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Report: Apple Demands Suppliers Switch to Robotics for Manufacturing

Happy_John said:
Yes, this is the huge problem, and as yet we don't have a convincing solution for it.

We can't simply make "fake jobs", we can't tell people to dig a hole and then fill it in.

When I started out in work, I was working in printing and publishing ( hence Macs). I remember very early on meeting an older guy who was frustrated, to say the least. He was a typesetter. He physically set type and made plates for printing. And his job didn't exist anymore. Telling him to learn DTP wasn't a valid option because 1) that wasn't what he'd spent his working life doing up until now and 2) there were hundred sof young design school graduates who did know their way around DTP packages coming up behind him.

Yes, companies manufacture products to sell. But there needs to be people with enough disposable income to buy the things that are manufactured. People get an income from working.

The robots don't get paid, and, even if they did, they have no burning desire to buy cars or laptops.
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But:
A.I. 2.0 will make it possible to pay them, in Botcoin, and install burning desire algorithms to spend it. I can already see long lines of robots forming at Dutch Brothers … until the day, when their A.I. was hacked and they began to unionize, eventually go on strike …
 
scrapesleon said:
of course anything for more profits even if it makes more people unemployed
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This was always inevitable and much needed improvement of obsoleting jobs many in developed countries don’t want replaced with jobs many can and are able to do n such countries at a high paying / sustainable rate via robotics.

Being a factory worker is not up there at all among the desired jobs in the US; the jobs desired and compensated appropriately after formal education in computer science and business resource optimization studies in college has ALWAYS been robotic replacement of such jobs that also levels the playing field where goods can be manufactured benefiting all companies with global impact implications
 
tobybrut said:
That’s what the foldable iPhone, foldable tablets, and Vision Pro/Air/etc products are for. Vision Pro is a proof of concept for what will eventually replace the phone, tablet, and mobile computer. Once it gets down to size with proper miniaturization, the phone will go away and people will make calls on their glasses. You can already make calls on your watch but it doesn’t have a good enough screen for most purposes, so that’s what AR is for.
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I have to disagree with that one. I don’t believe a majority of people will want to wear glasses, even assuming everything is perfect (usability, battery life, etc.).

A phone is much more versatile because you don’t need to wear it, only carry it.
 
ducknalddon said:
That’s the thing isn’t it, that everyone wants those jobs to exist but nobody wants to do them.
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Not the way Apple (or big companies) have transformed manufacturing.
Manufacturing jobs should not be "modern slavery".

We've been told that if you offer better wages then products would be more expensive.
Yes, but people in general will also have better living conditions.

Modern slavery for the sake of profits for a few is not, in my view, very ethical.


canadianreader said:
Future iPhones: Designed in California and Made in the USA (by robots)
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And soon, they might as well be designed by robots.
And hence Elons Musk talking about a "universal salary". What a depressing world we are building.


Premium1 said:
They are already destroying the world. The workers don't like their jobs (hence the suicide nets and what not). This will take jobs away but lets not act like these were well respected jobs with a healthy work environment.
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Agreed. Capitalism on itself does not protect workers. Business owners will always want to cut costs and maximize profits. But modern capitalism sucks even more. Wealth is super concentrated on very few people that have a lot of influence on what happens.
 
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Andres Cantu said:
I have to disagree with that one. I don’t believe a majority of people will want to wear glasses, even assuming everything is perfect (usability, battery life, etc.).

A phone is much more versatile because you don’t need to wear it, only carry it.
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No one said the majority; majority won’t be able to afford it being a luxury for a while—just like computers and cell phones were for a while but more pronounced as expected.

Settling for a slab phone was never the endgame for most people to ideally have; AR and more functional portable computers was always more superior but not yet technically viable until now similar to real time ray-tracing over rasterization.

The average person thinks if most of them don’t buy, they can control the progress of such advances; it’s not that simple at all.

Like high paying tech jobs and above (hundreds of thousands per year in major tech cities) already enable, such things will be further latent perks of being able to afford them being competitively competent at those jobs rather than pursuing other career fields.

Such jobs are among the few jobs people have any hope of comfortably and regularly affording high-end goods for people of all genders and backgrounds
 
Happy_John said:
No-one's exceptional (or everyone is equal exceptional, which amounts to the same thing for this discussion).

Whether Chinese mega-factories are appropriate or not in China doesn't affect that, in my opinion, many workers in the Western world not be happy work in that environment, and I honestly don't believe western workers would maintain the same levels of productivity.
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On that we agree. No one running a business decided to move production abroad as a way to make *less* money.
 
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Andres Cantu said:
At some point, the law of diminishing returns will come into play and margin squeezes will no longer be possible. Couple that with a plateau in iPhone demand, and what will be Apple’s safety net? More stock buybacks?
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Forced obsolescence: iPhone can only function for 7 years sharp. Exactly on 7th anniversary Apple will activate a kill switch to destroy iOS on it, rendering it completely useless. And there will be an instruction telling customers where to trade in their now 7 year old iPhone for a new one. One year prior to destruction iOS will send warning messages weekly urging customers to take their iPhone back to Apple for trade in and recycle.
 
firstcitazen said:
so why can't we build robots in America? If labor is the biggest cost why can't factories with robots work in America?
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Robots will work in America. The problem is finding enough qualified people to build them efficiently and in high quality. Also maintaining those robots.
 
HarryPot said:
It's not about if I want to do it, but if someone needs that job.

Robots are going to make the products, sell the products and ship the products.
And all the money is going to go to the few companies that can achieve that level of automation.

For the rest, we're only left working for those big corporations with decreasing salaries or selling to them cheaply (because they always take advantage of small suppliers).
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Soon only 0.02% of population will have money and luxury and all the rest will have none.
 
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ZipZilla said:
This isn't the end of the world. Robotics has been used for decades in auto manufacturing. People will still be needed to service the robots and for other parts of the supply chain.
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Yes but we don’t need that many people. And the people we need must be highly qualified and skilled.
The population reset may happen concurrently with automation, so the world has a sustainable level of population.
 
nonns said:
When everyone is automated out if a job by ai and robotics who will buy the iPhones or will we saunter along to the iPhone bank run by the apple charity thence to the pizza express charity for a bite to eat and along the British airways charity for a flight to a sandals charity resort somewhere. We can then enjoy ourselves with all the other unemployed bums.
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That's how the ruling class plan to re-enslave us. Soft shackles in the form of subscriptions and services. You will own nothing.
 
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The corollary of this article is that build quality is not consistently good enough outside China ie. not all people and cultures are equal. Marx be damned
 
Probably an effort to convince a certain administration of a certain country that moving their manufacturing really wouldn't bring that many jobs.
 
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Not surprised. All factories will be increasing their use of robots and automation. It will be eventually cheaper for Apple.
 
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