Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple learned automation can't match human skill

appleinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 59 posts

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#41

Post by TeMPOraL »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
pontifier wrote: post #4

I see this as more of a commentary on the lack of people able to do the automation, and the ways automation is done currently. On a production line with 1000 different operations you'd have a thousand low skill people using their eyes, brains, and fingers to develop the assembly process. You could never get 1000 roboticists working on getting an assembly line going. I don't know how you could even find that many, but…

Well, that's my main opposition to "AI will replace [insert any profession]". Many jobs are so specific it will never be economical to hire a team of software+AI specialist to create and maintain the software to automate that work. Plus the fact that the said specialists usually know nothing about the domain.

There's always a way around this, and GP hinted at it. Instead of automating a difficult stage of a process as-is, you redesign the entire process, possibly including the final product, to make it automation-friendly.

This is how we deal with problems in general. If we can't solve them on their own terms, we change the terms. For example, designing an all-terrain vehicle is hard, so instead we've been beating the terrain flat, and paving it so that it stays flat, to allow a simple box with wheels to work, and we've been doing that since beginnings of recorded history.

(And speaking of paving - we're not placing random stones in the ground anymore; we're either pouring liquid, or laying stones pre-cut to standard size. Both are much easier to automate, and to some extent they already are automated.)

I can't think of a job so specific that wouldn't yield to competition from equivalent but normalized job.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#42

Post by spongeb00b »

ricardobeat wrote: post #14

Disappointing lack of technical depth in the report. > Typical problems that arose include how Apple's use of glue required precision the machinery couldn't reliably match Aren't robots commonly used to place adhesives (even replacing welds in metal fab) exactly because they can apply it far more precisely than humans? Picturing an iPad, I'd guess the issue would have been flexibility in placing glue in 3D space, aro…

Yes, I'm sure it's related to any of the softer parts of their devices, such as being able to lay and connect the various tiny flex connectors that need a certain amount of "feel" to assemble.

And despite Apple's high volumes, with changing their product line each year I'm sure humans are much more flexible when it comes to building different devices, rather than a full robotics line that needs to be redesigned.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#43

Post by pas »

advanced-DnD wrote: post #5
haltingproblem wrote: post #2

I find this to be relevant to the self driving problem - Apple/Foxconn could not detect when things had gone wrong on the automation line and stop it, let alone have the line's robots fix it. However, we expect a self driving car to detect when it encounters a novel situation on the road? And it surely will. If they could not detect it in the confines of a highly controlled factory assembly line (not manufacturing bu…

the smaller electronic device is, the higher the precision you need. For such a compact device such as iPhone, the precision is not enough to automate the production yet. For self-driving/flying, there is always some lee-way. The demand of lowering error variance is low.

> not enough to automate the production * yet

* = economically, because low-skilled labor is toooooo cheap

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#44

Post by Dahoon »

jfim wrote: post #3
haltingproblem wrote: post #2

I find this to be relevant to the self driving problem - Apple/Foxconn could not detect when things had gone wrong on the automation line and stop it, let alone have the line's robots fix it. However, we expect a self driving car to detect when it encounters a novel situation on the road? And it surely will. If they could not detect it in the confines of a highly controlled factory assembly line (not manufacturing bu…

Those are two pretty different domains. In manufacturing automation, some of the things that are hard include gripping objects, handling fluids and pastes, and adapting to design changes. For self driving cars, the controls are pretty similar, even across car models. Gas, brakes, and steering. It doesn't happen that a supplier ran out of engines and a decision is made to replace the car's propulsion by jet engines, t…

And yet if you look at what actual experts, that aren't trying to sell anything are saying, like automotive testing bodies (EuroNCAP, ADAC, FIA, etc) the consensus is that self-driving cars are at least 15 years away. The gap between reality and what salesmen have sold to common people is gigantic.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#45

Post by raducu »

jfim wrote: post #3
haltingproblem wrote: post #2

I find this to be relevant to the self driving problem - Apple/Foxconn could not detect when things had gone wrong on the automation line and stop it, let alone have the line's robots fix it. However, we expect a self driving car to detect when it encounters a novel situation on the road? And it surely will. If they could not detect it in the confines of a highly controlled factory assembly line (not manufacturing bu…

Those are two pretty different domains. In manufacturing automation, some of the things that are hard include gripping objects, handling fluids and pastes, and adapting to design changes. For self driving cars, the controls are pretty similar, even across car models. Gas, brakes, and steering. It doesn't happen that a supplier ran out of engines and a decision is made to replace the car's propulsion by jet engines, t…

Also the R&D budget for self-driving cars is bottomless.

There's a limit to the R&D budget for assembling THIS year's iphone, above which it's just better to use humans.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#47

Post by raducu »

cheschire wrote: post #28
gruturo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing the cost of 1 conductor every 200 passengers is not nearly having the same impact. Moreover as others point out, it has actually been done and there are automated lines. Safety advantages are probably slim - when there's a train accident it makes news, because they're RARE. It's also not going to significantly improve one's choice of transportation - you either have access to rail already, or you don't - re…

Safety regulations are what prevent more trains from running in many European places. Limiting rail to automated-only trains would allow them to run right up next to each other without the huge gaps between them that exists right now. You could move thousands more people than automated cars could manage for a fraction of the cost.

Is it really?

I thought you generally can scale trains by adding more wagons.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#48

Post by raducu »

EvilEy3 wrote: post #15

> It didn't work. Typical problems that arose include how Apple's use of glue required precision the machinery couldn't reliably match. And the tiny screws needed required the automation to correctly pick and position them but that same automation couldn't detect problems the way a human hand could. Seriously? Did anybody even read this garbage before publishing?

Why do you find that garbage?

The human hand sensors/fine muscle control is insanely good.

I don't think we are remotely close building anything that general-purpose and that precise.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#49

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Can't fight the feeling this is just an Apple-blogger's justification for how its fine that there is a level of suffering going into the manufacture of their phone, as we know from the factories having to install suicide nets.

Bottom line is, humans are cheaper than robots in the parts of the world the make your iPhone. If you ever visit the factories where this sort of thing is made its all shockingly manual, because that's what is cheapest.

Re: Apple learned automation can't match human skill

#50

Post by majewsky »

raducu wrote: post #47
cheschire wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safety regulations are what prevent more trains from running in many European places. Limiting rail to automated-only trains would allow them to run right up next to each other without the huge gaps between them that exists right now. You could move thousands more people than automated cars could manage for a fraction of the cost.

Is it really? I thought you generally can scale trains by adding more wagons.

Only for busy point-to-point connections. You can bundle up wagons from different senders or for different recipients into one train for the bulk of the journey, but the first and last leg are often done by truck because it's more cost-effective than running trains with just one or two wagons from/to individual factories.

Now if you had a train network with autonomously driving wagons that self-assemble into convoys, that would be quite something (and probably more cost-effective than truck convoys in the long run because the lower friction of metal-on-metal compared to rubber-on-asphalt).

Post reply on HN