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America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#311

Post by baq »

nebula8804 wrote: post #228
protocolture wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I wouldnt overstate this. I have seen production line videos from 2025 showing chinese workers hand assembling items. Chinas value imho is that they are willing to take on shorter and shorter production runs. They have figured out retraining and logistics to the point that they can have 20 customers who only need 1000 - 12000 parts per year, on the back of their 3-4 flagship clients who keep the place running with…

There is a demographic implosion coming soon. You look at a video like this and count how many humans there are to make this $20-30 speaker and you realize that this $20 speaker is not going to be automated, its just going to go away as an option. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U

India will gladly accept those factories for a few decades.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#312

Post by tclancy »

petermcneeley wrote: post #80
crote wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people in Western world also cannot imagine staying at conveyor belt or table doing the same assembly task whole week. In my opinion one of the biggest reasons we won't see manufacturing come back to Western countries is that we still believe this is how most factories operate. Chinese people aren't stupid , they have been spending a fortune on automating as much of their manufacturing as possible! Western lab…

Or you could have trade borders.

Not that I would doubt the guy who let Mike Tyson hit him in the head or anything, but don’t we have decades of research showing the negative effects of those?

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#313

Post by tim333 »

coliveira wrote: post #145
crote wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people in Western world also cannot imagine staying at conveyor belt or table doing the same assembly task whole week. In my opinion one of the biggest reasons we won't see manufacturing come back to Western countries is that we still believe this is how most factories operate. Chinese people aren't stupid , they have been spending a fortune on automating as much of their manufacturing as possible! Western lab…

Exactly, most factories in China are already heavily automated. Americans don't have a clue of what they've been doing there in the last 20 years to modernize production. The US would need to invest trillions in automation and workforce training to be able to compete with China, Taiwan and Korea. I don't see Americans being able to do this because they're too addicted to easy money from Wall Street.

From the American point of view there's something to be said for doing a job where the money is. Like you'll make more in finance or as an AI engineer than making stuff in a factory.

I London where I live you can't really afford to buy a house or things like that if you got a job manufacturing anything that's globally competitive which is why manufacturing is basically gone here and people get jobs in finance and the like. We used to have a factory in the London outskirts but it got knocked down and replaced with apartments long ago.

I don't know if it's addicted to easy money so much as the people earning easy money push up the cost of living and force others to do similar to afford to live in the same area.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#314

Post by cpursley »

IsTom wrote: post #285
cpursley wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem obsessed with the “China population collapse” propaganda (which is put out by the usual suspects, btw). Anyways, I hate to break it to you, but this is also the trend throughout the entire Western world. Besides, automation and AI is going offset a lot of those worker losses (which is actually a win). And in 20 years the Chinese will still be giving birth to as many if not more people than the entire combine…

That's true that West has population decline as well, but due to 1 child policy the decline in China is going to be much steeper.

I think mainly on the pensions side of things, and perhaps a lot of empty real estate and infra maintenance issues. But they will still be graduating more engineers than the West combined and in general, a better educated and more socially cohesive workforce. I think they are gonna be just fine, even if we don't like their political system (which will likely evolve, anyways).

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#315

Post by trenchpilgrim »

hansmayer wrote: post #166
iancmceachern wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gpu from 8 years ago is cost competitive, efficient and "worth using" for modern tasks?

The GPUs have a much shorter lifecycle, on the order of ~3 years.

No they don't. The 3 year number came from some random person on the internet who claimed to be a Google employee and was denied by Google, as you can see on any of the articles about this claim:

> Recent purported comments about Nvidia GPU hardware utilization and service life expressed by an “unnamed source” were inaccurate, do not represent how we utilize Nvidia’s technology, and do not represent our experience.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#316

Post by baq »

cpursley wrote: post #262
nebula8804 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He just needs to wait a decade, the Chinese workers will be retiring and will not be replaced. Entire product segments probably just go away or the inflation raises the table such that the managers situation now is the norm. Problem solved.

You seem obsessed with the “China population collapse” propaganda (which is put out by the usual suspects, btw). Anyways, I hate to break it to you, but this is also the trend throughout the entire Western world. Besides, automation and AI is going offset a lot of those worker losses (which is actually a win). And in 20 years the Chinese will still be giving birth to as many if not more people than the entire combine…

China demographics are disastrous, this is not propaganda, it’s facts. That doesn’t mean western aren’t disastrous.

I agree it won’t matter too much, they’ll automate more so they won’t need this many people.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#317

Post by trenchpilgrim »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #184
trenchpilgrim wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hardware that has commercially useful lifetimes measured in months What hardware is this? Most hardware including GPUs are cycled between 5 and 8 years.

Data centre hardware is more like 3 years.

No they don't. 5-8 years is common. The source for the 3 year number is an unnamed random person claiming to be a Google engineer, and Google specifically reached out to all the journalists publishing that claim with this response.

> Recent purported comments about Nvidia GPU hardware utilization and service life expressed by an “unnamed source” were inaccurate, do not represent how we utilize Nvidia’s technology, and do not represent our experience.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#318

Post by cpursley »

baq wrote: post #316
cpursley wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem obsessed with the “China population collapse” propaganda (which is put out by the usual suspects, btw). Anyways, I hate to break it to you, but this is also the trend throughout the entire Western world. Besides, automation and AI is going offset a lot of those worker losses (which is actually a win). And in 20 years the Chinese will still be giving birth to as many if not more people than the entire combine…

China demographics are disastrous, this is not propaganda, it’s facts. That doesn’t mean western aren’t disastrous. I agree it won’t matter too much, they’ll automate more so they won’t need this many people.

So how is that a disaster? Wasn't one of the big concerns a decade or go about over population? This means less agriculture required, more land for nature, less pollution, fewer energy needs, etc.

Re: America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom

#320

Post by protocolture »

nebula8804 wrote: post #228
protocolture wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I wouldnt overstate this. I have seen production line videos from 2025 showing chinese workers hand assembling items. Chinas value imho is that they are willing to take on shorter and shorter production runs. They have figured out retraining and logistics to the point that they can have 20 customers who only need 1000 - 12000 parts per year, on the back of their 3-4 flagship clients who keep the place running with…

There is a demographic implosion coming soon. You look at a video like this and count how many humans there are to make this $20-30 speaker and you realize that this $20 speaker is not going to be automated, its just going to go away as an option. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U

>Population implosion

Still fail to see evidence of that. I wouldnt go around making such a huge blanket statement, without even london horse manure crisis level evidence.

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