[aresant]

"Teleoperation makes this even stranger. . . There are people in one country sitting at desks, driving forklifts in another country . . . It feels like immigration without immigrants."

This is a fascinating point - if Neo / Tesla deliver a teleoperated hybrid at their <$30k price point the low-skill US labor force is going to be significantly disrupted on a shorter timeline than I would have previously estimated.

These are being pitched as "home robots" but clearly corporations will go all in - 24/7 operation (with multiple remote operators), no labor law / healthcare / pensions, spin up / down at will.

[ares623]

I'm not so sure. The tech to do this has been around for ages, and it still hasn't happened. So I'm thinking there's something else preventing companies from going this direction.

My uneducated guess is that if a remote operator has a bad day, there is nothing stopping them from doing damage on potentially sensitive and expensive assets and then disappearing in a country with lax enforcement.

Also, after a certain point, you need to deal with the angry, hungry mob right outside your factory.

[vablings]

I disagree. The advent of high-speed internet in poorer countries is only something that has taken place in the past 10 years and it's only going to get worse.

This is almost like a second stage of the manufacturing revolution that happened with the advent of computer numerical control and generally the digitization of the so-called engineering "stack"

Right now, the pipeline is looking super gross for anyone apart from hyper-capitalists, but then again what meat is left to pick off the bone? Pretty much everything is overseas nowadays anyways

- Engineering Prototype is done domestically

- Verification is offshored to low-rate engineers

- Final CAD drawings are offshored

- Final Assembly instructions are offshored

- Production line is designed domestically

- Production line is assembled offshore

- Production is manufactured and shipped domestically at the lowest rate

- Said product is handled in a warehouse that is operated by offshored teleoperators

- Customer support for the end user is offshored

- RMA process is non-existent therefore replacement is offshored

[gruez]

>My uneducated guess is that if a remote operator has a bad day, there is nothing stopping them from doing damage on potentially sensitive and expensive assets and then disappearing in a country with lax enforcement.

Can't people already do massive amounts of damage to a company truck/van by driving it into the water, or dumping gas on it and igniting it? Doing it remotely only makes marginally easier, but most people won't do it because they don't want to be on the lam just to send an anti-capitalist message.

[ares623]

I'm saying if your remote operator in some southern hemisphere country causes damages, you might have less recourse for punishment than if the operator was local and under your jurisdiction.

[azinman2]

Years ago Marvin Minsky gave a talk before 2001: A Space Odyssey played. He casually mentioned that if NASA (or was it DARPA?) had invested in tele-robotics like he insisted, your house would be cleaned by someone in Africa right now.

The room was stunned silent.