‘Only a matter of time’ before Chinese robotics companies catch up to leading-edge technology, according to a US think tank.
  • LibsEatPoop [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    3 months ago

    Genuine question - what happens to the workers who get replaced? I know in Western countries, we’d all be left jobless (leading to a crisis in capitalism). But even with this high a rate of replacement, it doesn’t seem like China’s going through an unemployment crisis or that the masses are resentful of the jobs they are losing. So something must be different. For a while I can imagine the workers fired from one plant can go to another, but given this has been a priority for the govt. for close to a decade at this point, there has to be something more substantial being done for the people. Are they in mass moving into the service sector? That cannot be sustainable solution. And I can’t imagine agriculture itself isn’t being automated either, if some are moving back to the villages. Others might move to higher-tier manufacturing that isn’t replaced as of yet…but none of these feel like the solution. I’m just reminded of the fact that machines cannot produce value, only human labor can, and am just left wondering what’s happening.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      31·
      3 months ago

      My understanding is that currently the focus is on retraining the workers for higher skilled jobs, and China does have a declining population, so a lot of the automation will be replacing workers who are retiring. So, I don’t think China is quite at the point where automation actually taking jobs away that people want.

      However, once China reaches the point where a lot of the need for labor is eliminated, we’ll get to see if China really is willing to embrace communism. If the answer is yes, then work could become an entirely voluntary endeavour. Everyone could be provided with universal basic services such as housing, food, healthcare, and education, and then people can just choose to spend their time any way they like.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        3 months ago

        China has managed not to destroy pre capitalist forms of community as completely as earlier capitalist construction did in the West. So this might be fairly easy, as people have clear social roles and responsibilities not tied to production

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          8·
          3 months ago

          Indeed, the degree of atomization of society in the west is frankly incredible. I saw studies showing how most people barely even have friends anymore, let alone feeling as a part of any sort of a community.

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    3 months ago

    They are wrong, China isn’t waiting to catch up to the leading edge, they ARE the leading-edge. The things that Chinese student robotics teams are able to come to international competition with is genuinely crazy, with the amount of programming that is required. If there is any gap it is the technology waiting to catch up to their expertise.

    Not only that but China is really the only country that does genuine quality control outside of their automotive industry because they are willing to completely redesign their factories and processes around it.

    It is crazy to me that people still genuinely underestimate China.

    • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      3 months ago

      People genuinely believe that the US is perpetually 30 years ahead of its competitors as a rule of thumb. They do not even have the capacity to understand how amazing Chinas rise is.

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    9·
    3 months ago

    China: Let’s develop robotics at top speed.

    US: Let’s develop AI-robotics at top speed so in theory we could increase the speed of an assembly line 10 fold. The AI will never work but who cares? We can grift on it for years.