From the article: “America is not a great place for people with only a high school degree, and I don’t think that’s going to get better anytime soon."
That's it. It just doesn't take that many people to make all the stuff. Erie, PA isn't going to come back.
The mantra used to be that people would be employed in "services". But services are more automated, too. Services done at some fixed location are rapidly being automated. Mobile services, too. Some recent developments:
* Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. [1]
* Doordash delivery - robots now deployed in Redwood City. I've seen one in the downtown area. People just ignore them as they roll along the sidewalks. Their active six-wheel suspension can climb a curb. [2] There's an experimental partnership with Mercedes where a self-driving van holds multiple robots and lets them out for deliveries.
> * Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over.
I just wanted to offer a data point here, my buddy worked at the Amazon warehouse in Breinigsville PA a few months back and said he never saw a robot. Reading Hacker News I would have thought that Amazon had their robots widely deployed but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Amazon has fulfillment center generations. They usually don't automate existing fulfillment centers; they build new ones and close the old ones. Kiva robots went in at Gen-8, in 2014.[1][2] Breinigsville PA was built in 2011, so it's not a Gen-8 center but is too new to replace.
People seem to think that robots are everywhere, but they just aren't. To repeat a comment I've made before, some industries are starting to roll back some of their robot numbers (automotive for instance) as they are realised that robots are only generally good for one thing and when something changes take a lot of capex to modify. There is a move instead toward pairing humans with helper robots, essentailly to robot does the (literal) heavy lifting and then the human does the finesse bit.
Source: wife is an engineer in high volume new model automotive
I think people don't realize that it's not automization in itself, it's productivity. You don't need to fully automize labor, but you can cut it in half through the productivity gains it gives to the remaining workers. This will kill jobs, without bringing forth the post-scarcity universe many seem to think automization will provide.
That's it. It just doesn't take that many people to make all the stuff. Erie, PA isn't going to come back.
The mantra used to be that people would be employed in "services". But services are more automated, too. Services done at some fixed location are rapidly being automated. Mobile services, too. Some recent developments:
* Stock picking in an Amazon warehouse - robots taking over. [1]
* Doordash delivery - robots now deployed in Redwood City. I've seen one in the downtown area. People just ignore them as they roll along the sidewalks. Their active six-wheel suspension can climb a curb. [2] There's an experimental partnership with Mercedes where a self-driving van holds multiple robots and lets them out for deliveries.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062360
[2] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g2a2g_a-robot-that-delive...