China labor force report: Robots determine future manufacturing development model


China labor force report: Robots determine future manufacturing development model

With the accelerated development of artificial intelligence, Robots will expand to all corners of the labor market, covering not only services, but also technology and technology jobs. So when people lose their jobs, their income is also deprived.

Earlier, a British Broadcasting Corporation reported that the French Socialist Benoit Hamon won the presidential nomination election on the 29th and will represent the Socialist Party in the French presidential election. In his campaign speech, he proposed to give French adults a unified monthly income of 750 euros (about 5,500 yuan). Benoit Hamon believes that the uniform monthly income is a buffer for France, which is increasingly hit by automation, because machines are taking the jobs of ordinary people.

Dr Subhash Kak proposed that AI and robots will replace humans after high development

Earlier, Dr Subhash Kak, a top scientist in the industry and a computer expert at Oklahoma State University, proposed in an interview that with the continuous improvement of robots and artificial intelligence, machines will eventually replace humans, forcing humans into a “hell-like dystopia”. society”.

From the perspective of human employment, work brings people a sense of self-realization and value. As AI and robots take over the world, this sense of self-realization will gradually be lost, making people’s lives “worthless and extremely miserable”, so some people think that the future world will be shrouded in despair.

The report “Workforce Transformation in the Age of Automation” shows that more than 50% of the world’s jobs will be replaced by robots

According to a report “Workforce Transformation in the Age of Automation”, more than 50% of the jobs worldwide will be replaced by robots, and by 2030, 800 million workers will be replaced by machines. It also assesses the kinds of jobs that are likely to be replaced by automation over the next 13 years, reporting that manual jobs in stable environments, such as machine operators and fast food workers, are most likely to be replaced by robots.

Additionally, while the report says there will be new jobs, it also highlights that people may have to learn new skills to get them. According to the report, “Maybe 75 million to 375 million of the total unemployed people need to switch jobs and learn new skills.” For example, my country is perhaps the country most affected by automation. In absolute terms, it is necessary to transform Jobs have the largest number of people, up to 100 million people by 2030, accounting for 12% of the total workforce.

Robots are stronger than humans, can adapt to work in different conditions and environments, work more efficiently, and are tireless and not lazy; although AI is not smarter than human beings, it is already in many specific areas. In the field, humans are far behind, and the learning ability is no longer comparable to humans.

Although these two are made by humans, it is not surprising that AI and robots that have gathered the wisdom and hard work of several generations or even dozens of generations will surpass the “Creator” in the future.

State of the workforce will lead China on the path to Industrial automation

As we all know, China’s population density is three to four times that of the United States, but the output of the entire industry is not comparable to the United States.

In the past, due to the abundance of labor force in China, most of the enterprises working in China were labor-intensive enterprises. Therefore, developed countries in the West took advantage of China’s population advantages and placed some factories in China. However, with the gradual disappearance of China’s demographic dividend and the further rise in labor costs, industrial production has gradually shifted from labor-intensive to technology-intensive. When enterprises are weighing the trend between industrial automation and labor, they will have more motivation to choose to invest more costs in the field of equipment automation. This situation has driven the upgrading of Chinese production enterprises and promoted China’s industrialization process to further move towards an all-round way. of automation.

Industrial automation technology is developing in the direction of artificial intelligence. We can expect that those productions that can only be done manually will still be replaced by automation in the near future. This is the general trend and the inevitable development of technology. Although on the whole, my country’s industrial automation level is not able to compare with the United States, Japan and other countries, but in some special fields, China is secretly making efforts.

China’s industrial robot application is still in its early stages

According to the “Made in China 2025” released by China in 2015, it is mentioned that: closely focus on the key links in key manufacturing fields, and carry out the integrated innovation and engineering application of the integration of new generation information technology and manufacturing equipment. Support government-industry-university-research-approach joint research, develop intelligent products and self-controllable intelligent devices and realize industrialization. Relying on advantageous enterprises, focusing on the intelligentization of key processes, the replacement of robots in key positions, the intelligent optimization and control of production processes, and the optimization of supply chains. The production cycle is shortened by 30%, and the defective product rate is reduced by 30%. By 2025, the key areas of the manufacturing industry will be fully intelligent, the operating costs of pilot demonstration projects will be reduced by 50%, the production cycle of products will be shortened by 50%, and the rate of defective products will be reduced by 50%.

It is undeniable that China’s use of industrial robots is still in its early stages. China’s robot density (measured by the number of industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers) is only 68, slightly lower than the global average of 74, and even further behind South Korea (631), Germany (309) and Japan (303). is huge. According to a report, 300,000 industrial robots were sold worldwide in 2016, 30% of which were sold in China. Assuming this market share grows further to 40%, it will take China more than 10 years to increase the density of robots to the 200 level (old robots are not counted for departure and replacement), but this figure is still far behind Japan and South Korea today.

The trend of industrial robots replacing human labor is gradually emerging

The comprehensive application of robots has brought subversive changes to today’s production methods, efficiency, industrial structure and lifestyle.

In production mode,Production has changed from centralized to decentralized, and product homogeneity has changed to individualization, forming a real-time optimized and self-organizing industrial chain.

In intelligent manufacturing equipment,The popularity of industrial robots has created a trillion-dollar market including new industrial PCs, networked PLC/automation and communication components, high-precision sensors, intelligent instruments, intelligent production lines and other related complete machine parts.

Industry insiders predict that after the full application of robots, a large proportion of China’s population will be forced to transform into technicians or turn to services and start businesses to find their own way. At present, my country’s laws and regulations, ideology, social structure and other aspects have not been fully prepared, but in any case, just like cars instead of mules, computers instead of typewriters, and the internet instead of traditional communication methods, the trend of industrial robots replacing manual labor has gradually appear.

Industrial robots can give us a “win-win”

Technological progress has improved productivity and has also become a source of sustained economic growth. However, under the trend of industrial robots, the owners and users of the machines benefit, while those replaced by machines have to fall into unemployment and poverty. To deal with the structural unemployment brought about by automation, it is necessary to adjust the social redistribution structure, to increase the wealth created by the productivity of machines, and to give back to the society in the form of public goods, such as providing basic living security to the unemployed and re-employment. Training, adapting the unemployed to new jobs, etc.

At present, the third industrial revolution represented by technologies such as robots, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and online collaborative manufacturing is emerging. Machines with higher intelligence are evolving, and machines can complete more and more jobs cheaper than humans. , human intelligence has also been increasingly challenged. Therefore, by participating in the cooperation with robots, we can win the competition between machines and humans, otherwise, the only thing left is elimination.

The author believes that intelligent robots can increase production capacity and promote social and economic development. The original low-end labor force will be replaced by high-end labor force, freeing people from heavy manual labor, so that they can have time and energy to learn more and more. Technology with technological content. Some studies in Europe show that an Industrial Robot can create 3.6 jobs. Therefore, this is not a win-lose-lose game. From the experience of developed countries, it is possible to achieve a win-win situation.

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