Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson · 15 May 2023 · 619pp · 177,548 words
be somewhat limited, especially compared to the introduction of new products and tasks that transform the production process, such as those in the early Ford factories. Automation is about substituting cheaper machines or algorithms for human labor, and reducing production costs by 10 or even 20 percent in a few tasks will
Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation
by Kevin Roose · 9 Mar 2021 · 208pp · 57,602 words
autoworkers, and blue-collar factory workers of all kinds. A 1961 article in Time magazine predicted the rise of “The Automation Jobless.” Another article called factory automation “a ghost which frightens every worker in every plant.” But Kawai wasn’t haunted by ghosts, and he didn’t panic, or start looking for
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Passes Down Monozukuri Spirit,” Japan Times, April 15, 2018. A 1961 article in Time magazine “The Automation Jobless,” Time, February 24, 1961. Another article called factory automation Rick Wartzman, “The First Time America Freaked Out over Automation,” Politico, May 30, 2017. Today, Kawai is a living legend at Toyota “Toyota’s ‘Oyaji
In the Age of the Smart Machine
by Shoshana Zuboff · 14 Apr 1988
- eywell Corporation survey, which probed human resource planning in- stituted by major corporations in conjunction with factory automation, found that only one company out of fifteen had a recognized method for assessing the human resource impact of factory automation. Not a single firm had a process for actually addressing impacts, from educa- tional needs
The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
by Carl Benedikt Frey · 17 Jun 2019 · 626pp · 167,836 words
depend on the ability of the individual to deal effectively with change and on the skill with which the organization manages the change. Studies of factory automation suggest that automated plants are preferred as work places to less advanced plants, although they provide important sources of dissatisfaction. The sources of satisfaction and
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the task to the worker. Such specialization greatly increased productivity in American factories but brought greater monotony for the worker. From this point of view, factory automation can be regarded as a blessing because it meant that industrial robots, controlled by computers, could eliminate the need for direct human intervention in operating
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them into cartons or boxes. Just as robots entered the factories, they are gradually making an appearance outside manufacturing. Warehouse automation today is probably where factory automation was in the 1980s. It is true that many of the AI technologies discussed above are still imperfect prototypes. But it is important to remember
Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
by Brian Merchant · 25 Sep 2023 · 524pp · 154,652 words
the Crown used a period of depressed trade and poor harvests—when workers were desperate and their leverage was at a low ebb—to push factory automation technologies. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, entrepreneurs backed by the state and venture capital used the period after the 2008 crash
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
by Martin Ford · 4 May 2015 · 484pp · 104,873 words
easier to train for new tasks, they will become an increasingly attractive alternative to human workers, even when wages are low. The trend toward increased factory automation in developing countries is by no means limited to China. Clothing and shoe production, for example, continues to be one of the most labor-intensive
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rapidly creating the molds and tools required in traditional manufacturing techniques. In other words, 3D printing is likely to end up being another form of factory automation. Manufacturing robots and industrial printers will work in unison—and increasingly without the involvement of workers. Three-dimensional printers can be used with virtually any
Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics and the Coming Robotopia
by Frederik L. Schodt · 31 Mar 1988 · 361pp · 83,886 words
Japan Automobile Workers' Unions); Kanji Yonemoto (Japan Industrial Robot Association); Eric Mittelstadt (Robotic Industries Association); Tatsuoki Masui (JAROL); Tadao Tamura, Toyokatsu Sato (International Robotics and Factory Automation Center). Private industry: Gensuke Okada, Naohide Kumagai (Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.); Seiuemon Inaba (Fanuc Ltd.); Takuya Kato (Kato Seiki, Inc.); Kenichi Natsume, Tsugio Nakamoto, Jun
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displaced by video equipment, but Seibu now holds seminars on robotics and takes orders for vision-equipped robots and robot carts (AGV) configured as miniature factory automation systems for educational purposes. At Seibu's Tsukuba branch, near the site of Expo '85, the company has gone a step beyond selling—it actually
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for convenience turn them into acronyms easier to pronounce and remember. Automation-related acronyms used and abused include not only OA (office automation) and FA (factory automation), but HA (home automa tion), SA (store automation), BA (banking automation), LA (laboratory automation), RA (restaurant automation), and even the exotic PA (personal automation), which
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for "robot," sometimes means "robotic" as well. In both nations, the industrial robot is on the verge of becoming little more than a synonym for factory automation. In systems engineering in the factory, the individual industrial robot—the iron arm—is being swallowed. Resolving the Robot's Identity Crisis Traditionally there have
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a seventeenth-century mechanical doll. Its image—that of a kimono-clad boy servant carrying a cup of tea—is used today in advertisements for factory automation, and a replica of the original is on display at the National Science Museum in Tokyo. Dolls are an important part of Japanese culture and
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success rate is highest in larger firms; in those with under a hundred employees we see a lot of failures. Nonetheless, the prevailing attitude toward factory automation and mechatronics is that in order to increase the level of technology in the factory, you have to make things yourself. Where companies can't
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lathe, and then when the work was finished return it to the stockroom.4 Robots were an inevitable extension of Inaba's lifelong work in factory automation, and his dream proved remarkably similar to the reality of the automated Fanuc plants today. Fanuc was a latecomer to the robot market, but its
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dramatic decisions quickly. In the summer of 1986, Fanuc formed another joint venture, creating GE-Fanuc Automation with the US. firm General Electric to market factory automation equipment other than robots. In keeping with Fanuc's global strategy of international alliances and a division of labor, Fanuc would supply its NC controllers
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while GE would provide engineering know-how, communications software, and computer technology. In the early 1980s, GE had been a contender for world leadership in factory automation and robotics. But six months after signing its agreement with Fanuc, in January 1987, GE announced that it would abandon the robot side of its
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devices are manufactured by people and robots, an introductory video carefully emphasizes that "technology is for human beings, not the reverse," and a brochure illustrates factory automation with a pyramid—of software and hardware on the bottom, and humans on top. Even Dr. Inaba of Fanuc, the Genghis Khan of robots and
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automation, keeps in mind the limits of technology. In his 1982 biography, he stresses that "factory automation is not to be used to completely un-man the factory. It is a system to reduce labor, and shift people from monotonous to more
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Robotics]. Tokyo: Haya- kawa Shobo, 1981. Iwai, Masakazu. Hitachi, Toshiba, Matsushita FA no saizensen: "shijo taiyogata" seisan genba o yuku [On the Front Lines of Factory Automation at Hitachi, Toshiba, and Matsushita: On the Site of Market-Oriented Production]. Tokyo: Diamond-sha, 1986. Japan Industrial Robot Association (JIRA), ed. Sangyoyo robotto hando
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,130,145,148; of toy robots, 91-95,101-104,106 Extraordinary Measures Law for Promotion of Specific Electronic and Machinery Industries, 43,112 FA (factory automation), 40-42, 45 factionalism, 221-22 "Factory of the Future," 44,134 fantasy robots: as "cuddly machines," 79-81; effect of peace ideology on, 82
The Job: The Future of Work in the Modern Era
by Ellen Ruppel Shell · 22 Oct 2018 · 402pp · 126,835 words
mechanics, engineers, welders, and other Airbus employees in Mobile, many have gained skills in the military or in previous jobs. Given the rapid advances in factory automation, it’s unclear just how many people should be trained up for jobs in mass manufacturing, no matter how “advanced.” In May 2017, Apple CEO
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig · 14 Jul 2019 · 2,466pp · 668,761 words
not having to specify every single command. Industry: The majority of robots today are deployed in factories, automating tasks that are difficult, dangerous, or dull for humans. (The majority of factory robots are in automobile factories.) Automating these tasks is a positive in terms of efficiently producing what society needs. At the same time
The Lights in the Tunnel
by Martin Ford · 28 May 2011 · 261pp · 10,785 words
machine automation will come to low wage countries as well as developed nations. A 2003 article in AutomationWorld pointed out that “productivity gains spawned by factory automation are driving a worldwide decline in manufacturing jobs, even in developing nations.”33 According to the article, even back in 2003, automation was causing significant
Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything
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What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing
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Smart Grid Standards
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ZeroMQ
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At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails With Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone De Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others
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