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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

#71

Post by ghshephard »

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.

Hairdressing may be resilient for some people, but my eyes were opened in Singapore when I went to "K-Cuts" - which is as close to an automated hair-cut as you can get. Full haircut, in 10 minutes for S$10. Nobody speaks english, so talking isn't an option. They use vacuums to collect your hair. I hold up three fingers, point to the top of my head, two fingers, point to the side. That's the sum total of guidance.

And these places are busy - my guess is there will be an automated haircut place in People will always go to custom hair cut places, but I bet there are a lot of people who will be keen to pay a small amount of money to get a reasonable hair cut.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#72

Post by kijin »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67

What I don't understand is why the "Gods" don't say "No we won't train robots to do our jobs." One of the biggest hurdles to automation in general - especially where replacing skilled workers is concerned - is in teaching (algorithmically or otherwise) the machine to replicate what the skilled worker is doing. If there really is the existential crisis of "machines taking our jobs" then why are the robot trainers not…

At least in Toyota, there seems to be no existential crisis of machines taking over our jobs. What the article mentions is just a strategy to improve quality and encourage innovation. These people are not particularly worried about teaching the machine to imitate the skilled worker; they're too busy figuring out what the skilled worker should be doing in the first place.

Also, gods of engineering are probably different from other gods. Like passionate programmers, they're having too much fun making machines perform new and exciting tasks.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#73

Post by jpatokal »

eternauta3k wrote: post #54
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

There's probably a market for very cheap, simple silent haircuts.

There is most definitely a market, and these guys are killing it in East Asia: http://www.qbhouse.com/

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#74

Post by Tad_Ghostly »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67

What I don't understand is why the "Gods" don't say "No we won't train robots to do our jobs." One of the biggest hurdles to automation in general - especially where replacing skilled workers is concerned - is in teaching (algorithmically or otherwise) the machine to replicate what the skilled worker is doing. If there really is the existential crisis of "machines taking our jobs" then why are the robot trainers not…

As I understood it, under this plan there won't be a 'last human' because...kaizan...the humans will always be improving and innovating.

...Until profits are in danger and you have a conservative board. Then you might see the last human, shortly followed by corporate irrelevancy.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#75

Post by pavedwalden »

nosuchthing wrote: post #22
TeMPOraL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On a macro scale it's momentum and incentives at play. Daunting, but malleable. Locally, we're close to achieving sensible cities/communities with renewable energy, easier access to rapid prototyping, and worker co-op business models. Do what you can with what you have to make your city and friends have access to healthy enjoyable lives.

From where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like we're remotely close. Renewable energy and effective urban planning are not at all common, and worker co-op business models are quite rare.

I like your vision of the future, but I don't see much evidence that we're headed there.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#76

Post by brc »

frandroid wrote: post #57
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.

It's a terrible method.

That is shockingly ignorant, and shame on whoever taught you that.

Free markets and trade have lifted the most people out of poverty and improved the living standards of the largest number of people in history.

It is an imperfect way of organising the needs of people, but it is superior to everything else that has been tried, by an order of magnitude.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#77

Post by hhandoko »

neonbat wrote: post #8

This is nice PR but to imply that this is anything more than that is silly. These humans are clearly just improving the robots.

I don't see that this is just another PR article, more that there will always be a place for craftsmen in Toyota, even in the face of the wave of production automation.

One thing I admire from the Japanese culture, is that they take `craftsmanship` very seriously in all aspects of work.

I gain this appreciation after working part-time as a kitchen-hand in a number of Japanese restaurants throughout my uni days.

Those that are `authentic` Japanese (ran by Japanese owners) has a very methodical process and obsess over every single detail.

Even a simple task such cooking rice has an elaborate process and specific technique that I must always follow through. Just two examples:

* the amount of water to put into the rice depends on the season (i.e. dry vs wet season at harvest), must be exact to the millilitres.

* the specific motion of washing (or more appropriately `grinding`, as the water has been sieved out).

The chef always check the rice after it cooks and gave me feedback, every single time.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#78

Post by brc »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #40
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.

Not all resources will be non-scarce, though, so this kind of one-size-fits-all thinking is misleading. Nor are all alternatives to capitalism socialism. Socialism is also known to have very severe problems in application, particularly how to incentivize socialist managers to behave like capitalist ones in most circumstances, driving innovation and maximizing productivity. Socialist managers have somewhat different c…

Sweden is a capitalist country with a strong social safety net. It's not remotely socialist, at best a social democracy. In no way could you say that, in Sweden, 'to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities'.

The majority of production in Sweden is not state owned.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#79

Post by brc »

frandroid wrote: post #56
brc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear. Are you advocating for socialism?

Yes; but even less radically so, I'm thinking about Keynes' failed predictions.

You shouldn't advocate for socialism, even in jest. It is a terrible system which has caused more suffering than all the despots in history together.

Forward thinking will only happen when everyone walks away for the wreckage of socialism and realises it is a dead fork in the road that must be rejected utterly.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#80

Post by rocky1138 »

lukeschlather wrote: post #58
danso wrote: post #29

> “If there is ever a technology that’s flawless and could always make perfect products, then we will be ready and willing to install that machine,” Kawai said. “There’s no machine that is eternally stable.” This seems like a nice reformulation of Turing's Entscheidungsproblem

No, it's definitely a separate observation. The Entscheidungsproblem describes a problem space that we cannot build a machine to solve. What Kawai is saying is a more physical thing - even for problems we can build a machine to solve, the machine will eventually stop working under normal use, and it's unlikely even to produce consistently correct results.

Somewhat tangential, but give 1909's "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster a read. It's excellent and speaks to this point.

http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html

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