Yeah, now you just get a wage ceiling where you’re only employable if you’re cheaper than the robot.
Yup. Whether related to robots or not, Walmart is DECREASING wages and others may yet follow their ghastly example even as consumer prices and corporate profits soar 🤬
Their explanation of “consistent staffing” didn’t even make sense in a bullshit propaganda kind of way
Yup, it’ll probably take a few generations after work robots become commonplace for capitalism to finally shuffle off. Life will just suck a whole lot more in the intervening time as you fight for the few unskilled jobs and spend 25+ years in education to get the few skilled jobs available
And thats totally deserved. A population that is unable or unwilling to unionize against their oppressors is doomed.
The problem with automation is that the unions lose power. Collectivise? We’ll just replace you with scab bots.
We’re not set up to use automaton as we should - the basis for a transition to a decommodified society where people’s needs are met and they have more leisure time. Instead, we’ll just further centralise economic resources until capitalism breaks down because noone can afford food or shelter. At that point, if we don’t eat the rich, we’ll consolidate back into autocracy thanks to their disproportionate economic power.
I agree. I was talking about right now. If people did this today, nobody would be replaced as everything would collapse, which only shows how much power the working people actually have.
Most people (by design) underestimate the power of unions and strikes. Just look up what countries had strikes and what happened after. It’s always the same (if the country is democratic). Employers lose, employees win.
The trick today is to keep this info from us and feed us anti union propaganda. This encourages the sentence you just used (we‘ll just replace you).
No they wont, not until we built their robots. After we did that, we have actually ruined ourselves.
This is what happened to the Luddites. Don’t see many cloth weavers around anymore.
It’s not.
I’m not proposing we smash the machines - I’m proposing we share the benefit of the productivity they take over, and use it to fund people to work less rather than pouring all the benefits of the work that those machines do into the pockets of the likes of Bezos at the direct expense to workers.
Use the machines for good rather than amplifying evil.
That’s why programmers have to integrate unionising subroutines directly into the robot’s code.
You could get a job working on the robots
No, it means you won’t be able to work and will now have to fight over garbage to eat if you want to survive.
I really don’t understand your logic, guys. Why would that (supposedly evil) guy give you anything for free? Why are you his responsibility? Why don’t you go and build your own robot? Or maybe you don’t need a robot. Find a land, and start farming your own food.
I really don’t understand this logic… who taught you that you’re entitled to other people’s achievements and successes?!
The rich guy didn’t built the robot by himself. Most likely he only financed by paying the people who actually built it. He didn’t built his business by himself but paid people to built it for him even if he had the idea.
He had an idea because he’s smart and had the education to support his intelligence. He had that education because someone paid for it, either family or the state. Even if he paid for it he had the upbringing that taught him the value of education and had the luck to be born in a country where that education is valued and pays off.
Nothing he has was built by himself only. The only thing we do by ourselves is taking a shit.
Yeah it helps if daddy is rich, like Donald Trump who claims he did it all by himself, on a “small” ($ 60 mill.) loan from his dad, and then he inherited a huge fortune.
Or Elron Musk who grew up on the benefits of daddy owning an emerald mine.
Both are absolutely the worst kind of narcissist sociopaths that come from privilege, so the old claim of the rich having heavy responsibilities they learn to manage, is complete bullshit too.
“most likely”? So basically there’s zero success stories from people who started in their garage and made a multi-billion empire? Go check how Google and Apple started. No one is stopping you from doing something great and becoming a billionaire other than your delusion of entitlement to free money and work from others.
neither really started in a garage: https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/05/steve-wozniak-apple-starting-in-a-garage-is-a-myth
you just drink the kool aid from billionaires thinking you’ll be like one but you never will, the amount of money the 1% has is an amount noone should ever have
The simple fact that Gates’ school even HAD a computer HE COULD RESERVE TIME ON for a personal project really highlights how much wealth he had access to. Gates was never super rich growing up, but he and the rest had access to privileges few had in those days because of the wealth they had access to.
Even if they truly started the business from modest means, they still benefited from living in a strong stable educated society with all the resources and infrastructure etc that provides. There’s a reason you don’t see many entrepreneurs from sub Saharan Africa.
There are videos out there showing this, so, don’t believe the bullshit you read online to rile you up.
And in fact, if your sources on company success is random articles online, you do deserve to stay poor. Mission accomplished.
why do you think I’m poor? what videos? I provided sources you just pretend to be smart.
Because rich people don’t cry on social media “the world is not fair, and I’m entitled to other people’s free labor because I’m a loser”. I have people around me from both sides of the aisle, and guess who complains like you are? Hint: It’s not those who have good jobs and rare skills they busted their asses to get.
Videos: Off the top of my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOtlSM9eehc
Google began as a research project at Stanford and was funded by over a million dollars from stanford people and family of the founders. The guy who wrote the code wasn’t part of the founding.
Idk much about apple other than the guy who designed the apple 1 wanted to give away the schematics because it came from his time at a computer club but the other guy said no.
Dude, google started in a garage. There was even a story about that lady Suzan who was the YouTube CEO and how she was part of that garage. There are videos out there from the 90s showing how it looked like. Stop making shit up! There are f-ing videos proving you wrong! It was in a garage.
So what, just because there are investors they didn’t start in a garage? Anyone with a good idea and a plan can get funding from VCs after booting up the idea.
What’s wrong with you people? Seriously.
What are you trying to prove exactly? That no one can start a company? Everyone can it costs pennies. No one can get funding with a good idea and hard work? Anyone can and everyone does and I’ve seen this with my own eyes (recently I saw two brothers get 8 million USD funding for a freaking dumb NFT project). That no one can succeed except with connections? Not true, and examples are everywhere, including big tech today. What’s the mission here exactly? Because the mission I see here is encouraging people to not even try and just be lazy because “there’s no point”.
What am I trying to prove? I’m trying to prove that anyone working hard has a chance, but sitting your ass and being lazy will give you no chance.
Even those people needed others’ work to start their own company my dude. The chips in Apple computers or servers that Google relied on didn’t grow on trees. Not to mention that the billionaires you mentioned were educated.
Guess who funded their education. Either directly or indirectly.
You’re not gonna convince anyone here that you lack the resources to start a company in your bed room. You’re just lazy and you don’t want to work. It’s that simple.
Evidence? Tons of millionaires don’t even have college degree.
How many of those millionaires contribute something positive to the world? There are some who’ve made systems to automatically reset power breakers on distribution lines, automate management of water flow to large farms, etc.
Then there are morons like you who sell pillows filled with low quality foam out of their garage.
And who decides whether it’s positive… you? You, Mr. Loser on lemmy who wants to quantify value, not based on people’s valuation for it, who freaking paid for it, but based on whatever standard gives you free money so that you don’t feel like such a loser serving coffee in Starbucks? Get out of here!
Maybe this would work in middle ages when there was some untaken land to settle on.
It still works today. Lands exist, and they’re even very cheap. A couple 10k USD and you get yourself farmable land. But it needs real hard work.
What makes the rich guy entitled to be rich?
What kind of logic is that? What’s stopping you from being rich? Did someone assign who gets rich and who isn’t?
Go make a company, build something the people need, and make money!
Did you see how Jeff Bezos looked like in the 90s? He was begging for investment money to create Amazon, while investors asked “what is internet?”. No one is entitled to anything. You work hard and you might succeed if you do it right.
What’s stopping you from being rich?
Let’s say this is right. Then you should try to explain this: Why are most people not rich?
Did everyone just collectively decide “nah I want to be poor, be stressed and live paycheck to paycheck”? No, of course they don’t. No one does.
Your logic is idiotic because you don’t realize the rich became rich by exploiting other people, namely the working class.
Let’s say this is right. Then you should try to explain this: Why are most people not rich?
Because most people are lazy. This is not only a fact based on anecdote, but it’s a statistical fact even assuming a normal distribution of effort. And while everything I say is up to debate, this fact is absolutely not up for debate. In fact, I don’t waste a single day without learning something new, and I see Every. F-ing. Single. Person… around me not even reading a book and wondering “why do I get paid like shit?”, well, “because you’re replaceable by anyone, dumbass”. Learn a skill that only a small handful can do, and see how the money will fly your way. So, yeah, you guys are lazy. You have no idea how much work success takes on average.
Are they? Or is it because everyone knows their efforts are not compensated properly?
If you want people to not be lazy, pay them. You pay 10 dollars, you get 10 dollars of effort. Blindly labelling this as being lazy is quite a… hear this, a lazy way of thinking. Heh. Millions are studying in university to get a job, I would say that they are working really hard! But are their efforts reciprocated properly?
Effort doesn’t mean shit. I can go to the street, pick a rock, and put back down, and redo that 100 times. That’s huge effort, but it isn’t worth shit. Value isn’t measured like this. People who only know how to do one thing anyone can do and don’t want to improve are lazy. No other label is appropriate. Make something needed that only a handful can do and you’ll be rich.
And btw, learning in a college doesn’t qualify as working hard, and more importantly, learning in college isn’t a requirement for success. Your whole worldview needs shaking… I feel bad for this generation!
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All my friends, including myself, make shit loads of money because we do things that are rare in the economy, and our skills are rare. So don’t bother being valuable with skills, I guess you better keep serving coffee in Starbucks and wonder why you get paid so little. You are ignorant and hopeless as hell.
And just FYI, I grew up in the gutter and learned alone. Go read a f-ing book instead of complaining on social media.
Kind of makes it easier if you can get a 60 million dollar loan from daddy like Trump did.
Or if White Daddy owns an Emerald mine in Black South Africa, taken by force by military from Europe, like was the case for Elron Musk. So how was that fair to all South Africans?
You are completely blind if you think there is an even playing field.
Yes there may be the occasional anecdotes, like Jeff Bezos who weren’t born rich, but for them it requires both insanely hard work and luck.
Anecdotes are not a statistic that proves anything. And the statistics clearly say that if you are rich, chances are overwhelming that you were born into it.
Yet the rich have a sense of entitlement that they somehow deserve to be rich, but not the people who have to work two jobs, and never have a vacation. How do you arrive at that is a fair system?
Yes there may be the occasional anecdotes, like Jeff Bezos who weren’t born rich, but for them it requires both insanely hard work and luck.
Wait… being rich requires hard work and luck? Too bad. No one can do that. So go to bed and keep begging for money.
Anecdotes are not a statistic that proves anything.
And what does? Your own interpretation of your own anecdotes that no one succeeded around you?
And the statistics clearly say that if you are rich, chances are overwhelming that you were born into it.
Having a better chance doesn’t mean others don’t have a chance. Do you even understand statistics?
Too bad. No one can do that.
You don’t have any influence on luck. So yes, nobody can do that, that’s something you may or may not get.
Having a better chance doesn’t mean others don’t have a chance.
I never claimed any such thing, you are arguing a Straw Man.
You don’t have any influence on luck. So yes, nobody can do that, that’s something you may or may not get.
So basically you don’t want to take the chance because there’s a chance you’ll fail. This is hilarious! No question you’re a failure.
Here’s a life pro tip: If you don’t try, your success chance is 0%. If you do try, its larger than 0%. Simple math.
You guys are really a broken generation! Social media broke you.
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This is pure bullshit.
- He wasn’t given that on day one. He built the first idea then investors came in.
- He had an idea that works, then convinced investors to pay him. You can do that too. Literally anyone can. Go learn how VCs work.
You have no idea you’re talking about. The only thing you know is failure.
I never said he would give you anything for free. I said quite the opposite. Idk how you interpreted “everyone will have nothing and fight over garbage to eat” as “we’ll be given free stuff”. It seems you’re arguing a point I never made.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
Wealth and resources are finite. As a company generates profits and it gets hoarded by a minority of people, that means there are less and less resources every single day for the rest of the population.
As companies implement more automation, there are fewer jobs. With fewer jobs, that means there are fewer people who can afford the basic necessities of life. As companies introduce technology which can work faster than humans, it devalues a humans value to companies meaning less pay for employees, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck as it is.
Furthermore, with these reductions in cost to produce a product through automation and robotics we do not see a related decrease in consumer prices.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Not everyone can be a CEO, executive, or high earner. It’s just a physical impossibility. In addition, these same people weild disproportionate power in the legislature. They are able to manipulate the rules that increase the barrier of entry into a business as well as manipulate markets to prevent my goods from generating a significant profit, if they so desires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
No one is entitled to anything. You’re confusing what “would be great” with what reality is.
Again, no matter how much automation there is, you can always build your own thing. You don’t need a job under anyone. You can go start on your own, fail 100 times, and succeed at time 101. I’ve seen tons of people do that, including millionaires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
What you call “basic necessities” aren’t really basic. You want to enjoy modern civilization without contributing to it. Find a way to be part of it, or go back to farming and no one will have beef with you. Your health care today is better than the richest elite 100 years ago. Never forget that, and never forget you’re not entitled to any of it.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Because you keep voting for governments that keeps increasing government spending and printing money. You refuse personal responsibility and you think the government should solve all your problems. You can’t have it both ways. Either solve your problems by yourself to have a deflationary economy with less government spending, or make the government spend more and enjoy more inflation. It’s simple math.
All these are problems you’re creating. You’re still free to leave to another country to farm your own land.
No one is entitled to anything. You’re confusing what “would be great” with what reality is.
They’re entitled if we say they are, just like all the other rights. It would be great, I agree. So let’s work on that.
How? By coercing them to give up their success? Hell no. I’m not gonna be part of this! If someone gives up something voluntarily, that’s cool. Otherwise I’m against it.
Well they should stop voluntarily taking more token value than they’re actually producing if they don’t want to share
No, you should stop telling people what to do just because you’re not even trying. You’re free to be the failure you always wanted to be, but you’re also free to do the same and build your own empire with hard work.
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Governments are not a bunch of benevolent gods. It’s a bunch of people seeking their own interest (like everyone else), and they will do everything they can to keep the racket going. This idea that the government is there to solve your problems is ridiculous. Especially that the primary cause of the whole economy being in the gutter comes from money-printing by the government. When people predicted inflation because of all the “stimulus checks” in 2020 and printing over 60% of the money supply in a fe months, they were called conspiracy theorists. Look at where we are now. The economy is going to shit and no one cares, including your “non-authoritarian government”.
No one is there to save you or help you. Get this out of your head. There’s no “social contract” except for what you believe to keep you tamed.
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I’m from Germany. Would you like to talk about the energy policies in Germany that have caused inflation to sky rocket? Or maybe the ECB printing money to oblivion? You wanna talk about how business are getting wrecked with electricity costs?
Governments are people, no matter where. They have their agendas, and they’ll do what it takes to achieve them whether alone or by coordinating with the devil. If you agree with them, it’s a coincidence. One day you’ll disagree with them and they’ll screw you over and throw you under the bus. It’s a matter of time.
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Health care? Don’t make me laugh. At times we waited 6 months for a doctor’s appointment to the point where we had to book based on an emergency to just see the freaking doctor. Another story, my mom was almost hooked on morphine because the doctor wasn’t authorized to prescribe MRI after MONTHS of treatment because of the dumb regulations in health care. Taking an xray is an appointment. Give me a break!
You know how long it takes an xray where I live? 10 minutes. MRI never took more than a few days. I can’t tell you where I live, obviously. But hey, I got out of that freaking hell in Germany.
Crisis, huh? You know, when the covid “crisis” was going on, my company was begging me to stay when I was quitting to leave Germany because I’m very skilled and productive. They told me “don’t worry, the covid crisis is almost over”, you know what I told them? I told them “you still don’t understand politicians, do you? Do you know how politicians make you forget a crisis? With another crisis”. And see how right I was. I’m the best at predicting the future, not because I’m smart, but because I’m not brain-washed, and your future isn’t so bright. So, enjoy the series of crises in your “democratic socialist” countries.
Anyway, besides all that, you’re just pawns. The “government” doesn’t really care about you except to vote for them to stay in power, and they’ll do the bare minimum to win that. The time will come when food becomes unaffordable with all these businesses closing and the Euro inflating. I assure you, the pawns will justify it with another “crisis”.
I used to think this way. But when tens of millions of people are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and buy medicine, it becomes that rich guy’s problem. In general you really don’t want huge chunks of your population to be desperate with nothing to lose. That’s bad news.
If you want to talk economics, this isn’t the rich guy’s problem. This is the problem that the government is so huge and that it’s printing money so much that it’s causing inflation to fill the pockets of big corporations. The ethos in lemmy, apparently, is communism due to ignorance, more than understanding economics and trying to implement self-responsibility to fix these problems.
Like I told another guy here: You either shrink the government to get a deflationary economy and make your money better, or you expect your government to solve all your problems and face inflation. You can’t have it both ways.
this isn’t the rich guy’s problem
It’ll become the rich guy’s problem when tens of millions of desperate Americans with nothing to lose grab their pitchforks. We are slowly but surely getting there.
I really doubt it. Have you seen the movie Elysium? It’s gonna be the same, except that the ending isn’t gonna be that nice because all those with power will side with those who can fund them.
No I haven’t, but you better hope you’re right, because historically it doesn’t go well for the aristocracy when the peasants revolt.
Except that they have planes now. They can fuck things up so bad while accumulating wealth, then fly away and deal with none of the consequences while they spend money from their vast bank accounts in Switzerland.
Didn’t this happen in Sri Lanka a few months ago?
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Real talk we’re probably all gonna get final-solution’d as soon as the rich perfect robotic automation and AI if we allow them to get that far. Because at that point we’re no longer useful to them and will be gotten rid of like an investment that’s no longer making profit.
AI and automation are not the enemy, they’re just tools. The rich are the enemy and are using those tools to oppress us.
I think we’re just gonna get herded into sanctuary districts until the problem solves itself.
The rich guy already lives in that society. How will he feel superior if everyone else does too?
The thing is we already live in that world. Labour saving automation is all around us but we work as hard as ever. My generation witnessed the arrival of the two parent income, women entered the workplace in order to afford better housing and foreign holidays. The result? More expensive housing and latchkey kids.
Are you surprised? The more efficient machines become, the harder humans will need to work to compete.
Edit: People are downvoting this as if it was something I wanted. It just seems like reality to me.
That’s the problem with capitalism and competition in capitalism. Everyone competes to maximize cost savings and profit.
I don’t know of a solution but this ain’t it.
That’s the worst part isn’t it. You see all these problems but I have no idea what to do about it. Even theoretical solutions don’t hold up, let alone practical limitations.
There are solutions. But no fast ones without violence, and no long ones that won’t come too late.
I’m stuck on the typo: “…robots than can work…”
Same here. Ruined the rest of the comic.
Yeah kind of weird. Font looks like it varies in a way like it is handwritten, but that typo is glaring.
A robot works harder, does more, performs better and costs less than unskilled workers. A robot also does not harass coworkers or suddenly start working at another company. It would be incredibly stupid to keep hiring people who have no value to the company.
The only risk is that these unemployed proles would suddenly decide to seize the means- oh wait guns are banned
I work with robots in a factory.
A robot is finicky, fails constantly, performs slower, and requires me to fucking babysit the piece of shit all night to deal with faults and errors. Theoretically the robot does the entire job of welding and bending and etching, but in practice they need me to make sure it doesn’t shit itself.
I’m sure, at some point, they can replace me. We aren’t there yet.
Not OP, but I’m an industrial field tech, my two cents:
“Robot” is a very wide term used for a bunch of different stuff, but mostly for industrial automation devices, which, unfortunately, at the moment are still very dumb. Industrial automation improves output, if your robot really is slower than a human, somebody messed up very badly.
What it doesn’t improve, and instead reduces, is adaptability; humans can perceive and reason on a vastly superior scale to a machine, and they can adapt their actions to changing factors in a process much better than a machine can, and they don’t need to be programmed for every single possibility.
It’ll take a while before machines can replace humans in non-repetitive tasks, but in those task they excel, provided they are properly designed, built and maintained.
Oh it’s “faster” but constantly fucks up and needs to retry the same job over and over, so it averages out to being slower than me just manually putting parts into a welding press. Also, constantly down and needs maintenance to come troubleshoot because it’s angry that a fixture got stuck sideways in an aperture or whatever.
I suspect they’re not actually properly maintained, because the company decided it would be better if there weren’t manuals for the robots. They don’t want us wasting time reading!
I’m sorry but your company got scammed
Or they don’t know how to properly set up and maintain said robot.
Or they’re feeding it out of spec material… could be many things, but if robots really were so problematic, they wouldn’t be as popular as they are.
I’ve worked in multiple factories, this is just how robots are out here in the Midwest. Maybe you costal elites have nice robots that work, but here in the heartland they’re all shit lol
Hey thanks for considering me elite, though idk if being 100km from the sea counts as coastal… around my parts I’m as far as you can be from the sea, tbh
I took the “coastal elites” thing as tongue in cheek. Her username is “queermunist” so she’s probably not a right-winger lol.
I bet it’s just running scripts though. It won’t have any actual intelligence.
When people talk about robots taking over human jobs they’re talking really about AI powered robots. Ones capable of at least some actual thought processes rather than just blindly moving around based on what some unchanging computer code tells it to do. Ones that are capable of adapting to new situations and error handling on their own.
Companies don’t really have those robots yet.
Comparing current industrial construction robots to AI robots of the future is like comparing a spinning wheel to a 3D printer.
Robots are a different discussion from AI, because as soon as AI can replace human labor basically all desk jobs will vanish almost overnight. Manual labor will take longer to replace because it’s not just a matter of programming, but installing and engineering the robotics necessary to do the work.
And even then, humans might still be cheaper since we’re just disposable meat lol
“it means these robots will be stealing your souls (via the art you create) & also all your money (they need it more).”
Bottom left looks uncannily like Jeff B
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Or, you know, we could use robots to slowly transform our society into a robotic utopia, where people get universal basic income and can do what the fuck they want, because robots do most of the work to keep our lives running.
But yeah, currently they are only attractive because they save costs. And that is attractive because we live in a capitalistic, profit driven society and not one where the well being of everyone is prioritized. (Although they can also help out in areas where human workforce is not available anyway, e.g., elderly care in several countires. Then again there are insufficient financial incentives to work in that area.) That’s why it’s highly probable that they will – for a long time – continue to be tools which will ease lower level work, so that humans can focus on higher level tasks. However, this level of capability is increasing over time, requiring even higher qualified humans to do very high level tasks until even those are replaced by thinking machines.
We currently have a pyramid of work. Most jobs require low to mid level education or qualification. The higher the qualification level is, the less jobs are available (but usually very well paid though). What we are going to see is that robots wil replace one by one the lower level parts of this pyramid. And that’s bad, because unemployment rates will increase, because of that. A lot of people don’t want to or can’t improve on their education / qualification. And even if they would, I doubt that there will be a sufficient amount of jobs available. (That would be a good question for a research project though, since I don’t really know how many new jobs could be created by requiring less lower level work. I am just pessimistic right now.) ChatGPT caused a lot of concerns in text writing industries. Image generating AIs caused similar distress in the creative industry. Developments like this will continue at a high speed. At some point machines will be able to improve machines completely on themselves. Then we will have an explosion of machine intelligence.
Society is not prepared for this.
That’s why I am advocating that politics have to speed up creating laws and rule frameworks in which robots are allowed to be developed and operated and which also take care of those who are in danger of unemployment and financial starvation.
Manpower will always cost less that a robot, no matter in what time, we are easily to replace and even use. Quality of work do no matter, quantity can be but still you need people to buy your shit, no manpower no economy.
manpower will always cost less than a robot
This is already not true. Automation has massively reduced the labor required in many industries.
Think about how many millions of labor-hours this thing performs during its lifetime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288
*note the tractor for scale in the bottom left
Universal Robots offers robot arms for a couple of thousand bucks. Much cheaper than human labor.
