Saturday, March 12, 2016

Donald Trump in the Age of Robotics

Maybe a wall to keep out the machines.  From the current issue of Rolling Stone - The Rise of Intelligent Machines Part 2 by Jeff Goodell:

"If any company could be a poster child for how robots are transforming American manufacturing jobs, its Boeing.  According to Reuters, Boeing is turning out 20 percent more planes, but with one-third fewer workers, than it did in the 1990s.  In just this past year, it replaced hundreds of employees with 60-ton robots.  Boeing says they work twice as fast as people, with two-thirds fewer defects. The impact of automation on the company's workforce has been dramatic.  In 1998, the company made 564 planes a year, employing roughly 217 people per plane.  In 2015, it made 762 planes, using about 109 workers per plane.  Not surprising, a recent White House economic report concluded that labor productivity gains from robotics are similar in magnitude to the productivity gains from steam engines in the 19th century."

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