Apple Demands Suppliers Switch to Robotics for Manufacturing
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
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Apple is demanding its suppliers switch to robotics for manufacturing, sparking discussion about the impact on jobs and the economy, and whether this trend is beneficial or detrimental to society.
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Society needs simple jobs that people can build lives around. But we can’t build policy around forcing those jobs to exist.
When the expectation that you should have a house, a job, a family and everything else becomes unavailable, what then?
People clearly need money. But I don’t like the idea of people forced to stand around doing the same little thing over and over all day. It’s just a recipe for RSI, and as many of us here on HN know that’s not fun.
Seems like those people could be put to work doing something better if a robot can do that job. Creative things, human things, whatever.
I like the idea of automating more things. But I agree we need a solution for the people who are displaced. To make their lives better. Just dumping them in the corner without money certainly isn’t an improvement.
This also implies that the work could be onshored if the supply chain can handle it.
As @hyperhello pointed out: automation comes at a cost of lost jobs and we need to figure out how to make an automated society work that is not completely dystopian. My hopes are tempered in that regard.