The Robot Revolution: The New Age of Manufacturing | Moving Upstream

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Hundreds of millions of jobs affected. Trillions of dollars of wealth created. These are the potential impacts of a coming wave of automation. In this episode of Moving Upstream, we travelled to Asia to see the next generation of industrial robots, what they’re capable of, and whether they’re friend or foe to low-skilled workers.

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20 COMMENTS

  10. There are so many unnecessary jobs that exist only so someone can THINK they are earning a living!!! Many jobs that are necessary are done inefficiently to create more work! There will be more unnecessary hard labor. When AI runs the equipment we will have to invent even more unnecessary work. but to consider adjusting the balance between capitalism and socialism will affect our freedom. That is the reason we have so little free time.

  16. In the real world only a handful of industrialized countries have truly raised the standard of living of their people. Human societies advanced to civilization with agriculture. A handful of modern societies elevated themselves from agrarian civilization to industrialized civilization. These countries are America, England, France, Germany, Japan, …). England was the first industrialized country. By using the steam engine to power textile manufacturing England lowered the cost of textile production. This mechanization put a lot of manual thread and fabric makers out of business. But the overall effect of mechanization was to raise the standard of living to a new level for the English people. The higher standard of living of industrialized society is driven by mechanization. Pre-industrialized societies have far lower standard of living. They are under developed and cannot raise the standard of living of its people. When I was growing up the US during the 1960s, Japanese cars were laughed at by most people as cheap, throw-aways (unreliable). My family only bought American cars. In the 1970s American auto workers were in conflict with their management about bringing in automation in fear of losing their jobs. The same thing was happening in the UK. Japanese auto workers and managers cooperated and brought in automation to help improve reliability and lower cost. By the 1980s Japanese cars out competed their English and American counterparts in reliability and price. By the 1990s, many American and UK car factories had to close because they could not sell the cars they made. Many Americans blame the Japanese for unfair competition. So a reasonably priced, reliable car is unfair competition. Their own unwillingness to improve their manufacturing capability is not to blame. It is amazing to me that the people who created the modern, industrialized world (America, England, France…) have no idea how they got there. These people are actually promoting action that will compromise their ability to compete. And when their own standard of living falls they blame automation or bad trade policy or foreigners. These are the same people who praise communism or socialism as a reasonable alternative. As far as the Asian (Chinese) people in this video, I have no idea why they would consent to be in this video, which distorts reality rather than deal with reality. These Asian people use modern machines which make their lives better. But their Asian society did not create these machines. So they may not know that they are being manipulated by a bunch people who should know better.

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