Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:28:26 GMT
Message-ID: <CtE7zI.Jrz@armory.com>
References: <Ct8z84.np1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <30jt34$6f6@magus.cs.utah.edu> <30kh7j$5ev@ecom2.ecn.bgu.edu> <CtAsCn.I7x@apollo.hp.com>
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In article <CtAsCn.I7x@apollo.hp.com>,
Jeff Blacksin <jeffb@hpwala.wal.hp.com> wrote:
>I feel a deep obligation to respond to this point. Automation creates jobs and
>does not eliminate them. I have never worked on an Automation project in the
>last 10 years that didn't result in more people being hired. Robots taking
>people's jobs away is a myth.
>
>Companies in the US are notorious cheap. If they can pay someone 7 bucks an
>hour to do a job, they won't spring for the 75k robot to do that job. Most
>robots are installed in situations where humans can't do the work ( precision
>assembly, clean rooms, painting, welding ). In each one of these cases the
>product being built could not exist without the aid of the robot and thus a new
>market is created that didn't previously exist. Support people are hired,
>engineers are hired to make the automation work. 
>
>If GM went out and replaced all of its production line workers with robots
>there would be at least as large an amount of support personnel behind those 
>robots ( at higher skilled, higher paying jobs ) to make that factory run.
>| Jeffrey Blacksin     | TELENET:                         |
>| Hewlett Packard      | jeffb@hpwapcl.wal.hp.com         |
--------------------------------
You're talking about some VERY sophisticated robotics. He's talking about
ALL of automation. Every factory that automated in the sixties and
seventies with mechanical handlers fired people like crazy and moved out of
town NOT to find lower cost labor, but to keep from getting firebombed!!!
The people they employed at their new sites were better paided and did the
same jobs, basically, they just didn't have an ingrained hatred of the
company from having a history with it!!!!

It IS possible for automation to improve life for all people, but to do
that, they will have to pay the same people more for less but more well-
trained workhours instead of pocketing the profit!!! This does NOT usually
happen. I hope we can line these profiteers up and shoot them sometime.
I'll bring the ammunition!!!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

