Directing you to a super-interesting short (about 5 minutes or so) video produced by the New York Times as the first installment of a series they call 'Robotica'. In the video, we see more about the growth, challenges, and worker impact of the surge in adoption of industrial robots in Chinese manufacturing. Take a few minutes to watch the piece, (embedded below, Email and RSS subscribers will have to click through), and then some comments from me after the clip.
Really interesting stuff I think, and for me, very instructive as in 5 minutes it hits many of the big picture issues associated with the increasing automation of work and the impacts this will have on human workers.
1. At least in this Chinese province, the goals of this program are extremely clear - 'Replacing human workers with robots.' While the motivations for this stated goal might be specific to this region, I think it would be foolish to think that this phenomenon and executive attitude isn't much more common, and not just in China. CEOs everywhere are going to be intrigued and in pursuit of what increased automation promises - lower costs, increased consistency and quality, and a predictable labor supply.
2. The video does a nice job of showing the likely mixed or divergent impact of increased automation on the front-line workers that are usually most effected. While one (hand-picked by the factory leaders) employee waxes happily about how the robots are making his job easier and happier, another talks frankly about his (and other's) inability to easily transition from manual, repetitive work that is replaced by robot workers, to higher value added or creative and 'human' work. Whether in China or in Indianapolis, no low skilled worker can suddenly become a high-skilled or creative worker overnight.
3. The video alludes to the potential, one day, for robots to actually manufacture the robots themselves, even if that is not yet happening today. This notion, that automated technologies will largely build more of themselves is one of the key differences from modern, robotic-type automation than in previous technological breakthroughs. Henry Ford's Model A didn't drive itself, (or build itself). Telephones didn't make calls for you. Personal computers needed LOTS of people entering data into them in order to get anything useful back out from them. But robots building more robots to replace more people? That sounds a little scary.
I will sign off here, take a look at the video if you can spare a few minutes today and let me know what you think in the comments below. Or have your robot assistant watch it for you.
Have a great week!