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‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#41

Post by willholloway »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #16
nosuchthing wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...If we build framework to support such an economy, it may be possible.

That's the crux of the issue. It seems that the current economy will rather drive itself to the ground, taking all of humanity with it, rather than transitioning itself to a different value system. It looks like the post-scarcity world is not on the phase-space trajectory we're currently following.

Right now I feel every reason to be gratuitously optimistic.

- Solar photo-voltaic is or is about to be the cheapest form of electricity, we will solve the storage problem

- Electric cars are getting closer to the tipping point, and they are going to drive themselves

- Biotech is making incredible gains, see cancer immunotherapy or NSI-189

- The pace of technological innovation has accelerated and continues

- The intellectual capital of the human race has never been anywhere near this large, free, accessible

- Robots/a lot of weak AI is or is about to get to a point to change the game

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#42

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #36
ffk wrote: post #6

This is a fundamental shift from how many other factories work. In general, the workers are not given enough information to replicate the product. They are shown how to attach a specific sprocket to a widget. The tasks are kept so simple (nothing to do with pleasantness) that no one can learn how the whole device is created or suggest improvements. This model lends to people being replaced by robots because human cap…

Thanks for the nice summary. No way was I going to click on a headline that read like this one! There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing: these sorts of high-skill, creative, intution-and-experience heavy tasks; and low-skill but mechancially awkward tasks. In both cases, the key to job survival will be that it's something of a niche. Anything remotely generic will be taken over by mach…

>There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing:

Three - add anything which is primarily social.

I think hairdressing will be one of the most resilient jobs. Not only is there a huge market for it, but it requires a certain basic level of dexterity, and it's primarily social. The talking is at least as important as the hair cutting, and it's going to be a while before robots can replace it.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#43

Post by curiousphil »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #42
tjradcliffe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the nice summary. No way was I going to click on a headline that read like this one! There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing: these sorts of high-skill, creative, intution-and-experience heavy tasks; and low-skill but mechancially awkward tasks. In both cases, the key to job survival will be that it's something of a niche. Anything remotely generic will be taken over by mach…

>There are two kinds of jobs that robots will have a hard time replacing: Three - add anything which is primarily social. I think hairdressing will be one of the most resilient jobs. Not only is there a huge market for it, but it requires a certain basic level of dexterity, and it's primarily social. The talking is at least as important as the hair cutting, and it's going to be a while before robots can replace it.

Makes me happy I learned the trade of barbering in my dad's barbershop as a teenager. There is still a part of me that some day would like to unglue myself from the computer and return to the shop.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#44

Post by joe_the_user »

ffk wrote: post #6

This is a fundamental shift from how many other factories work. In general, the workers are not given enough information to replicate the product. They are shown how to attach a specific sprocket to a widget. The tasks are kept so simple (nothing to do with pleasantness) that no one can learn how the whole device is created or suggest improvements. This model lends to people being replaced by robots because human cap…

Hmm,

The explanation that I get from article for the shift to training more metal workers is that a highly skilled metal worker winds-up being more akin to an engineer - that aspects of metal work are too complex to be understood by just theoretical knowledge of the engineers. Thus the robots in the factories duplicate the processes which both metal workers and engineers create. But if you get rid of the metal workers, you are left not able to change your processes or create new, effective processes.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#45

Post by jdjdps »

joe_the_user wrote: post #44
ffk wrote: post #6

This is a fundamental shift from how many other factories work. In general, the workers are not given enough information to replicate the product. They are shown how to attach a specific sprocket to a widget. The tasks are kept so simple (nothing to do with pleasantness) that no one can learn how the whole device is created or suggest improvements. This model lends to people being replaced by robots because human cap…

Hmm, The explanation that I get from article for the shift to training more metal workers is that a highly skilled metal worker winds-up being more akin to an engineer - that aspects of metal work are too complex to be understood by just theoretical knowledge of the engineers. Thus the robots in the factories duplicate the processes which both metal workers and engineers create. But if you get rid of the metal worker…

Until the machines learn to learn...

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#46

Post by noir_lord »

icebraining wrote: post #37
infinite8s wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is a method for distributing scarce resources. Remove the scarcity and you remove the need for capitalism.

You can't really remove the scarcity; if machines make mass-produced stuff non-scarce, the rest (including intangibles) will become more important. In Star Trek, everyone could probably have their own luxury car, but there was still only one captain for each whole ship.

"The Australia Project" from the novel Manna is one possible future in a post scarcity economy, it also shows one of the others.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#47

Post by jmckib »

munificent wrote: post #28
imh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be few people needed at the apex of the arts, once the best of the best can do the jobs of most everyone else combined. We still need an economic plan for everyone else.

Their amino acids will make an excellent source material for the 3D food printers.

Nah, I'm pretty it will be more efficient to just grow meat in a lab.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#48

Post by Animats »

SeanDav wrote: post #9

It seems to be working: > "In an area Kawai directly supervises at the forging division of Toyota’s Honsha plant, workers twist, turn and hammer metal into crankshafts instead of using the typically automated process. Experiences there have led to innovations in reducing levels of scrap and shortening the production line 96 percent from its length three years ago."

That's how it was done at Chrysler in 1935.[1] Toyota's Honsha plant has had an automated crankshaft forging line since 1988.[2]

I suspect this is a misconception. The Honsha plant was downsized in 2007. They have a lot of space there, and a "Museum of Production". They may have a manual forging setup as a training and demo operation, to give their employees a feel for how heated metal behaves during forging. A 1988-vintage automated forging line probably has too little feedback and too much brute power, and maybe too many die stages. Better employee understanding of the process may lead to a better. It's unlikely that Honda is doing manual forging for volume crankshaft production.

[1] https://archive.org/details/0555_Master_Hands_18_27_28_00 (start at 00:11:45)

[2] http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75yea...

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#50

Post by [deleted] »

BrandonY wrote: post #34

I seem to recall a very old science fiction story about a future where nobody has to go to school. Instead, they play all day until they come of age, at which point a computer programs their mind with all of the expertise needed for whatever profession they'd be best at and would be most useful. The problem turned out to be that, while this is great, the programmed minds couldn't innovate further improvements, and so…

[deleted]
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