[nba456_]

It's so strange that a site full of software developers reacts so harshly to the idea of robots. What exactly is it you people think you are building? You automate stuff for a living.

Is it okay to automate sales and customer service and marketing, but warehouse workers are where you draw the line? Do you have any idea how many jobs this industry has already "killed"?

[hello_moto]

why strange?

we realized that we don't want all the money/profit to circulate around the top 10 tech companies in the world where all of us are out of the equation...

[sslayer]

...and then they came for me, and nobody was left

[bigyabai]

HN isn't a monoculture. Many people visit this website to hear the criticism from a diverse constituent of software developers. If you expect any unanimous conclusion, I'd argue your expectations are the strange one.

My foremost concern is that robots, particularly American-made ones, aren't ready for primetime yet. Human bodies solve problems that aren't easily automated even with a perfectly capable humanoid robot and AI-powered IK solver. I've worked in the computer vision and factory automation fields, and outside a completely automated redesign I don't think robots will significantly reduce headcount in this field.

[gdulli]

It's so strange that a site full of entertainment workers reacts so harshly to the idea of Madame Web. What exactly is it you people think you are making?

[methuselah_in]

Well, a the scale at which AI and other things are proceeding to replace humans just for the sake of saving money for few top earning people. It's horrible. I shall say you should ban AI for most of the things where it can help solve issues! Now that's upto to humanity how it want to keep people eating food or have a proper life

[pjmlp]

Not everyone of us works in industries that use software to replace people.

[CamperBob2]

Why is it so important to you, personally, that humans are employed to do robots' jobs? Is that all we're worth to you?

[pjmlp]

Because I care when those people land on the street.

Unfortunately something I have seen happening a few times in our capitalism society where only shareholders happiness matters, hitting those quarter goals of exponential growth.

Not everyone thinks of others as disposable resources.

[CamperBob2]

When has that way of thinking ever proven correct in the long run?

[pjmlp]

Depends on how much one cares for others besides themselves.

[CamperBob2]

I see; that answers my question.

[CrackerNews]

Software jobs replaced administrative white collar jobs where instead of the bureaucracy being human interaction and paper forms, it is computerized and encoded in malleable and evolving code.

Sales underwent consolidation where the same human interactions scaled to bigger deals. Customer service was outsourced. Marketing still remains a mysticism with no clear evidence of a return on investment.

This news topic is also a thinly veiled replacement outsourcing. The engineers involved will replace these roles. When the robots fail, it will most likely have foreign pilots taking control.

The barrier to entry only gets higher, and the people left behind are stuck in a donut hole.

[bromuro]

Software ahas created a completely new economy and lot of new jobs. Could we say the same for robots?

[Broken_Hippo]

And has meant that some professions are basically dead and fewer people are in lots of jobs. The folks that lose jobs aren't generally qualified for the jobs that opened and aren't always even located in the same country.

And that happens with a lot of advances. Creates but also takes away.

[mock-possum]

…Yes? Someone needs to design the robots, build the robots, administer and direct the robots, repair and maintain the robots, evaluate the performance of and improve upon the existing design of the robots… not to mention write the software that controls the robots in the first place, design the UI that users use to interface with the robots…

[drivingmenuts]

And the 1,000 people, who are replaced by 100 robot workers, are out of a job while the robot owners just get richer.

The robot revolution only benefits the people at the very top of the social stratum.

[Gud]

I’d guessing that the robot designers and warehouse workers are not going to be the same people.

[Broken_Hippo]

This isn't special to robotics, though. Folks making software are generally not the folks that lost their jobs because of software either.

[_DeadFred_]

Pre WW2 the USA had skid rows and flop houses full of men who didn't make the cut to the new industrialized economy. People literally rented a rope to lean on for the night. WW2 changed things for the US where that was no longer a common thing.

People fear that we are heading back into that, with no plan other than 'things turned out fine last time this happened' ignoring the, you know, skid row, flop houses, etc and no idea what the magic jobfairy will bring us to be these new, magically appearing 'jobs to come'.

[johndhi]

presumably if they become as popular as software, they would...

[narcraft]

Yes.

[tennisflyi]

Oh, they automate stuff. Just not their stuff

[jolt42]

It's just an emotional reaction. I don't hear anyone bemoaning the cotton gin.

[soiltype]

Sarcasm or comically on-the-nose bad example?

The cotton gin is the literal textbook example of a technology that ethically backfires and induces magnitudes greater suffering than what it was intended to obviate. It saved and expanded the institution of chattel slavery in the USA.

[chistev]

Ironic