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Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

Foxconn also has plans to install millions of assembly robots in the next few years.

All of this push to raise employee pay will more than likely speed up the adoption of automation and end up drastically cutting unskilled jobs a bit faster.

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Already, there are huge queues for Foxconn positions even if the work conditions are abysmal. The Chinese government won't like this as it could lead to famine issues all over again. I wonder how Foxconn is going to compensate for this, the socialist thinks more taxes, the conservative thinks more security.

I was just coming here to ask this; why do robots not do this and why, if robots can do this, is this not done in the US? Robots cost a lot of money (getting cheaper, but slowly; wait for the 3d-printable robots), but it makes more sense keeping it in the US anyway?

You need a manufacturing base. Raw materials, parts, tools, it all has to be made nearby your plant to be able to automate efficiently. The US doesn't have that anymore.

I am curious where this info comes from? I heard the gov is sponsoring robot production in the USA now; what would be needed?

[citation needed]

There's only about a million industrial robots in operation worldwide today. For Foxconn to turn around all those iPads (for example) in only a month or two requires about million people right now. The scale of what they do is just staggering, imagine how much it would cost to go to a third party like Siemens and buy a million industrial robots with the dexterity of human hands and fingers.

Well, with this new internal development project Foxconn will do it all by itself in just 2 years. This will DOUBLE the number of industrial robots in the world and make China the leading robotics country. Impressive stuff.

That is very impressive. I find it more impressive though that we are not farther along with this. Only 1 million?

(I have no idea about this, you seem to:)

Isn't it so that you don't need the human dexterity? They are making the same movements on the same iPad the entire day; would that not be a prime candidate to NOT need humans for? It's not as if they create a custom iPad per client?

Well the stuff that do not require human fingers have already been robiticized.

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