A perfect example is modern electronics. A large part of the reason for the rise of surface mount electronic components (SMT parts are soldered to the same side of the circuit board that they are placed on) is that they make it much cheaper to assemble electronics by automated pick & place machines than it would have been to keep the older through-hole components (with pins/wires that go through the board and are soldered on the opposite side) and use human-like robots to assemble them.
Likewise, airplanes have autopilots designed into them for that purpose instead of having robotic pilots sitting in seats.
The reality is that in most large volume manufacturing, special purpose automation will win out over general purpose robots.
On the other hand , threatening to replace workers with robots in mass , seem like a powerful negotiation tactic.
I'll believe it when i see it.
Say this to any AI researcher who has done work in the past 5 decades. See what happens.
The problem is to many peoples jobs are to easy and highly specialized. They don't require strong AI - just good enough "dumb" algorithms, and we're getting really good at those. Doing paperwork by strict specifications. Driving a truck from point A to B. Assemble a circuitboard from a blueprint. As long as you keep a handful of humans in the loop incase something unexpected happens, this is all stuff robots can do today.
In all honesty I have no idea. Would they laugh and say that "no way AI needs another 20 years"? Or would they say it's only a few years until everyone working with their hands is out of work? Kudos on the pretentious reply btw.
Imagine a 24-hour fast-food restaurant that employs several people at minimum wage. A robot could work all 3 shifts around the clock nonstop, not require much space, and be "trained" in new types of food preparation with an instantaneous software upgrade.
My economics professor once said he'd heard that if minimum wage got up to $20/hour, it would be cheaper for McD's to use robots. This is changing the other side of the equation.
Now suppose these things manage to run at a 80% duty cycle. That way, they run for around 130 hours a week, replacing 2.5 workers. Those workers make, say, about 2.5 x $1000 = $2500 a year, for a gap of 10:1.
I do not think it will take a decade to close that gap. Firstly, you can design your factory for robots; get rid of most toilets, lunch facilities, walkways, etc. Also get rid of 90% of your huge HR staff (which is huge due to high personnel turnover). Pay the high-tech workers who do robot maintenance from the salaries of the toilet cleaners, restaurant personnel, etc, you got rid of.
Also get rid of the non-billable hours you have now that you spend training personnel on producing this month's product.
I think there will still be a large margin, especially since these things eat power (1.5kW per robot adds up) and since these robots may work slower than the humans they replace.
Decades, however, is a long, long time. A single decade is a factor of 64 in Moore's law, so power usage will decrease to about 80W (for the robot) + 1500W/64 (for control hardware) ~= 100W in a decade. Alternatively, some of the extra CPU power, could, conceivably, be used to speed up these robots.
Wages in China and India are growing. There are places with lower wages, but the infrastructure for major industry isn't always there.
Correction: Automation poses a real threat to everyone
If we didn't have all the automation we have today, our lives would suck.
The only ones threatedned by automation are those who are unwilling to get a different job.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090402-robot... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/131697.stm
My personal thoughts are that communism is merely the next step after capitalism (after discovering fusion and fabricating nanotechnology), however I don't think/hope it will play out as it had before in Russia.
