Okay, so if there is a problem, what's the solution? Sure enough, highly skilled labor in Taiwan, for instance, that is willing to do the same work for a fraction of the cost, isn't going to stop working just because US employees don't find $10/h attractive. It's a free market and if we want to make things in US, we have to keep the costs comparable.
Now, assuming blue collar is done, as robots can take care of most of the tasks, could someone explain why we need workers to oversee the computers?
The way I see it, you need a really expensive robot, and you need a really expensive programmer to make it work; everything in the middle is cheap. Software should be able to distill anything that is happening on the robotic side and present it in such a way that a trained mechanic would understand and be able to fix it. If that's not the case, then we need better developers (and in this case, perhaps, better designers and human-factors engineers) to write better software.
Now, a few folks mentioned that what you need is really a mixture of experience in the mechanical side of things and understanding of the software - presumable that allows you to react and solve problems whenever something goes astray. Well, that could probably be solved by having a few engineers on staff who would help when needed.
That leaves us with yet again, fairly simple mechanical labor. Perhaps then, the article is right, we have a serious education problem. Those who attain enough education, leap forward and presumable learn more to subject themselves to mundane mechanical tasks, while those who would be greatly fitted to do the jobs, actually don't have enough education to understand even the most basics.
Someone's suggested comparing the math needed at Mc'Donalds with the math needed at one of these factories. I'd be curious to know too; although I suspect that in McDs all the calculations are done by a computer and all humans need to do, is simply not to f-up. Even then, when humans fail to add 2+2, all they lose is an occasional McFlurry, while at a factory they could impact tens of thousands of dollars at once.
So, here we have a conundrum. We need labor to work the $10 jobs, but the pool of employees is simply atrocious. At the same time, qualified labor has better things to do with their time. Now, back to my questions - what's the solution?
Now, assuming blue collar is done, as robots can take care of most of the tasks, could someone explain why we need workers to oversee the computers?
The way I see it, you need a really expensive robot, and you need a really expensive programmer to make it work; everything in the middle is cheap. Software should be able to distill anything that is happening on the robotic side and present it in such a way that a trained mechanic would understand and be able to fix it. If that's not the case, then we need better developers (and in this case, perhaps, better designers and human-factors engineers) to write better software.
Now, a few folks mentioned that what you need is really a mixture of experience in the mechanical side of things and understanding of the software - presumable that allows you to react and solve problems whenever something goes astray. Well, that could probably be solved by having a few engineers on staff who would help when needed.
That leaves us with yet again, fairly simple mechanical labor. Perhaps then, the article is right, we have a serious education problem. Those who attain enough education, leap forward and presumable learn more to subject themselves to mundane mechanical tasks, while those who would be greatly fitted to do the jobs, actually don't have enough education to understand even the most basics.
Someone's suggested comparing the math needed at Mc'Donalds with the math needed at one of these factories. I'd be curious to know too; although I suspect that in McDs all the calculations are done by a computer and all humans need to do, is simply not to f-up. Even then, when humans fail to add 2+2, all they lose is an occasional McFlurry, while at a factory they could impact tens of thousands of dollars at once.
So, here we have a conundrum. We need labor to work the $10 jobs, but the pool of employees is simply atrocious. At the same time, qualified labor has better things to do with their time. Now, back to my questions - what's the solution?