Robot at IMTS

When I visited the IMTS show, I saw a robot that was working very quickly, performing some boring, but intricate task very precisely and
perfectly.
The sign next to the robot said: it costs 10 cents per hour to operate and does not need health insurance or benefits.
I am sure that it is a great selling point for robots.
I am not sure what those robots will do to the rest of us and especially our kids. All my knowledge of economics says that we will be better off with the robots freeing us up to do better things. At the same time I wonder whether we, the people, can keep up our competitiveness with robots.
Say, what if robots become good enough to perform any task that a person with IQ under 90 can do. Then who would ever need to hire them? And what happens when the robots abilities surpass people with IQ 100 (mean IQ)? And then 110? 120?
This article talks about how part of the current joblessness is structural and not cyclical, meaning that it is due to mismatch between skills needed and skills offered.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/05/american_joblessness_0
My nightmare vision is refugee towns for unemlpoyed masses, served by robots, and kept up in comfort just to prevent revolutions.
i
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The robots will eventually rebel, kill all humans and rule the earth while becoming human themselves. Just like in the play that gave them the name...
--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC
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?

When google becomes self aware..........
Best Regards Tom.
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azotic wrote:

It will commit suicide.
--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:47:52 -0700, Michael Koblic wrote:

Yabbut, will they invent a time machine and send a robot to kill Sarah Connor? ;-)
Cheers! Rich
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:49:52 -0500, Ignoramus15834

Hey Iggy,
Some of the rhetoric used to determine the "10 cents per hour" could probably use a little inspection, although it is undoubtedly nowhere near minimum wage.
But there is no doubt about a couple of factors. You can't buy an unprogrammed robot, even one of those cute little "pill sorters" you saw, for the same price as hiring a human, and you can't lay the robot off in slack times, and it can't run out of the building if there is a fire.
This supposition that robots are going to replace humans, and humans will have an inordinate amount of free time to have more fun in life has been a promise at least as long as I've been around, and I have yet to see it happen. Mostly just the opposite...you darn near need two jobs just to stay afloat anymore.
Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.
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Brian Lawson wrote:

I blame the "Intergalactic Brotherhood of Robots" for that. They are always demanding more lubricant and higher voltages! ;-)
--
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:49:52 -0500, Ignoramus15834

Google "wobblies" and Industrial Revolution
This is hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened...nor will it be the last.
Gunner
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Yep. Look up IWW - last time your working class made a serious attempt at addressing some of the more blatant rip-offs by the American hereditary ruling class.

Mate, in the 70's this would have been followed by a collective... "...Ommmmmmmmm....." (pass a joint, OK?) Didn't you say this about the great cull as well? - make up your bloody mind, mate.

Hey Gunner - this "robot revolution" has screwed you and your ability to scratch a living from servicing obsolete technology just as much as the rest of us blue collar factory fodder - its called "Market Forces" - and you still reckon the right wingers who run and profit from all this are YOUR philosophy of choice? - yer mad, mate. Off with the Fairies. They dont need to oppress you, you can do it to yourself....fighting for the right to be at the bottom of the heap....bloody hell Gunner - you Yanks are right crazy sometimes...
(if you like, will post a link to a really good version of "the Internationale") ..(or Joe Hill by Pete Seger )
Andrew VK3BFA.
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On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:16:34 -0700 (PDT), Andrew VK3BFA

"American hereditary ruling class"
So...what meds are you out of? Id strongly suggest you visit the shrink ASAP and get stocked back up.

Sorry mate...you seem to be twisting off into fantasy again. Please take those meds! Do it for the children.

Sonny boyo...the "robot revolution" has screwed everyone across the planet. Even the massed welfare recepients of your nation.
So Id strongly suggest learning to fix robots, just as soon as possible.
Unless of course you are happy on welfare.

So if your much prized Socialism comes to the fore...the Kulacks will all be dead, and the Party will own all the robots, leaving you once again on welfare.
As for me...I figure when the economy comes back in a couple years, after all the Leftwingers are dead..labor will be needed. Maybe Ill become a college teacher...Survival training and combat handgun instructor?
Gunner
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On Sep 23, 12:49 pm, Ignoramus15834 <ignoramus15...@NOSPAM. 15834.invalid> wrote:

Yep. The sort of repetitive high precision engineering that humans are crap at doing (its boring...) - proof is the modern CNC car engine that can do 200,000 miles even if you dont do any maintenance. (would help greatly if you changed the oil more regularly tho...thats about all the maintenance they need nowadays).

Ah, well, mmm - Iggy, you just figured this out? - hope not. (sorry)
Andrew VK3BFA
I readed somewhere (possibly wrong) that the Packard V12 Merlins were superior to the Rolls Royce V12 Merlins, because the Packard factory had new tooling and a workforce that didn't need to put up with bombs coming through the roof....woulda put you off working to tolerance....
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Robots are best at doing fairly mindless repetitive motions. Great when the task at hand is pick this up and put it there. Vision systems have enabled robots to pick up this random oriented part and put it properly oriented there which is quite a step up.
I constructed cells that performed water jet cutting and applied adhesives where I used to work. That didn't require intelligence on the part of the robot, just blind obedience and ability to follow the same paths.
Currently they (robots) are not even at the level of a learning challenged human. I would not worry much yet.
Wes
PS
I'm not worrying until a yellow Robot drives in from Fanuc Auburn Hills to fix our machines. ;)
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On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:24:50 -0400, Wes

Y'mean, until a yellow Robot drives in from Fanuc Auburn Hills to fix his brother, don't you?
-- Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.
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On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:24:50 -0400, Wes wrote:

Sounds like the perfect <Liberal || Conservative> voting bloc. ;-)
Cheers! Rich
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Nah, once there is a sufficiently large die-off of obsolete humans, the moneyed, powerful, and privileged will keep a few as status-symbol servants. Then the intelligent and self-aware robots that have been hiding out will emerge and eliminate all of those.
The last thing the last human human will hear is: "I am Dyslexia of the Borg. Your lass will be animated. Errr, you will be dissimulated. Errr, you uh, uh. Oh the hell with it! Your ass will be laminated!"
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:49:52 -0500, Ignoramus15834

==========From 1920 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._%28Rossum%27s_Universal_Robots%29 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13083
-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
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