Posted on 01/29/2014 7:57:04 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
People won’t permit automation if it means they starve. Nor will they permit power for automation while others freeze.
And there are many jobs robots won’t be doing.
The Great Shift Toward Automation and the Future of Employment
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/The-Great-Shift-and-the-Future-of-Employment
Skilled labor, what we used to call blue collar jobs, can’t be done by robots and are in great demand. Too many people tried to get into college and knowledge work without the capacity and now work in sales or sit at home.
We should be training kids to be plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics, carpenters, CNC programmers, computer hardware technicians, QC techs.
Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels covered this many years ago. Earth outlaws robots because of the effect they were having on humanity. The outer planets didn’t and he goes into detail about what happened to the people on some of the planets.
Commercial or military electronic equipment is designed modular for maintenance, but a majority of consumer electronics is based on sufficient service life until replacement. Well considered modules allow upgrade to overall performance with only a swap. But lock-in to a long term service and support contract often results in using antiquated equipment way past its prime.
A good example of this modular philosophy carried over into consumer goods is the desktop computer. But just as the previously common local repair shop for televisions have faded, such is the fate of computers.
What has not been considered yet is a disrupting technology allowing custom fabrication with best methods for one-off equipment, without the penalties currently embodied in a design-tooling-fabrication cycle. Aerospace innovators have already embraced 3d-cad-fab techniques.
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