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Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

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Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#121

Post by ardy42 »

merpnderp wrote: post #31
ardy42 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about instead of selling robots to companies to replace their laborers, we sell robots to the workers to do their jobs. You keep getting paid as long as you keep your robot running. You're basically talking about the democratization of capital. Companies and their owners will resist it tooth and nail, since they want to reap the dividends. I don't think we'll get to a world like that, with former laborers ownin…

Yeah, you'd have to curtail the freedom of some people to own robots and drastically limit how others could use them. This is a non-starter for most voters.

> This is a non-starter for most voters.

Only to the degree that they've been trained to see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and identify more with the interests of the owners than their own personal interests.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#122

Post by lotsofpulp »

DrNuke wrote: post #106
stickfigure wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your typical consumer will receive very little or no direct benefit from this change Eh? I've shopped at Uniqlo in SF. Compared to buying clothes at hipster boutiques, it was shockingly affordable. I'd say whatever they are doing is unquestionably offering a direct benefit to the consumer.

Which is very silly, in the end: I am thrilled while thinking how many iPhones Apple will sell worldwide once we have 6.9 billion people unemployed.

What is silly is not taxing the economic efficiency reaped by capital owners and re-distributing it members of society so that they don't need to be employed.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#123

Post by krrrh »

knieveltech wrote: post #98
ColanR wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing they don't teach you in Econ 101 is that treating corporations as obligated to keep and preserve jobs prevents them from creating societal value, and treating workers as entitled to a job disincentivises the invention of new methods of creating societal value. It causes stagnation of the economy.

And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?

They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented.

In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never.

Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effects is the at the heart of the current discussion. We’ve literally been worried about robots replacing all workers since Fritz Lang made Metropolis in the 1920s. Maybe those concerns were early and maybe we’re repeating ourselves. It’s not really clear.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#124

Post by stale2002 »

cgag wrote: post #81
krupan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been replacing jobs with automation for a century. It already is the norm. Why are you so worried? EDIT: more thoughts I just finished reading an Asimov novel written in 1955. There were computers in this book. They were people. Computer was a job title. Now we have machines that do that job, and we have an entire new industry employing lots and lots of people that didn't exist before that one job, Computer, wa…

Do you honestly believe this isn't going to be a problem?

People have predicted that it would be a problem every year for the last hundred years. And those people were all proven false.

How many times do the same predictions have to be proven false before we don't take them seriously anymore?

People won't do that though. We will continue to hear the same predictions for another hundred years, and every time the people making will say "but this time it's different!"

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#125

Post by manigandham »

romwell wrote: post #102
saas_sam wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the lower class is getting simultaneously bigger and also better off? Do you think the bottom 10% is living as bad as they were in 1940? 1980? Things that used to be luxuries are now normal across all income brackets... That's a good thing. :-)

> What if the lower class is getting simultaneously bigger and also better off? Do you think the bottom 10% is living as bad as they were in 1940? 1980? Things that used to be luxuries are now normal across all income brackets... That's a good thing. :-) Ah yeas, the good ole "TV's and refrigerators" argument[0]. They have luxuries! Even homeless people have cell phones, what a world! Now how about things that actual…

What? More people across the entire world have more access to those things that actually matter than ever before in history. This is indisputable fact. There are also 7.5 billion people now so it's impossible to compare absolute numbers without looking at the actual billions who have been lifted out of poverty.

There is greater inequality and that is a real problem, but the bottom is still rising, helped along by the very things you seem to mock.

It's a really big stretch to say that some people are somehow worse off now than before because of a lack of public bathhouse (we do have public shelters and bathrooms) and lack of cell phones (we do have libraries, subsidized phones, social services, etc) and just comes off as disingenuous.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#126

Post by romwell »

tathougies wrote: post #50
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't compare themselves to how people lived 80 years ago. They compare themselves to other people, today. So saying "Look poor people, who cares if you can't afford decent housing, or health care, or quality food - you've got a cell phone!" will not quiet the social unrest that a growing underclass will cause.

Overall though, more people have healthcare, more people have housing, and more people have food than ever before. No one is arguing, 'cellphone, hence no poverty'. People are merely arguing that the lowest 10% are no longer destitute.

>No one is arguing, 'cellphone, hence no poverty'.

The parent comment certainly does. Specifically mentions "things that used to be luxuries" being available to the poor as a reason.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#127

Post by stale2002 »

excalibur wrote: post #5

How about instead of selling robots to companies to replace their laborers, we sell robots to the workers to do their jobs. You keep getting paid as long as you keep your robot running.

There is nothing stopping you or anyone else from buying a robot and renting it out or something.

Those workers should feel free to do that right now and spend their money investing in capital.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#128

Post by hikarudo »

cloudbubble wrote: post #120

It's not just cutting out jobs that it is a problem, it's also the over-supply of clothing and 'fast-fashion' which is creating extra garbage. Auto-mating these things and making it cheaper and easier to move clothes around is only beneficial to those at the top of the capitalism chain - it's not particularly great for the planet.

The people buying those clothes are doing so because they see value out of doing it, so it's beneficial so them as well.

Your point about externalities is still valid, though.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#129

Post by nirelBRACIT0S »

liquidise wrote: post #3

Modern societies are going to have a very real problem to grapple with as this replacement goes from newsworthy to the norm. This could result in significant worker displacement with massive bottom-line ROI for companies in the next decade or two, particularly as minimum wages rise. I'm not of the opinion that this automation will create an equal number of jobs for the ones they replace. Even if they do, it is unlike…

As Steve Jobs used to say: “if you can’t buy an iPhone you deserve nothing”

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#130

Post by manigandham »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #55
tathougies wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall though, more people have healthcare, more people have housing, and more people have food than ever before. No one is arguing, 'cellphone, hence no poverty'. People are merely arguing that the lowest 10% are no longer destitute.

Yes, I agree the lowest 10% are no longer as destitute, but my point is the dangerous social unrest that is likely to be caused (some would argue already has been caused) by widening inequality is not something that absolute measures of living standards will have much bearing on.

That remains to be seen. There's clearly a certain level of "comfort" where the majority of people become satisfied enough, and the quality of life at the bottom is rapidly increasing as technology and the world matures. The rise of the middle class in China and India seems to be the biggest indicator of this approaching steady state.
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