In 2013 robots are going to be rolling into the workforce like never before. Robots used to be the domain of academia; in the last few years they have begun to be very affordable and versatile and therefore have been attracting a crazy amount of investment in a wide range of industries. The low-skilled workers who will lose their jobs to the robots below -- what kind of work will they be able to move to?
Can A Machine Make a Better Hamburger?
seriouseats.com
'I thought, 'What's the one tool a restaurant could have to destroy its competition'" Vardakostas told us. He estimates that their invention will save the standard quick-service restaurant $135,000 a year in wages, and build a more consistent product.'R.I.P. fast food jobs.
This Robot Could Transform Manufacturing
MIT Technology Review
'Baxter is the first of a new generation of smarter, more adaptive industrial robots. Conventional industrial robots are expensive to program, incapable of handling even small deviations in their environment, and so dangerous that they have to be physically separated from human workers by cages. So even as robotics have become commonplace in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries, they remain impractical in many other types of manufacturing. Baxter, however, can be programmed more easily than a Tivo and can deftly respond to a toppled-over part or shifted table. And it is so safe that Baxter’s developer, Rethink Robotics, which loaned Baxter to Vanguard Plastics, believes it can work seamlessly alongside its human coworkers.'
R.I.P. factory jobs, R.I.P. the aspirations of Chinese labourers.
The Robot in the Garden -- coming soon
Marketplace.org
'right now in the U.S., migrant laborers -- some legal, some not -- do this sort of work. But recent crackdowns on illegal labor and the expense and hassle of hiring workers through a federal guest worker program have left many nursery owners searching for a solution to their labor problem.'
R.I.P. farm hands, R.I.P the hopes for migrant labourers.
