If you would have asked the world 40 years ago what 2012 would be like, a lot of folks would have probably said that we’d be driving vehicles that didn’t touch the ground and there’d be tons of robots.
While flying-cars still appear to be a long ways away from materializing, the latter prediction may not be too far off. Apple’s go to parts manufacturing firm Foxconn is reportedly about to add 1 million robots to the population…
9to5Mac is reporting that the component-making company is planning to replace an unspecified amount of workers with one million robots over the next 3 years. Foxconn is not only responsible for building Apple products, but also works with Sony, Nokia, and many others.
The mechanical replacements will be used for basic tasks like spraying, welding, and assembling components. They’re expected to help the manufacturer keep up with the rising demands of their high-profile clients. You know, because robots don’t need lunch breaks or sleep.
Foxconn has been in and out of the headlines for the past few years thanks to a string of worker-suicides and countless reports of poor working conditions. I wonder if they’ll make the new robots sign a “no suicide” waver too.
All jokes aside, the move to a robotic workforce does spell out trouble for Chinese citizens. Foxconn currently employs 1.2 million workers, so bringing on a million robots would assumedly lead to massive layoffs.
What do you think of a company deploying a million robots? Scary?