Cost prohibition is a preeeeeeetty big deal. And as long as biology exists, the economics will never get there. You're talking about replacing (skilled) human workers with cutting edge ultra advanced androids, which even then can't come close to matching the degrees of freedom of a human. Robots are made of metal parts, which are absolutely bulky, clunky, and massive compared to protein fibers.

It's absolute nonsense. Every person will have their own flying car before getting there. Automation will be limited to stationary structures for a long long time, and then only break out into mobile applications very slowly.

The experience you state is stationary automation, with countable degrees of freedom.

This post was edited by El1te on Apr 9 2025 12:09pm

people said the same thing about machinery at the first wave of automation. "why would i spend 100k on a labelling machine, people cost 5$/hour". and now in america 99% of all products are labelled by an automated machine. cost is 1 part of the equation, mistakes are another. people make more mistakes than machines, and machines work faster. this greatly offsets the costs with productivity increases.

in context tho your whole "stationary structures" thing is largely nonsense. firstly because we're talking about manufacturing, where its all stationary anyways. and secondly because even in dynamic applications you can easily make robotics mobile, such as produce sorters which they just install behind a picker. the robot doesnt need to move, u just need to move the robot.

really tho the issue that everyone who thinks like you is they dont understand the basic math. you have a % of the population that works in manual labor, and a % that work in white collar jobs. automation is currently eating at both sides, and a lack of new jobs are being created to replace that %. its simple math, if automation takes more jobs than the market creates in new sectors then too many people are put out of work. and i know your response "well new stuff will be made, it just has to", but that's false. a higher % will be automated than is created, its that simple, and its inarguable. 100 years from now whether you like or accept it or not a large % of the population just wont work jobs, at all. they'll be apartment dwelling unproductive members of society who will likely take a few extra food vouchers to voluntarily sterilize themselves.

I was just watching a little short history on the sewing machine last week for some random reason. Too big, too clunky, too cost prohibited initially.

Many skilled workers can be replaced in this generation, we’re not talking about some far distant future anymore. Will still need oversight but it really depends on the policies in place how many people will be required to work

This post was edited by MildSambal on Apr 9 2025 12:59pm

99% of the problem people have in this conversation is denial, they cant accept the world will become something they fear. people not working is a massive fear for them, and me too. but denial of a problem never makes the problem better, it makes it far worse. so while vanguard and blackrock buy up all of the land they put their fingers in their ears and tell themselves their grandkids will be fine as long as they teach them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. makes me sad tbh, their grandkids will be sloths with no prospects for success, mine wont.

This tariff bluster with China is a bit of a joke. Trump does not actually say what's happening, its only in the fine print.

That 245% tariff if I understand it correctly only applies to Electric Vehicles (surprise, surprise) and syringes? Two areas Biden already had higher tariffs on anyways making it completely non-relevant at all and clearly just headline bluster. Smart phones for instance is still just 20%

Sadly it appears China is almost taking the higher ground saying how silly this is and suspect they are not wrong.

"Even if the U.S. continues to impose even higher tariff, it would no longer have any economic significance and would go down as a joke in the history of world economics." - Chinese Ministry of Finance

1 million %

And in the fine print

"applicable on only things we don't already buy from Gina"

Same ministry that has published totally bullshit numbers for decades. Take it with a grain of salt. They want to project a strong posture as the domestic chaos from the Tarrifs cycle had their population scrambling.

Who trusts China? The same country that said Covid wasn’t a big deal then turned around and had some of the strictest covid precautions. I don’t trust a single thing coming from China’s government.