more expensive.

Who exactly is comparing apples and oranges?

What? I'm not pulling any marketing figures. You brought up Asimo as a straw man to wack on not me.

Equally because an extremely simplistic and low functionality robot exists doesn't mean much higher functionality and complexity robots exist anywhere, or are anywhere near replacing significant amounts of human labor.

This argument is not about "low v. high function robots" no matter how much you try to shift the goal posts that way. Its about robots taking jobs period. Just because robots on the level of Asimo aren't cheap or common yet doesn't mean they won't ever be, nor are robots on that level of sophistication required to take lots of mid and low level jobs. You are pushing logical fallacies and are arguing dishonestly, cut it out.

Hardly - because you're insisting on looking at the self checkout lane from the store's cost point of view.

That is the only one that matters here. From the store's POV they save money by having you do the labor. Now one checker only needs to watch 4 lanes instead of having 4 checkers, that means they can fire 3 people.

Inventory expertise still requires outside intervention.

The example of self checkout lanes has nothing to do with inventory stocking/control so this is a non sequiter unless you're going to start arguing now that because some jobs aren't automated away yet none of them can be.

Nice cherry picking. You left out:

I didn't leave out nothing, I linked to an article that had its methods clearly listed. Paid or not that study is a hell of a lot better than anything you've said and trumps any anecdote you or I could offer which is why I linked it. If you got a study that says something different about avg. age then post it. Until then that study stands wether you like it or not. Oh BTW you left out the amount they were paid ($5), oooo big money to skew those numbers amiright.

You really should stop digging when you're in a hole.

The 60K wafers/month number you posit above is not an actual wafer count - it is 8 inch wafer equivalents.

Doesn't say that in their slides or their press release or here at Anand so if true then that is their fault for not being clear and/or misleading in their public statements and not an attempt to pad numbers by me. I also can't find a thing saying that fabs everywhere have standardized on the 8 in wafer size as a measurement of capacity. That is still a pretty big fab even by your standards though so that point still stands too. 10's of thousands of employees is way off even if you doubled the size of that fab, hell even if you quadrupled the size of it.

Every example you've put up I've looked at - and frankly not found to be impressive.

You can say this thousands of times and it still won't be true. You keep trying to shift the argument to what you want it to be and not what it is and it just doesn't work that way.

Next no doubt you're going to start posing the Roomba as an example of how robots will remove the need for humans to vacuum.

Not yet it don't but if it gets somewhat better than sure why wouldn't it? You think you need an Asimo level robot to vacuum a house?

[necron99]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

For anyone interested in a plausible fictitious scenario about how this could happen, and _why_:

"Manna" by Marshall Brain

It's a short read, I think it takes around an hour to finish the story. If you want to get the gist of how the Robot Takeover comes about, you only need to read the first four chapters or so, take you maybe 15 minutes. I think it really highlights the question that blazespinnaker wanted to ask -- if the economy isn't for everyone, then who is it for?

Of course, the story is a little dated -- it was written in the late 90s, I think, and it postulates the new technology coming online last year in May 2010 -- which it apparently hasn't -- but what I'm saying is, the _process_ of replacing all laborers with machines will probably go something like it goes in this short story. Whether that happens tomorrow or a hundred years from now. I like the story, I find it well-written and it brings up a lot of interesting questions. Gets a bit ham-handed in the last couple of chapters, but not too bad. Most of it reads so very straightforward and clearly, one step following on the other.

"There is a rabid dog in the next sector, and we cannot allow you to proceed."

[c1ue]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

For anyone interested in a plausible fictitious scenario about how this could happen, and _why_:

"Manna" by Marshall Brain

Cute idea, but the whole premise is unfortunately economically illiterate.

If no one has a job, then who can buy anything?

My first job (at 15) was at KFC. The manager did the schedules, but what he really did was to train the employees.

How does Manna train anyone?

How does Manna know anything was actually done?

How does Manna know if an employee is drunk or stoned?

What about employee theft? Error?

[jk]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

Cute idea, but the whole premise is unfortunately economically illiterate.

If no one has a job, then who can buy anything?

My first job (at 15) was at KFC. The manager did the schedules, but what he really did was to train the employees.

How does Manna train anyone?

How does Manna know anything was actually done?

How does Manna know if an employee is drunk or stoned?

What about employee theft? Error?

don't be so concrete, c1ue. the story was a parable, not a prediction.



and re: "If no one has a job, then who can buy anything?"

if 95% of the population lives in poverty, what can the remaining 5% buy? ans: pretty much anything they want.

[Sutter Cane]

Re: Is everyone becoming economically irrelevant?

I've pointed out that if this system truly saves so much money and works so well, why then is it not ubiquitous?

You've done nothing to explain this anomaly.

I usually enjoy c1ue's posts, but in this case I have to unlurk long enough to interject. I don't understand the hostility to the idea of this technology. I was unfamiliar with this sort of automation in hospitals before this discussion, but a simple google search turns up numerous recent stories of this sort of technology being adopted. It is not yet ubiquitous because it is a very recent phenomenon, it is still in the very early stages of adoption. Lessons learned from these ventures will be applied, the technology will be improved, the improved versions will be adopted even more widely, and the cycle will continue. I found this fascinating because it is so outside of my areas of expertise.

These are all from the last six months or so:

http://bostinnovation.com/2011/04/27...ivering-meals/

http://laboratory-manager.advanceweb...ile-Robot.aspx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...ntral-11552610

http://www.scientistlive.com/Europea...andling/25129/

Excuse me while I get back to lurking. I feel like I learn more from reading the comments on this website than from most others, and I feel like I have more to learn than I have to contribute, hence the fact that I never post. Carry on!