America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by foobarian » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:12 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #70

thaack wrote: post #28

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. I work in a factory and see this daily. My family owns a small plastic manufacturing plant in the US. This is the biggest problem they face. The western worker's appetite for a low skill monotonous manufacturing job is very small. The business loses employees to Walmart etc. despite the factor…

[flagged]

> There's nothing wrong with "western workers"

Yeah nothing other than not being willing to work 9/9/6 for $2/day

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

#92

Post by vkou » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #78

Lapel2742 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> factories with no humans on the assembly line. Not an American myself, but why should that be good for ordinary American citizens? Few people make loads of money, some Gen-Xer secure the value of their 401k and the younger ones are out of job?

This is great for ordinary Americans. It means you don't have to do the boring assembly jobs, but you still get the benefits for vast amounts of mass produced goods. (some of it is junk, but that is a different topic). Those goods should be cheap as well because they are mass produced with little labor costs. The only ones who lose are those who are want to do boring work instead of something creative. (or those who…

> This is great for ordinary Americans.

If that's true, why isn't unrestricted immigration[1] good for them? It means that the citizens don't have to do the boring immigrant jobs, but still get the benefits for vast amounts of immigrant-produced goods and services.

The only ones who will lose out are ones who 'want to'[2] do the boring immigrant jobs.

AI can't just handwave all this shit away because 'technology good'. Whether or you agree with these concerns or not, there's a massive backlash from various flavors of nativists about jobs. Why isn't it directed at all of these pie in the sky AI promises?

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[1] Or, you know, just buying imports from China. What difference does it make to me where a factory is located, when that factory doesn't employ me or my neighbours? The people collecting profits from it aren't going to share them with us.

[2] What does it mean to 'want to' do a 'boring' job? Rent's due in two weeks, 'wants' don't enter into it much.

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

#93

Post by phillyboy82 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:29 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #60

thaack wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no involvement with the plant directly. My understanding is the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. Job portals were pretty useless from my understanding.

> the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. I appreciate the answer. And I understand that you may not have more-granular info than this. But I am wondering what how jobs were advertised prior to utilizing ProbOff/CL. Maybe the answer is this. There was no avenue to get job listings in front of the most likely eyeballs.

Companies go to ManPower or other job staffing agencies when they need X number of low level employees or temps

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

#94

Post by phillyboy82 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:30 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #60

thaack wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no involvement with the plant directly. My understanding is the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. Job portals were pretty useless from my understanding.

> the best luck they had was getting in good graces with local probation officers & craigslist classifieds. I appreciate the answer. And I understand that you may not have more-granular info than this. But I am wondering what how jobs were advertised prior to utilizing ProbOff/CL. Maybe the answer is this. There was no avenue to get job listings in front of the most likely eyeballs.

Also they’ll do local job fairs on site, at local community colleges. You’d be surprised how many people still listen to FM in their car so ads go up there too locally.

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

#95

Post by Pulcinella » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:31 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #36

candiddevmike wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're losing employees, then they must not have that much higher pay or better benefits for it to be worth it to work there. I don't think you can easily blame it on the job being monotonous...

The job being monotonous is clearly enough of a downside that significantly higher pay and benefits are needed to attract talent. Paying higher wages might help retain employees (or not! there are jobs people just won’t keep doing no matter the pay) but doing so could easily increase costs to the point where your product is uncompetitive in the market. It also might just be worth having higher turnover in order to ke…

We need actual data to decide how significant is "significant." Otherwise you will just have businesses complaining no one wants to work for "significantly" higher pay (a whole $0.05/hour more).

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

#96

Post by phillyboy82 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

pseudocomposer wrote: post #63

thaack wrote: post #28

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. I work in a factory and see this daily. My family owns a small plastic manufacturing plant in the US. This is the biggest problem they face. The western worker's appetite for a low skill monotonous manufacturing job is very small. The business loses employees to Walmart etc. despite the factor…

Obviously, the “higher pay and significantly better benefits” are not actually significantly better. I’d rather we address that than just exploit some other workers overseas where they’re out of sight, out of mind. Honestly, it seems like tariffs on imported goods would be the way around this, but also, we need to be sure that money is going to the people doing the work, not just the owners. Speaking of which, I don’…

Wrong. Kids brains are fried from phones / social media so much that they struggle with repetitive labor.

I see this all the time at an automotive plant. UAW wages are good, especially after the last contract, but we still get people who struggle putting a sticker on a car for an hour straight before their break or task switch.

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

#97

Post by bluGill » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #92

bluGill wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great for ordinary Americans. It means you don't have to do the boring assembly jobs, but you still get the benefits for vast amounts of mass produced goods. (some of it is junk, but that is a different topic). Those goods should be cheap as well because they are mass produced with little labor costs. The only ones who lose are those who are want to do boring work instead of something creative. (or those who…

> This is great for ordinary Americans. If that's true, why isn't unrestricted immigration[1] good for them? It means that the citizens don't have to do the boring immigrant jobs, but still get the benefits for vast amounts of immigrant-produced goods and services. The only ones who will lose out are ones who 'want to'[2] do the boring immigrant jobs. AI can't just handwave all this shit away because 'technology good…

Unrestricted immigration is good - they just want a 'boogyman' to blame unrelated problems on.

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

#98

Post by lenkite » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:37 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #36

candiddevmike wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're losing employees, then they must not have that much higher pay or better benefits for it to be worth it to work there. I don't think you can easily blame it on the job being monotonous...

The job being monotonous is clearly enough of a downside that significantly higher pay and benefits are needed to attract talent. Paying higher wages might help retain employees (or not! there are jobs people just won’t keep doing no matter the pay) but doing so could easily increase costs to the point where your product is uncompetitive in the market. It also might just be worth having higher turnover in order to ke…

A lot of folks like repeatable, monotonous jobs. They can loose themselves in a trance doing the same thing for hours.

The problem is that American bosses will never hire these kind of people. They can never pass the interview game.

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

#99

Post by mullingitover » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:51 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #65

mullingitover wrote: post #44

The US spent decades transitioning from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, deliberately. Now there's a populist making political hay, throwing out numbers about trade deficits, which ignores revenue from services . Yes, there is have a trade deficit on goods, that was a long-term strategy because services were a superior investment. Manufacturing is an inferior way to make money unless you're planning to g…

>Manufacturing is an inferior way to make money sure in the sense in which operating an airline or high speed rail network makes you less money than running an ad or porn website but the world doesn't run on money, it runs on infrastructure. I believe we have a term for civilizations that value money over power, we call them decadent. If you're content living in Mark Zuckerberg's slop metaverse that's a possible rout…

> operating an airline or high speed rail network makes you less money than running an ad or porn website

Airlines and high speed rail systems are also services. Heck, even Tesla's real value isn't in manufacturing, it's in the (delusional, but nonetheless) belief that they're going to make an absolute killing on services at some point in the future. They could probably sell off their manufacturing arm and their stock price would increase.

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

#100

Post by hitarpetar » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 7:52 PM UTC

phillyboy82 wrote: post #96

pseudocomposer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, the “higher pay and significantly better benefits” are not actually significantly better. I’d rather we address that than just exploit some other workers overseas where they’re out of sight, out of mind. Honestly, it seems like tariffs on imported goods would be the way around this, but also, we need to be sure that money is going to the people doing the work, not just the owners. Speaking of which, I don’…

Wrong. Kids brains are fried from phones / social media so much that they struggle with repetitive labor. I see this all the time at an automotive plant. UAW wages are good, especially after the last contract, but we still get people who struggle putting a sticker on a car for an hour straight before their break or task switch.

finally a positive framing on social media addiction