back to article Humans – 1 Robots – 0: Mercedes deautomates production lines

In a surprise win for humanity, Mercedes Benz has announced that it's ditching the robots used on its assembly line in favor of human workers because they can cope with the job better. "Robots can't deal with the degree of individualization and the many variants that we have today," Markus Schaefer, the luxury car-maker's head …

  1. Martin Summers

    "Robotic workers will in future be found working hand-in-hand with human staff"

    Until the sneaky bastards get their revenge. Don't trust 'em.

    1. notowenwilson

      "hand in hand" more like "hand in manipulator" like when the robot rips off the human's puny flesh and bone hand and then installs it onto the end of the gear shift lever in a horrible tribute to technology's power over humanity.

      Or something like that.

    2. Paul Kinsler

      Re: Until the sneaky bastards get their revenge. Don't trust 'em.

      And what sort of revenge is it the humans have planned, do you think?

      1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Until the sneaky bastards get their revenge. Don't trust 'em.

        Either pull the plug, or Robot Wars..

    3. Faux Science Slayer

      Slaves....in last ditch struggle with robots and migrant zombies....

      The Fall of the Berlin Wall allowed a wave of Universal Freedom to sweep Europe.....

      make it all the way to Tianamen Square where Big Bush propped up the Red Army....

      and used American banking and industry to create the "Chinese Miracle"

      See.... "Hoodwinked by Hoodlums"....in archive at Canada Free Press....share Truth....

  2. Charles Manning

    One word

    Unions.

    1. Oengus

      Re: One word

      I didn't even know that Robots had formed a union.

      1. Potemkine Silver badge

        Re: One word

        More than an union, a brotherhood

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: One word

      Wong word. The right word is: Bespoke.

      If you make a marketing point of each car being somewhat unique and made-to-order you can similarly make a marketing point that your manufacturing process matches what you advertise.

      By the way, I bet they did not remove _ALL_ robots off the assembly line. Thy reduced them a bit to match what they are doing in terms of product and made a BIG marketing point out of it.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: One word

        "By the way, I bet they did not remove _ALL_ robots off the assembly line."

        You'd win that bet. Although since it does actually state that in the article it's unlikely anyone would take you up on it.

    3. Velv
      Facepalm

      Re: One word

      Shows that you know nothing about how manufacturing in Germany works where the Unions, Company and workers pull together very well.

      VW recently tried to get its US workers to form or join a union so they could better engage following the German model. The workers voted against it.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: One word

        The politicians convinced them it would be bad. The works were shocked when VW chose some were else.

  3. Crazy Operations Guy

    Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

    Its probably cheaper to hire Syrian refugees than to buy and maintain adaptable robots. I have no problem with that, since the additional employees mean a higher tax revenue and a higher GDP, which benefits everyone.

    1. Oengus

      Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

      There is a line here about some Syrian "refugees" adding things to the cars that I don't want to touch... but you might want to be careful about what happens when the airbag detonates and the explosive pre-tensioners on the seatbelts fire.

      1. notowenwilson

        Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

        Ahh yes, Syrian 'refugees' playing the long game. It always surprises me that the bad guys still prefer a knife + iphone rather than arduino + airbag or death ray + secret volcanic island hideout. No imagination. That's the problem with terrorists these days. When I was a boy....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

      That works as long as some of the tax revenues is spent on infrastructure which sadly it won't be.

      1. Dr. Mouse

        Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

        That works as long as some of the tax revenues is spent on infrastructure which sadly it won't be.

        Actually, Germany is quite good at investing in infrastructure, from what I have heard. Their roads and railways have a much better maintenance programme than most other countries, for instance. IIRC they are on a rolling maintenance programme, rebuilt to last on a regular basis, not just the patch-it-up-when-we-think-we-will-get-sued programme we have have in the UK.

        1. ntevanza

          Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

          Germany has poor infrastructure because Germans* are allergic to spending money. I know because I have to drive on it every day.

          *Germany is a big place and you can't generalize about it any more than you can generalize about Britain. Germany's finance minister, who is resisting infrastructure and all other spending, is from Baden-Wuerttemberg, just like Daimler-Benz. Baden-Wuerttembergers are phenotypically incapable of excess, which is a polite way of saying they are mean as hell. This means that if DB says they are saving money by hiring humans, take note.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Why use robots when the country just got a whole flood of cheap humans

      "Its probably cheaper to hire Syrian refugees"

      Maybe you missed off the joke icon, but that would be illegal. Refugees are not migrants, political asylum seekers or terrorists. They are people displaced by and trying to escape deadly conflict. They intend, and are intended, to go back home if and when it's all over. They have no "right to work" and are totally reliant on their own resources or whatever pittance their host country hands out to them

      Some may eventually stay in their host countries, some may want to stay and a tiny proportion of them may actually be terrorists hiding amongst the influx, but encouraging the Daily Fail types and treating these people like shit is not the ideal solution to what is a pretty big problem. Poor handling of the situation along with large numbers of testosterone fuelled young men with no money and barely a place to sleep doesn't help much either.

      It's not even as if this hasn't happened within living memory, the most obvious examples being many European nationalities escaping to Britain and being taken in, as well as other recent recent examples of refugees from the Balkans, Uganda etc.

  4. mr.K

    The fourth international revolution

    "The robotic boom is laying down an important milestone in the realisation of the fourth international revolution,"

    I thought you had just misquoted, but no, the source really says fourth international. So then I had to look it up. Turns out it is some Soviet-French communist thingie from mid last century. I must admit, I never saw a communist revolution (against other communists from what I understood out of 46 seconds of wikipedia reading) as the logical outcome of advances in robotics, but it kind of fits.

    1. ian 22

      Re: The fourth international revolution

      Ironically, Stalin decided computers were un-Marxist, thus delaying the revolution in the revolution.

  5. Captain DaFt

    I heard a rumor

    That the real reason was they found out the robots were building robots instead of cars when nobody was looking.

    >walks away whistling the X-files theme<

    1. Glenturret Single Malt

      Re: I heard a rumor

      Nothing so complicated. They were drinking and sleeping on night shifts when they should have been working.

  6. Allan George Dyer
    Terminator

    Discrimination!

    "an added bonus, paid workers can buy cars" - Why shouldn't the robots be allowed to buy and drive cars? This is blatant discrimination! What, the robots can't buy the cars because you're not paying them? This is even worse, forcing robot slaves to work in your factories!

    FREE THE SLAVES! FREE THE SLAVES!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Discrimination!

      Only the Google robots will be able to afford cars.

  7. Lars
    Happy

    Oh dear Brits

    As hard as it is to say, the Germans are, as before, better at producing things, as hard as it is to grasp. And that goes for the French too. Into where did you Brits push your head after the war. I am seriously concerned and not trying to "pull any legs".

    1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Re: Oh dear Brits

      Lets here the slaves chorus why don't you?

      The fact is that it isn't about nationalities it is about getting ideas accepted up along the line. And what politics stands in the way. This post cries out for the unacceptable forum reply about a certain historically bad manager. (Who was not German.)

      1. Dr. Mouse

        Re: Oh dear Brits

        This post cries out for the unacceptable forum reply about a certain historically bad manager.

        If this is a sideways invocation of Godwins Law, then all I have heard says you are incorrect. He was actually a very good manager and skilled politician.

        The fact that he and his followers committed atrocities and cause huge devastation across Europe doesn't take that away: Until he lost, he managed that very well.

        1. ElectricRook
          Trollface

          Re: Oh dear Brits

          To the victors goes the right to write the history.

        2. Stork

          Re: Oh dear Brits

          The guy in question was a disastrous manager. Financially, he created a Keynesian boom by spending money he didn't have on infrastructure. The reason Czeckoslovakia was invaded was that Germany was running out of gold - and CZ had a pile of it.

          He also made it very bad for peoples careers to voice dissenting opinions, which just might have had an influence on how things went.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh dear Brits

        Ethnically German, just not of German nationality?

    2. nkuk

      Re: Oh dear Brits

      I agree about German made cars, but French cars are notoriously unreliable, after a while they just wave the white flag and stop working.

    3. Fibbles

      Re: Oh dear Brits

      As hard as it is to say, the Germans are, as before, better at producing things, as hard as it is to grasp. And that goes for the French too. Into where did you Brits push your head after the war. I am seriously concerned and not trying to "pull any legs".

      The Germans are producing cars with internal combustion engines, meanwhile we're building advanced satellites and space planes.

      /nationalism

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Oh dear Brits

        "The Germans are producing cars with internal combustion engines, meanwhile we're building advanced satellites and space planes"

        If by "we" you mean the UK and are referring to the Reaction Engine impressive attempts to develop a multi hybrid "space" engine, despite wishing them the best of luck I very much doubt it will remain British if it gets anywhere near completion. The UK in general seems to be pretty good at invention and absolutely shite in development, production and investment in said inventions.

        The US model seems to be invent something, find investors, and the inventors/founders stay on as owners with the investors and everybody gets rich. The UK model seems to be invent something then either sell it or go work for a company who will develop it with the inventor as an employee. Company, often foreign, get rich, inventor, if lucky, gets a nice pension but never gets rich.

  8. Graham Marsden
    Terminator

    So...

    ... has Judgement Day been postponed...?

    1. Charles 9

      Re: So...

      For now. Until the robots come back, this time with the ability to adapt better. They're already working on that part.

    2. AceRimmer1980

      Re: Me: Fa: So

      Yes, we're waiting for a shipment of "weeping angel" nuclear fuel cells, as these would seem to have lower emissions than the diesel engines. As long as you keep looking at them.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would guess the score is closer to HUMANS - 0 : CORPORATE - 2

    Most likely, it is simply cheaper to employ 2*n humans on the assembly line than n (more expensively educated and better paid) humans to constantly reprogram the robotics to support customized cars the buyers ordered.

    Which, of course, is a net loss for humans - those wages would have been spent in the community, supporting other humans.

  10. russell 6

    What Mercedes were really saying

    Is that yes, in some parts of the production line humans are better at the job than robots. But in others parts of the production line all the manufactures are automating more and more, from high end German car makers to Korean mass, mass producers.

    The development of production line technology is accelerating at amazing speed. I have seen how robots are being used to do some really quite fiddly jobs, for example picking up 5 small retaining clips and putting them all in place in 9 seconds. So while there will always be some jobs we humans can do better, over the next 5 years the number of humans needed on production lines will be dramatically reduced. Then question becomes, what will happen to the people who lose their jobs to robots?????

    1. notowenwilson

      Re: What Mercedes were really saying

      The people who lose their jobs to robots will go and do jobs that don't even exist now. 1000 years ago 95% of people worked just as hard as we do now (in terms of time spent) just to grow food. Now barely anyone grows food and the rest of us do jobs that hadn't even been invented back then. We'll never get to the stage where people just sit around all day while the machines do the work since there is good money to be made by keeping people working.

      Where's Worstall when you need him? He was all over this stuff.

      1. toughluck

        Re: What Mercedes were really saying

        Ah yes, the evolution of the job market. So what you're basically saying is that when farm workers lost their jobs to mechanization got jobs as doctors, correct?

        Nobody is asking what will happen to humanity or the civilization, but what will happen to the particular workers that lose their jobs.

        1. fandom

          Re: What Mercedes were really saying

          "when farm workers lost their jobs to mechanization got jobs as doctors, correct?"

          No, of course not, they moved to a city got other jobs and, you know what? Some of their children did get jobs as doctors.

          1. toughluck

            @fandom

            Let's make the final connection, shall we? So the children of workers currently being laid off will get jobs as doctors, etc. (assuming Watson doesn't automate doctors away first), but what about the worker that loses his job at the age of 40 or 50? Not an enviable position. It's not about his children, it's about that man -- what should he do? Lie down and die?

      2. DropBear

        Re: What Mercedes were really saying

        "The people who lose their jobs to robots will go and do jobs that don't even exist now."

        Cool story. Except we are already spending our incomes on the kinds of things that are now getting done by robots - to start supporting those brand new jobs, we would need new income to spend on them. Are you telling me with a straight face anyone has seen his income increase in the last decade or so, except the 1%...? Or are you trying to tell me you see their money gushing right back into the economy? As what - wages for butlers...?!?

        1. notowenwilson

          Re: What Mercedes were really saying

          I'm saying no such thing. In fact, I said something along the lines of "there's good money to be made by keeping people working". I never suggested that money was going to be made by the workers and I never suggested that it would end up back in the wider economy. But the fact that there is money to be made means that the 1% will do their darndest to make sure we keep working rather than just backing off the hours as the robots take over.

      3. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: What Mercedes were really saying

        @ notowenwilson

        Good comment. As Worstall points out on occasion, people worked harder and for longer before automation. And the predicted shorter working hours that were predicted arrived, but in the home where chores now take up considerably less time.

        I too am grateful to be doing an office job and not toiling in a field.

      4. russell 6

        Re: What Mercedes were really saying

        While I agree new types of work will be created for people at some point, at the moment the rate of change is much greater than in the past, society and people had more time to adapt. Today the rate of automation is such that there is still no sign of the new types of jobs which will be available for the huge numbers of people who are going to lose their jobs over the next few years

    2. kiwimuso
      WTF?

      @Russell6 Re: What Mercedes were really saying

      "what will happen to the people who lose their jobs to robots?????"

      Well, they obviously won't be able to afford to buy a Mercedes.

      While they will no doubt find new jobs, the question is, what type of jobs, and if the McDonalds type of employment is all they can get, that doesn't augur well for future sales of motor vehicles.

      While robots undoubtedly lower production costs, the same as for all manufacturing utilising these devices, just who do they expect to be able to buy their products, if no one is in worthwhile work earning sufficiently to afford all these new toys. Ditto for phones, TVs etc.

      The same applies to outsourcing jobs.

      There are only so many "service jobs" available, and I hazard a guess that most don't pay all that well. I hope I am wrong.

      As far as "flexible" robots, surely it would only take some not particularly sophisticated software that follows a vehicle through production to supply each robot with the parameters for that particular car. Jeez, I have seen programs which do almost that now. It's used as an audit trail for each vehicle. Surely it wouldn't take a genius to had a little functionality of this type to the production line. So all the parts applicable to a given vehicle are already waiting at a station of the robot to receive it's instructions as to what to fit to the vehicle. If they can do it with "just in time ordering" it ain't a huge leap into this.

      Am I missing something? (I probably am, so have a little pity)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More likely higher flexibility...

    Or Daimler has realized that a high fluctuation in demand/production can be easier to balance with employing temporary workers. Workers only need to be paid while they are employed. Robots need to be paid only once (yes, I know) and then amortize their cost over a given (and usually fixed, and usually long) period.

    And if you visit them - the production line in Sindelfingen already employs a lot of manual workers. Robots are used mainly for the heavy lifting - welding and transport.

    1. Joseph Eoff

      Re: More likely higher flexibility...

      Germany has a lot of laws protecting the workers that make it hard to hire and fire temporary workers. The point of those laws is to prevent employment fluctuation so that you don't have people continuosly switching from employed to drawing unemployment pay and back again and again.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: More likely higher flexibility...

        Leiharbeiter (don't know how to translate this one - contract workers?), limited time contracts, seasonal workers, so-called external workers (again, no idea whether this translation is correct).

        Yes, Germany has the laws - and Daimler has a lot of experience with them.

  12. Potemkine Silver badge

    The exact score is

    Humans 1 - Robots 27,681

  13. Filippo Silver badge

    Can't or won't

    Upon reading the article, at first I thought that somebody at Mercedes needed to fire a few engineers if they were unable to program a robot to handle design variants. Then I thought about it a bit more, and figure out what's going on.

    *Technically*, you can automate a lot of things and you can certainly automate picking the right type of seat cover for the customer, but *economically*, it only makes sense to automate tasks that you're going to repeat millions of times. The reason for this is that automating a task has a very large up-front development cost. A human won't do the task as quickly or reliably, but the up-front training cost is vastly inferior.

    If you keep adding more and more options, each of which is produced in less and less copies, it makes sense that at some point the dev cost of building and/or programming the robot exceeds the total savings you then get from having the robot do the task instead of the human. You *can* program a robot to mount a thousand or so leather seats, but it's really pointless.

  14. You aint sin me, roit
    Devil

    Good little consumers...

    Our industrial overlords don't want robots to take jobs from humans because robots haven't been programmed from birth to be the good little consumers required to support capitalism.

    1. James 51

      Re: Good little consumers...

      "paid workers can buy cars"

      This was one thing that Ford got right. Workers need to be paid enough to live and preferably be able to buy the things they are making too. Not treated like a cash drain and fired when they complain.

      1. Lars
        Happy

        Re: Good little consumers...

        "This was one thing that Ford got right". He got it right once but later he changed his mind.

        Two fairly good vids on YouTube (but leaving out his admiration for Hitler and sending him money for his birthday). Ford had his "dark" side too.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yo6bcm1i_Y

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NKM4jZ4Q8

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure this is going to be a fairly short term change because two things will happen: Mercedes will realize that they are supporting too many options and cut back. Stocking all the parts for the options, training people, etc costs money and I'd guess most of the options will end up either loss making or so expensive no one buys them (which would also result in a loss). Quick on the heels of that will be increased robot capability. It won't happen over night but twenty years from now manufacturing will be very different to how it looks today.

    I do wonder what we are going to do when the robots get good enough to make most things, even fairly bespoke items. I agree with the theory that new jobs will emerge but I struggle to see how we could accommodate the numbers of people that robots will make redundant not to mention the fact that historically the new jobs have tended to need significantly more complex skills.

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      @AC

      "I agree with the theory that new jobs will emerge but I struggle to see how we could accommodate the numbers of people that robots will make redundant not to mention the fact that historically the new jobs have tended to need significantly more complex skills."

      I am sure that was the thinking against agricultural improvement, and factory work. Yet the lower skilled still have access to many lower skilled jobs (Mc D being the usual example) as well as amazingly more complex jobs. And the result is lower prices, more choice and freedom to be individuals with varied interests and careers.

      The fear of the unknown has always been constant and the fear of what is next ever present.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: @AC

        Only this time there is a greater fear: the fear that, whatever jobs will be created, more and more versatile robots will already have the leg up on the meatbags. Meanwhile, we're almost to the bottom. Even fast food and retail are looking to cut staff with pre-order apps, self-serve stations, and self-checkouts.

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: @AC

          @ Charles 9

          "Only this time there is a greater fear: the fear that, whatever jobs will be created, more and more versatile robots will already have the leg up on the meatbags."

          But yet they aint. Humans still get there first as humans have the desires and then look to provide them. And the automation is only worth it where it increases productivity, which works in some cases but not most (else we would all be unemployed).

          "Even fast food and retail are looking to cut staff with pre-order apps, self-serve stations, and self-checkouts."

          Of course they are, have you seen how over-priced labour is becoming? The minimum wage hike taking away jobs and a running politician with the express aim of ramping up the minimum wage all over! Were businesses supposed to sit around until this was imposed and then all go broke? Then they would be employing nobody and the owners would lose their income. That will harm low skilled employment but it is public policy not robots.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: @AC

            "Of course they are, have you seen how over-priced labour is becoming? The minimum wage hike taking away jobs and a running politician with the express aim of ramping up the minimum wage all over! Were businesses supposed to sit around until this was imposed and then all go broke? Then they would be employing nobody and the owners would lose their income. That will harm low skilled employment but it is public policy not robots."

            Ah, but consider what Henry Ford was thinking. Without people working and earning money to buy stuff, where will their customers come from? After all, people without money—by default—won't be paying customers.

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: @AC

              @ Charles 9

              "Ah, but consider what Henry Ford was thinking. Without people working and earning money to buy stuff, where will their customers come from? After all, people without money—by default—won't be paying customers."

              Really? The most convincing argument I have heard is Ford paid more than his competitors to reduce the staff turnover. Which only worked because he paid more than his competitors. Paying his own staff more so his own staff can buy the vehicles he paid them to make is not a wining strategy. Its the same amusement when people say public workers pay tax. They are paid from tax and so are negatively contributing to the tax intake (they pay less back in tax than the tax pays them in wage because they need to buy other things to survive).

              Look at it the other way- charge more for the worker than the work will generate and you have no job and nobody gets paid. And when nobody generates any money nobody gets paid nor can pay.

              1. Charles 9

                Re: @AC

                "Look at it the other way- charge more for the worker than the work will generate and you have no job and nobody gets paid. And when nobody generates any money nobody gets paid nor can pay."

                But you forget the original perspective. If people don't get paid, where will your customers come from?

                1. codejunky Silver badge

                  Re: @AC

                  @ Charles 9

                  "But you forget the original perspective. If people don't get paid, where will your customers come from?"

                  Exactly. As I said- Charge more for the worker than the work will generate and you have no job and nobody gets paid.

                  The money has to be earned (in the business). If the business doesnt have the money it doesnt pay the worker. It can only pay workers (and so hire more, keep staff on) if it makes enough money to. Charging more for a worker doesnt increase the workers wage unless it is worth paying (to the business). It is really simple and your comment doesnt oppose mine, it comes directly after-

                  (mine)Charge more for the worker than the work will generate and you have no job and nobody gets paid. (yours)If people don't get paid, where will your customers come from?

                  1. Charles 9

                    Re: @AC

                    The thing here is that the cost of good has a floor, below which it might as well be zero for all it's worth. That means UNDERpaying your workers is effectively the same as not paying them at all. So ask yourself. How do you get customers to pay for your goods if you don't pay them enough to afford it?

                    Yes, I know it's a Chicken-and-Egg argument, but it asks which is more important: the employer or the employee? Did God create the Chicken that laid the Egg or was the Egg laid by the evolutionary predecessor to the Chicken?

                    Frankly, I think people are tiptoeing around the main reason the system can't be balanced sustainably: overpopulation.

                    1. codejunky Silver badge

                      Re: @AC

                      @ Charles 9

                      "How do you get customers to pay for your goods if you don't pay them enough to afford it?"

                      That as a solution is a failure on its own. The aim isnt to pay your staff enough to buy the goods they make because they will also spend money elsewhere. If you rely on your staff to give you back the money you give to them, and they spend that money elsewhere then you lose money and go broke. The aim is to attract people other than your workers (but not excluding your workers) to buy the goods. Those customers will spend what they are willing and the goods price reflects that and the cost to produce it. If you want to produce it you need workers and you will only have workers if you offer enough for them to live on (or they dont take the job, no product, no business).

                      "Yes, I know it's a Chicken-and-Egg argument, but it asks which is more important: the employer or the employee?"

                      Neither. Both want to make money. The employer taking the risk and likely to fail. The worker wanting to afford their lifestyle so needs to earn enough (or adapt their lifestyle). To say workers are more important to the point of breaking the business is as bad as employers are more important to the point of breaking the business. Either way leads to the same place.

          2. Lars

            Re: @AC

            "have you seen how over-priced labour is becoming?". No not really, have you seen how brainwashed you have become?.

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: @AC

              @ Lars

              "No not really, have you seen how brainwashed you have become?."

              With arguments like that I reckon you have an awesome skill set for a job in pantomime. I guess you have slept through the whole living wage thing in the UK? And for those in the US Seattle have already become an example-

              http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/02/19/seattles-15-minimum-wage-jobs-down-unemployment-up-this-isnt-working-is-it/#9c327c371234

  16. ElectricRook
    Mushroom

    major depression straight ahead

    My US history prof argued that the "great depression " 1929-1940 in the US was caused by industrialists cutting pay. With the rise of a new middle class due to the industrial revolution, suddenly there was a middle class to demand conveniences such as automobiles. The industrialists cut the pay of the workers and the demand for hard goods collapsed followed by the consumer goods manufacturing. The industrialists were holding onto too much of a percentage of the available capital. Of course we all know that the depression was prolonged by misguided attempts at socialism, and the final solution turned out to be an industrial scale war which put the industrialists back in charge.

    1. Rich 11 Silver badge

      Re: major depression straight ahead

      Of course we all know that the depression was prolonged by misguided attempts at socialism, and the final solution turned out to be an industrial scale war which put the industrialists back in charge.

      If the New Deal hadn't built all those roads and bridges, the industrialists wouldn't have been able to sell so many cars and lorries after the war.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: major depression straight ahead

        Didn't most of the REAL road-building ALSO not come until after the war, particularly the Interstate Highway System?

  17. John Sturdy
    Coat

    Meanwhile in Hoxton...

    Some hipsters will no doubt be trying to convince people that they'll soon be able to print their own cars to individual bespoke designs in a specialized café with a 3D printer.

  18. The Corner of Moron

    I for one, welcome our new human overlor....ah wait...

  19. Mage Silver badge
    Boffin

    Exposes fantasy of current AI in Media

    "variety is too much to take on for the machines," Schaefer said. "They can't work with all the different options and keep pace with changes"

    Actually, while the programmers might be great and VERY intelligent, programming is really time consuming and difficult, when you care about doing it properly.

  20. Brian Allan

    ""Robots can't deal with the degree of individualization and the many variants that we have today"

    Not a problem with the robots. A problem with the expertise of the people programming them!

    1. Charles 9

      Actually, I think, it's currently a case of robotic dexterity. Human bodies have the ability to twist and turn and contort in some pretty fancy ways. Achieving the same dexterity with a robot, particularly a fixed-position robot that has to be able to adapt to numerous different positions takes a combination of mechanics and technology that are only starting to come together.

  21. CarbonLifeForm

    It could've been a preordained conclusion

    I wonder if the numbers were cooked a bit? If you want (as a company/polity/nation) to hire more people, and burly union guys are eyeing the automation salesman with barely concealed truncheons ;-) you can structure the factory job descriptions to make them harder to automate - and create a study to confirm the preordained conclusion.

    Thus, Upper Management gets presented the result they subtly indicated they wanted ("robots can't do these jobs! We have maths on PowerPoint slides!"), local pols are happy, burly union guys put down the truncheons...

    I'm not saying I know that is what *did* happen; but it's certainly a plausible reason why a highly unionized country might buck an automation trend which has been continuing worldwide for decades.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It could've been a preordained conclusion

      "I'm not saying I know that is what *did* happen; but it's certainly a plausible reason why a highly unionized country might buck an automation trend which has been continuing worldwide for decades."

      Perhaps, but what if you can furlough the entire union in one swell foop? Then the Union loses its leverage and if they try to raise truncheons, the owner can re-raise with police. At least one reason why unions in America aren't so strong is because of these strong-arm tactics (raise cudgels, I raise police).

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