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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

#111

Post by anentropic »

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…

"No way was I going to click on a headline that read like this one"

...why?

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#112

Post by infinite8s »

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…

There are post-scarcity examples in human history (see gift economies and potlach societies - common among native americans and in the pacific islands) where social pressure caused any accumulation of wealth to be shared with the entire society (this is a bit similar to Andrew Carnegie's dictum that to die rich is to die disgraced, now leading to the billionaire's pledge). Of course, this only worked because the societies were individual tribes/villages and fit within Dunbar's number, where every individual knew every other individual in the society.

If post-scarcity is brought about by automation, then there will be no need for most people to work, and socialism won't be the appropriate economic model (since people will not be directly involved in production). At this point we'll probably need to return to a gift-like economy.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#113

Post by Amezarak »

guelo wrote: post #99
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krugman is a Nobel-winning economist. He is also a loudmouth ideologue who writes a column, in which he makes authoritative statements that have nothing to do with the research that won him a Nobel. He trades on that prestige, but he's no better than a highly-ideologically-driven professional-economist-but-out-of-his-area-of-specialty in most of what he writes. I have seen him rip Republicans for the same behavior th…

I doubt you read his column. Whether you agree with him or not he provides tons of economics data for his arguments. His topics are frequently technical. I'd say at least 70% of his topics have to do with what he is a Harvard professor for.

> I doubt you read his column. Whether you agree with him or not he provides tons of economics data for his arguments.

Yeah, that post seems kind of bizarre to me. Is Krugman partisan? Absolutely, and he admits it. Can he be - compared to most of the professional commentariat - abrasive and rude? Yes, and he admits it. [1] At the same time he is a cheerleader for Nate Silver and data-driven analysis. This is definitely reflected in his blog posts though somewhat less so in his columns (which do tend to be fluffier for a popular audience.) Half of his writing since the beginning of the recession has been deriding narrative-based analysis and demonstrating that the data contradicts it.

He does of course sometimes write about subjects outside his expertise - he wrote a lot about the Iraq War, for example - and he sometimes shades his economics with political analysis, but I wouldn't go so far as calling him a shill. Krugman is obviously derisive of most Republicans, but he has been decidedly unhappy about most post-2008 Democratic policies.

Krugman is basically the only mainstream political pundit I read at all, because you can actually learn a lot from what he writes.

I can see machines replacing David Brooks, but it will be a tragic day when we lose such a fitting (though well-intentioned) subject for mockery.

[1] He gives his reasons here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/wild-words-brain...

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#115

Post by tehchromic »

mbell wrote: post #89
tehchromic wrote: post #12

I think this is a real indicator and validation of what the next economy will look like: humans at the apex of the arts, where imagination and craft will be highly valued in the everyday folk worker, and mundane or trivial tasks will be assigned to automatons. We will choose our own employment adventure.

I agree it's what the 'next economy' will look like, but it's also what the 'last economy' looked like. Prior to the entire tech movement was agriculture, resource harvesting and material manufacturing. Previously farming was done by hand, now a single machine replaces a hundred workers. Previously coal was mined by hand, now a single machine replaces thousands of workers. Previously trees were axed by hand and sluic…

I didn't say replacing labor with automation, I said replacing mundane, inglorious labor with automation. I agree with you. What I am saying is that we will choose which labors we do by hand, based on an emerging, re-emerging set of ethics and values.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#116

Post by tehchromic »

imh wrote: post #23
tehchromic wrote: post #12

I think this is a real indicator and validation of what the next economy will look like: humans at the apex of the arts, where imagination and craft will be highly valued in the everyday folk worker, and mundane or trivial tasks will be assigned to automatons. We will choose our own employment adventure.

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.

I agree, there will always be fewer people needed at the apex of the arts, and in fact that's the definition of the apex!

But an economic plan that revisits the idea of what an apex is, I think would accomplish that 'for everyone else'.

That's why the idea of micro farming is so interesting: in an agrarian system where people grow their own food, as a pastime and 'art', then you can afford many, many apexes - at least one per farm/garden.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#117

Post by BrandonY »

spiritplumber wrote: post #35
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…

http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html "Profession" by Asimov (1957)

That is exactly it! Thank you so much for finding that for me.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#118

Post by neonbat »

hhandoko wrote: post #77
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…

I completely disagree, the type of craftsmen you're referring to will cease to exist at the company in the future. The very concept of craftsmanship is antiquated by the idea of intelligent machines. That is, machines that can learn.

No matter how hard a human tries to "obsess over every single detail" they will simply be unable to compete with a machine intelligence in this regard. All the things you listed are so obviously suited to be tasks that intelligent machines can excel and surpass humans at. Even unintelligent machines would fare quite well against a human at all the tasks you listed.

You may argue that there's an art to craftsmanship that machines "will never duplicate the creativity of humans." I hear that like 20 times a week and it's not true. This falsehood lies in a flawed premise. The premise that the machines doing art/crafstmaship will seek to "replicate" human creativity is simply false. Human creativity doesn't necessarily replicate the creativity of other humans; why would a machine creativity need to replicate? Many intelligent machines are already making art online. Machines do not need to replicate. Intelligent machines can create on their own, independently. People are doing this with twitter bots now.

Notice I use the word "machine intelligence" and not just machine. A machine is process that has been animated in the physical world. A machine intelligence is fundamentally different. It learns and is better than we are at most (if not all) things. I understand that this eventuality is terrifying to people. Being scared of the inevitable doesn't stop it. We need to be thinking about this now so we can make plans to figure out what do with humans once these machines proliferate through our society.

As an aside I also love Japanese culture. I had the opportunity to travel to Japan after high school. It was great.

Re: ‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility

#119

Post by kwhitefoot »

gregpilling wrote: post #91
emmanueloga_ wrote: post #85

Sometimes I do find programmers that do not know how to, say, install a linux distro, or at a lower level, don't understand what a data bus is, or how one bit of information is actually stored in a computer. > Learning how to make car parts from scratch gives younger workers insights they otherwise wouldn’t get from picking parts from bins and conveyor belts, or pressing buttons on machines. This is also the spirit o…

I know a computer science professor that asked me how to make a website as recently as 2007

Not entirely sure what your point is here but I assume that you mean he should have known.

Can't imagine why a computer SCIENCE professor would be expected to know how to make a website any more than my Newtonian mechanics professor would have been expected to know how to build a car.

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