Reply #40: Human component

[cosmicaug]

The human component might indeed yet be indispensable, but how many cell phones are going to be coming out of the factory per actual man hour spent as compared to people making a phone during the 1920's? That's what I'm getting at (I wasn't arguing that all human labor get's eliminated only that less human labor need be used to do a given task with increasing automation and indeed less human labor is used --don't be shifting the goal posts).

And humans being mostly relegated to quality control as you describe (via visual inspection) instead of doing most of the assembly is strongly suggestive of exactly what I'm talking about.

Your IBM example is intresting, but am I truly to beleive that 400 to 100 qualifies as the elimantion of a labor force?

Yup, that would be exactly what you'd be expected to believe if we assume the article is accurate. They're making the case that other plants use four times the amount of labor to do a similar job (and yes, reporters have known to get their facts wrong but it's fairly clear the article is describing an increase in automation that allows everything to be run by a smaller number of personnel). If, as you speculate, they had really been talking about outsourcing (they deal with that issue later in the article in a different context), they would have explicitly called it outsourcing.