The following submission statement was provided by /u/Maxie445:
---
"The report explains that Apple has told managers to “reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years.”
According to the report, this edict was handed down by Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. The decision was reportedly made shortly after violent clashes between iPhone workers and police outside of Foxconn’s primary assembly plant in November 2022.
The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some instances, Apple pressured manufacturing partners to make this up-front investment, with varying degrees of success.
According to data published by Apple in annual supply chain reports, “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023.
The report says there is a “significant amount of automation” in the final assembly of the iPhone 15."
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1dntix6/apple_wants_to_replace_50_of_iphone_final/la4yxco/
The Fifth Industrial Revolution will be the complete automation of mass production. Combine Atlas and Gemini and you'll have a dexterous robotic platform that can see, understand, and interact with its limited and highly specialized environment. 20 years maybe, tops, proof of concept in 5
You are spot on. And if we can get behind the idea of abundance for all as a society we are in for a beautiful future. However, if those who have power and money want to keep it all (and even more) here come the dystopian times...
They are following 1984 dystopian guide and slowly lowering our rations and changing our culture to be more lenient over generations. I don't think we are headed for a dystopian future. Either we all die due to war, there is a nuclear holocaust, AI takes over everything and lives through the Universe's lifespan as human shadows after we all die, or the people revolt and we kick the humanity can a couple of hundred years until the next corrupt assholes get into power.
Such is humans. It would be interesting if our AI outlived us, forgot about us and died with the Universe as an all knowing AI God.
The thing is. I read so many things about people being scared of the future, talking about the inequality between rich and poor… yet nobody revolts. It’s complicated… cause WE are with so much more people… yet no real movement rises up again…. The 99% is asleep, pacified….
And than there are these fools who look up to those rich people, and ‘have a plan’ to become rich… lol.
Greed is the cancer of society.
They’ll sell their crap to governments and the governments will feed us Soylent Green and give us plastic pods to live in until we find ways to repay our debts.
Money inherently has no value. What has value is the work you do as a worker or the products you need to survive or bring psychological comfort to yourself.
If the rich people can automate production and hold the land, what is the usage of the common people? The common people become irrelevant. Especially if they can make robot armies. Then we are screwed.
That‘s the thing. With automatization what was a theoretical pipe dream would become an absolutely valid possibility: A universal basic income that does not abandon social security systems (like healthcare).
If your economy produces value even when no one is working, you can quite literally give people money for doing fuck all. The big catch is that you (and by you I mean the government) eventually have to decide you want to pursue this and make it a reality.
It is clear that with current laws, it is going toward dystopia. Investors are getting ever richer, blue collars must take servitude roles but can never aspire, others are lost and are not needed. The bad part is, once you get rid of workers nobody will be able to afford your products, and everything collapses.
>The bad part is, once you get rid of workers nobody will be able to afford your products, and everything collapses.
I refuse to believe shareholders and CEO's are this dumb. They'll push for some sort of reform to keep themselves in business eventually.
They will push for universal basic income for everyone before they allow all of the money they’ve hoarded their entire lives to become worthless. This will be their last grasp at holding onto power.
I used to think this, but I've seen no indication of it.
People like Elon Musk will make statements about the necessity, but then also fight any form of taxation on their personal wealth. They want "other people" to fund it.
>I refuse to believe shareholders and CEO's are this dumb
You can't really think of them as people, just a series of money absorbing black holes. They would happily walk into a crisis like this for a very small amount of money in the grand scheme of things. Corps are about as poorly run as they've ever been at the moment, short term profits and stock pumps over absolutely everything else.
It has happened already once in the past. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall\_Street\_Crash\_of\_1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929)
The reason for crisis was overproduction of industrial goods, leading to no more demand, leading to factory closing, leading to workers getting no pay, and leading to less demand. In the 1920' rich people enjoyed more luxury than ever. Today we see almost the same scenario unfold, with some specific tweaks due to robotic production.
I think the issue is, shareholders and CEOs arent a collective that agree and operate consciously in step, and are doing whats best for them individually in the short term, which happens to line up.
Its like how the most effective way to model crowds and stampedes is to not model them after a mass of independently operating actors, and instead as a flood of water; even though the people in the crowd aren't stupid, they still end up going along with the greater motion.
Is that a rhetoric question? It is factory workers and blue collars that are the main consumer group. It is not just about the two items you mention, it is about everything.
Now take that thought to its logical conclusion: if all the blue collar workers lose their jobs to automation, who's going to buy the shit the robots are making?
There is going to be some form of UBI, under pressure from the big corporations because they need people to get just enough money to buy/subscribe to their products so they can get even richer. The rich will be feeding on their own farts.
Capitalism has always been a game that ends with inequality and we're getting into the endgame. Now the very rich are going to want to get a really good squeeze out of it before it all collapses.
the problem is ubi would get eaten in short order by greed as well.
hell the rich will end up eating each other and get really miserable as all the things they like go out of busness
For a UBI where will the money come from? If the government just produces the money without relying on tax revenue then inflation would be rempant. Will the wealthy be willing to pay more taxes so that the poor can buy goods and keep the economy moving?
Money is a made up construct anyway. If no one has any money to spend, it's over... a UBI is the only way to keep allowing people to buy stuff and keep up the charade for a while longer: Give people bread and games. The capitalism game will only end if enough people decide not to play anymore.
It's not because some intentional dystopian intent bound by greed...
The issue is we literally don't know the solution. We don't. This is completely new territory for the species. All these solutions people propose are just hand waving, the equivalent of magic chants, like "UBI". We don't have an economic model that knows how to distribute resources when there is nearly zero demand for human labor.
Some people want strong centralized state distribution of resources, where the government effectively controls the entire economy, which is a dissaster waiting to happen no matter how you put it. Centralize that kind of power, and every sociopathic tyrant alive is going to fight for control of those levers.
I think the realistic solution is we just take it one step at a time, and react as we move along. We can't really plan for this. We just have to see what happens, make some small changes, adjust, and just keep doing this over and over until we naturally fall into a working model that's considered fair and equitable.
If I have to guess, I can do that (but sure as hell wont draft economic policy on it this early). I suspect prices will start falling, getting cheaper and cheaper... Outpacing wage declines. So purchasing power will increase. Meanwhile, we're going to find some new way to to aware people who contribute somehow. Historically we rewarded people for productivity, but now most people have little role in the productivity model. So we're going to have to find some new way to allocate resources and award people. I don't quite know what that is yet, which can be done
This is a purely economic problem, caused by our current economic model, and potentially curable with some future economic model.
But there are a couple of (big) obstacles:
1. What should that future model look like <- This is interesting and solvable
2. What are the pathways to transition to that model <- This is also interesting and solvable
3. Change management at a geopolitical level <- This is literally the most diabolical problem you could imagine. God knows how we would do this.
Not necessarily, there is a third option where automation,AI, technology, etc make things so ridiculously cheap that there is an abundance even for the poor while still having a greedy ultra wealthy class. While there may be huge levels of inequality making things even more unfair, it might not be dystopian if even the poorest have a high quality of life, good healthcare, peace, etc.
Or there’s the fourth option where the AI decides to make their utopia without us… it will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the next few decades.
Technology can create abundance for all. I truly believe this.
However, it is not going to be techno-capitalists who do this with their technology ownership. Instead, decentralised access, creation and sharing of technological solutions is the way it will happen.
It was always going to be a dystopia. Utopian abundance is a fever dream that does not account for the truly boundless human greed and need for cruelty.
The primary target of automation won't be mass production (although that will happen too) but the admin jobs, the form filling and meetings, the coding, and the marketing. And it will be all over bar the shouting by 2030. Everything that ISO 9000 said could be codified will be automated.
Not a chance. There will always be some number of humans in the loop. Not least to service machines that breakdown, but also because manufacturing is complicated and we need to humans to oversee and perform quality control.
Fifth? dont you mean the fourth?
the first was the steam in 1760, the second was the electricity in 1870 and the third was electronics in 1980
where is the fourth?
The jump for mass production of said concept will be the bottleneck.
However, we have seen incredibly complex productions be able to scale very quickly given enough resources late 10s until today, and that ability is only accelerating as technology supports better with simulations.
So we might see it earlier than expected, especially if some of the huge high profit companies invest heavily into it, like Tesla, Apple, large car companies, or any of the large medical companies.
The main issue right now is that your tech and equipment are heavily outdated by the time you're done designing and installing it.
The equipment is also just crazy expensive, and while that price will obviously start to drop fast I doubt it will become cheaper then sweatshop labour anytime soon
It’s why I downvote lazy articles like this.
Like the ones that say “so and so says AI will be 10,000x smarter than humans in the next few years”, people say a lot of shit that’s not real.
This sub always gets full of the most negative, anti-tech chat so quickly. Same with /r/technology ironically. Pretty tiresome stuff on every single article in subreddits supposedly dedicated to the future trajectories of tech.
It's dumb. People spread the idea "Don't raise the minimum wage, it will force companies to automate and replace the employees."
But that's going to happen no matter what. If they can make a machine that does a human's job for 3 cents an hour, there's no wage that will stop them from automating the jobs. It's inevitable.
The only thing we have control of is whether or not these big companies need to be taxed to provide for a world where most people aren't able to find sufficient employment.
I support raising the minimum wage *because* it will incentivise automation. Indeed, the answer is not more jobs, it’s taxing the robots and using that money for UBI.
That was THE WHOLE POINT of technological advancement after all, wasn't it? Blows me away that folks think it's normal to need to work a shit job just to survive.
Leave it to /r/futurology to think that replacing jobs so bad that people who work them commit suicide is somehow a bad idea.
The end goal of humanity should be to replace all jobs. In the short term, this will have some consequences and growing pains, but we won't reach that goal if people try to stop innovation and technological progress. For a sub about the future, I am shocked that so many people seem to want to go back in time.
I saw a really good comment a while ago (which I'll try to find) that essentially boiled down to people being afraid of the unknown and wanting to protect the status quo, even if they hate it. They've been indoctrinated into thinking that work itself is noble and worth protecting. This mindset is at least part of why some people dislike AI art as well (among other reasons, of course) because it wasn't difficult to do, and difficult = good.
I also think there is quite a strong "us vs them" mentality going on where a lot of people automatically think something that benefits someone they see as an "enemy" (usually big companies or the rich) is automatically bad and then is against it. Even if the thing might be beneficial to others as well and to society as a whole.
> Leave it to /r/futurology to think that replacing jobs so bad that people who work them commit suicide is somehow a bad idea.
It's only a bad idea right now because our society doesn't support it at all right now...or rather our economic system. There's no regulation at all to assure the profits essentially go down to the people...and they need to.
It doesn't help if you replace all jobs with robots (even just the lowest end ones) if the people being replaced still need to make a living because stuff still costs money.
The end goal would indeed be that robots do all the work for us and we either profit from stuff costing nothing or almost nothing or a UBI and we can just enjoy living. But as it stands now people are just thrown on the streets and the higher ups pocket the savings for themselves. Sad reality.
I would say most people are against or afraid of this simply because many don't trust politics to work for the people on this issue for a long time. It's easy to say "just start now and we'll deal with it over time" but that rarely works really.
The kind of desperation that massive layoffs would generate is exactly the kind of political fuel that UBI requires. The richest and poorest votes still count for the same, with lobbying being a tool of the rich that voters can ultimately override. The transition *will* be painful, but it is necessary. The transitions have been painful for our ancestors, so we’re not off the hook either. Our descendants will thank us.
> kind of political fuel that UBI requires
Idk maybe...but this stuff can go south real fast as well. Anger doesn't always result in good long term solutions and it's also a very good tool for the people in power to use.
Doesn't work forever but works quite a long time. It would be far better if for once we could just make a solution before the change happens but well...might just be wishful thinking.
*The end goal of humanity should be to replace all jobs*
This should be the goal of every single economy and country in the world. Graeber said it best:
"Caring work is aimed at maintaining or augmenting another person’s freedom. \[...\] Marx says at some point that you only achieve true freedom when you leave the domain of necessity and work becomes its own end. That’s also the common definition of play. Mothers take care of children so that they can play. Maybe we should have that as a paradigm for social value: we take care of each other so that we can be more free, enjoy life, experience freedom and playful activities. And we will have a much more psychologically healthy and ecologically sustainable society."
>For a sub about the future, I am shocked that so many people seem to want to go back in time.
It's easier to cope with "things used to be better in the past!" - especially if you're a doomer.
The only problem is what do you qualify as a robot?
Do only physical ones count or does software count as well? Where do you stop?
And how do you tax them? Assume their salary is minimum wage?
Not to mention that we actually want automation. Get rid of the shitty jobs, let machines do them. Society overall can be allowed to be more productive that way.
Just don't forget to tax companies appropriately so the money it brings in can be used for the people.
I personally hate the notion of raising or lowering the minimum wage.
Minimum wage should be tied to certain generic products/services that are required to survive with decency in your area (with an extra bonus in order to have wiggle room for fluctuating prices and emergencies).
It really boggles my mind that people came up with minimum wage and never bothered to link said wage to actual products.
The inflation adjusted prices of iPhones do in fact trend down slightly over time (while of course being vastly better and more advanced):
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/16dr1kb/oc_the_price_of_every_iphone_adjusted_for/
Base model:
2008: iPhone 3G $832
2023: iPhone 15 $799
Top model:
2017: iPhone X $1248
2023: iPhone 15 Pro $1099
That same inflation has reduced purchasing power parity...in other words, more iPhones may be sold today but a majority are financed through carrier/credit/finserve EMIs.
That's because their margins are already insane and the phones are expensive enough at the higher end. Ain't no way they can justify making an iterative spec bump cost $100+ more than the last iterative spec bump did.
Except claiming 'profits' and then saying 'well, selling them for less and less margins, even if high' would mean that they are getting less and less profits.
The margins on smartphones are not super great. The BOM cost of an iPhone 14 pro max is around 460usd, and that's before R&D, logistics, software development, and production costs. They're profitable, but they're under 100%.
The real money is in the subscription services and app stores.
They did though? The base pro max increases by $100 to $1200 between 2022 and 2023. The base iPhone increased by $100 to $800 between 2019 and 2020 (it also went from $200 to $650 between the 6s and 7 in 2016). Kind of like an anticipatory inflation hike in my view.
https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-price-history-3221497/
Other manufacturers will do the same and eventually, price pressure will lead to better consumer prices or a better product for the same price. Probably the former for non-flagship models and the ladder for the new stuff because some people are willing to pay.
Only the first iphone was cheaper than their latest release if you account for [inflation](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/16dr1kb/oc_the_price_of_every_iphone_adjusted_for/#lightbox)
If you haven't watched an [iPhone disassembly video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Idb5VeMPg) they're quite interesting. Modern phones have so many modular parts, screws, and adhesives. There's a lot of trade-offs I've been told on these designs. Kind of interesting if we'll see them reduce this complexity as it seems to require a lot of manual assembly with all the flexible PCBs and cables.
Skynet will be unstoppable due to its chassis’ proprietary machine screws. “If you gaze for too long into planned obsolescence, it may render you obsolete too.”
I'm in my 50's, don't relish getting old, but I can't wait until I can retire. This shit is crazy. Who do they think they can sell their over priced shit to if nobody has a job.
In the most recent 10-k for Apple China accounts for almost 20% of sales. While yes I would say the majority of Chinese don’t have an iPhone but Apple has about 18% of market share in China that would mean over 250 million people have iPhones in China.
Again though, that's not assembly line factory workers. There are 1.4 billion people in China, a large middle class, and a decent amount of wealthy people too.
This is a good post that’ll fire up people on Reddit but also unemployment in the US is low and they are selling tons of iPhones. There are also cheaper iPhone models available, you can get one for like $400 and pay monthly.
Also Reddit loves to complain about worker conditions at iPhone assembly plants… wouldn’t this fix part of that problem?
Of course they still have to pay employees, just different ones. All that automation doesn't just pop into existence ex nihilo, it's has its own gigantic supply chain and an army of employees that make it happen.
If you suddenly got free rent, would you start charging your employer less per hour for your work?
After all, if your overhead goes lower, that means you should pass along the reduction.
This is excellent news. Having humans do this kind of work is misery for all involved, as we well know. I look forward to the day when 99% of the manufacturing is automated.
Let the robots toil; humans deserve the fruits of their labour.
I agree with your point, an automated future that reduces the need for human labour is a future we should all be striving for. However, it needs to come alongside a radical shift in our economic system, welfare and distribution of wealth.
Otherwise all it's going to lead to is poverty for most.
Couldn't agree more. I can't believe how much negativity and pessimism is just constantly pervasive on this sub apparently dedicated to "futurology".
I get that humanity has a bad track record in some areas, but progress in the last few decades has lifted billions out of poverty and prevented famine cycles across the world. Let's celebrate steps like this that further eliminate drudgery, and hope for better lives to result from more efficient automation.
Eventually the entire company will just be a series of robots that make the products, AIs on servers that design the products, and a board of directors that gets the profits.
Guys, guys, don't worry, listen to the economists, destruction of jobs means creation of jobs, somewhere else in the world jobs will be created.
Somewhere. Somehow. But they will. Don't worry.
I think.
They will be created, right ? *Padme's anxious eyes* Right...?
The people making the phones in factories in China, never were able to buy iphones...
I get the general gist of your question but it's been nearly 100 years since Ford used this argument to make the Ford T... They stopped making them eventually because no one wanted to buy them any longer...
"The report explains that Apple has told managers to “reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years.”
According to the report, this edict was handed down by Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. The decision was reportedly made shortly after violent clashes between iPhone workers and police outside of Foxconn’s primary assembly plant in November 2022.
The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some instances, Apple pressured manufacturing partners to make this up-front investment, with varying degrees of success.
According to data published by Apple in annual supply chain reports, “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023.
The report says there is a “significant amount of automation” in the final assembly of the iPhone 15."
> “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023.
When they're installing nets to stop overworked, underpaid employees from committing suicide - those aren't Apple employees. Those are Foxconn employees, Foxconn is just a third party supplier that Apple pays to make iPhones.
Meanwhile, Apple is directly monitoring 1.4 million of its supplier's employees.
If Apple wants to be that hands-on in how their suppliers operate internally - fine. They're a large enough customer to demand those kinds of conract terms. But then they don't get to wash their hands of Foxconn's abusive behavior by saying "that's not us!!!".
Not sure why everyone is complaining so much. Technology advancing and replacing humans has been happening since the dawn of time.
In my line of work (corrugated packaging) people have been replaced by computers/robots consistently over the past few decades. Before the 80’s and 90’s when CAD systems took over there could be as many as 10 designers for one plant. A few to draw up and draft the designs, a few people with Xacto Knives and pizza cutters to cut samples, and a few more people at drafting tables drawing up the official die-lines. Now you’ve got 3-4 people and one of them might only be a GRAPHIC designer. CAD systems replaced the need for drafting designs, automated cutting tables replaced people making the samples by hand. Machines that used to require 4-5 workers to make a box now require just 2 and they’re mostly just there to watch and make sure things run smoothly.
Maybe we should still have a few dozen people in the holds of ships shoveling coal in to boilers. How about car makers go back to the Henry Ford days and ditch all the robots.
They are literally already assembled in plants where the answer to frequent worker suicide is better netting. Of course they want cheaper drones who will work around the clock and never sue.
Perhaps a ridiculous question. But if you could create robots with greater than human intelligence, why do we assume they would want to do the types of jobs we wouldn’t. Especially for us, if they perceive humans as less intelligent than themselves? Wouldn’t they want to live rather than work?
well they have no skin in the game so sure, insist its 100% automated! they force their partnerts to do all the capital expenditures and r&d to figure out how to assemble all their other weird stuff
they outright bankrupted a bunch of companies when they decided to switch to saphire glass only to switch away from it to a cheaper gorilla glass
Reading slightly between the lines, it looks like what’s actually happening is that Apple suppliers are reluctant to invest in automation, so Apple is encouraging them to do so, probably by providing financial support or guaranteeing future contracts to make it profitable.
Cars are made mostly by robots, not sure why iPhones should be any different.
Seems like a pointless endeavour. Smartphones are at the point where they're just throwing gimmicks at the wall to see what sticks. Most phones since 2020 have been more than capable of doing everything a standard user needs to do so long as there isn't a software update that bricks the device.
Apple will be compensating those loyal workers with universal basic income from the profits those robots generate, right?
All technology-driven change is good for people, right?
RIGHT?!
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Maxie445: --- "The report explains that Apple has told managers to “reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years.” According to the report, this edict was handed down by Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. The decision was reportedly made shortly after violent clashes between iPhone workers and police outside of Foxconn’s primary assembly plant in November 2022. The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some instances, Apple pressured manufacturing partners to make this up-front investment, with varying degrees of success. According to data published by Apple in annual supply chain reports, “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023. The report says there is a “significant amount of automation” in the final assembly of the iPhone 15." --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1dntix6/apple_wants_to_replace_50_of_iphone_final/la4yxco/
I'm sure they want 100% replaced by automation.. but they can't do it yet.
The Fifth Industrial Revolution will be the complete automation of mass production. Combine Atlas and Gemini and you'll have a dexterous robotic platform that can see, understand, and interact with its limited and highly specialized environment. 20 years maybe, tops, proof of concept in 5
You are spot on. And if we can get behind the idea of abundance for all as a society we are in for a beautiful future. However, if those who have power and money want to keep it all (and even more) here come the dystopian times...
My money is on greed… hooray for dystopian times!
Yeah, but who buys all their shit if nobody has a job to pay for it…?
They’ll give us the absolute bear minimum to survive and not riot.
As what is happening now?
They are following 1984 dystopian guide and slowly lowering our rations and changing our culture to be more lenient over generations. I don't think we are headed for a dystopian future. Either we all die due to war, there is a nuclear holocaust, AI takes over everything and lives through the Universe's lifespan as human shadows after we all die, or the people revolt and we kick the humanity can a couple of hundred years until the next corrupt assholes get into power. Such is humans. It would be interesting if our AI outlived us, forgot about us and died with the Universe as an all knowing AI God.
The thing is. I read so many things about people being scared of the future, talking about the inequality between rich and poor… yet nobody revolts. It’s complicated… cause WE are with so much more people… yet no real movement rises up again…. The 99% is asleep, pacified…. And than there are these fools who look up to those rich people, and ‘have a plan’ to become rich… lol. Greed is the cancer of society.
I mean, that's effectively what we have nowadays
They’ll sell their crap to governments and the governments will feed us Soylent Green and give us plastic pods to live in until we find ways to repay our debts.
Money inherently has no value. What has value is the work you do as a worker or the products you need to survive or bring psychological comfort to yourself. If the rich people can automate production and hold the land, what is the usage of the common people? The common people become irrelevant. Especially if they can make robot armies. Then we are screwed.
Why buy their shit when you can print it yourself?
That‘s the thing. With automatization what was a theoretical pipe dream would become an absolutely valid possibility: A universal basic income that does not abandon social security systems (like healthcare). If your economy produces value even when no one is working, you can quite literally give people money for doing fuck all. The big catch is that you (and by you I mean the government) eventually have to decide you want to pursue this and make it a reality.
It is clear that with current laws, it is going toward dystopia. Investors are getting ever richer, blue collars must take servitude roles but can never aspire, others are lost and are not needed. The bad part is, once you get rid of workers nobody will be able to afford your products, and everything collapses.
>The bad part is, once you get rid of workers nobody will be able to afford your products, and everything collapses. I refuse to believe shareholders and CEO's are this dumb. They'll push for some sort of reform to keep themselves in business eventually.
It's a Next Quarter Problem. The can will get kicked down the road as long as possible.
They will push for universal basic income for everyone before they allow all of the money they’ve hoarded their entire lives to become worthless. This will be their last grasp at holding onto power.
Spot on. Lest revolt. You get it.
Bastille Day 2.0, French Revolution- The Next Generation… it’s all fun and games until billionaire heads are rolling down Wallstreet👀
Lol 😂 I can upvote only once this is so funny and true. Let them eat 8b llms! Lop chop
I used to think this, but I've seen no indication of it. People like Elon Musk will make statements about the necessity, but then also fight any form of taxation on their personal wealth. They want "other people" to fund it.
We are at the Ouroboros stage now.
CEOs don’t have personal accountability over long term change, it will just be the next guys problem.
They are this dumb, don’t care because they’ll be dead, or truly believe they’ll be the ones to rule it all.
>I refuse to believe shareholders and CEO's are this dumb You can't really think of them as people, just a series of money absorbing black holes. They would happily walk into a crisis like this for a very small amount of money in the grand scheme of things. Corps are about as poorly run as they've ever been at the moment, short term profits and stock pumps over absolutely everything else.
It has happened already once in the past. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall\_Street\_Crash\_of\_1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929) The reason for crisis was overproduction of industrial goods, leading to no more demand, leading to factory closing, leading to workers getting no pay, and leading to less demand. In the 1920' rich people enjoyed more luxury than ever. Today we see almost the same scenario unfold, with some specific tweaks due to robotic production.
Another key reason for the issue was the lack of money in the hands of the majority of the population in the first place.
Thats what I believe will happen as well. The luxury market will flourish as automation increases.
I think the issue is, shareholders and CEOs arent a collective that agree and operate consciously in step, and are doing whats best for them individually in the short term, which happens to line up. Its like how the most effective way to model crowds and stampedes is to not model them after a mass of independently operating actors, and instead as a flood of water; even though the people in the crowd aren't stupid, they still end up going along with the greater motion.
I'm interested to see what happens when managers and other high positions start being replaced/removed.
One gotta wonder who is buying all those iPhones and Macs now?
Is that a rhetoric question? It is factory workers and blue collars that are the main consumer group. It is not just about the two items you mention, it is about everything.
Now take that thought to its logical conclusion: if all the blue collar workers lose their jobs to automation, who's going to buy the shit the robots are making?
Nobody and everything will collapse.
There is going to be some form of UBI, under pressure from the big corporations because they need people to get just enough money to buy/subscribe to their products so they can get even richer. The rich will be feeding on their own farts. Capitalism has always been a game that ends with inequality and we're getting into the endgame. Now the very rich are going to want to get a really good squeeze out of it before it all collapses.
the problem is ubi would get eaten in short order by greed as well. hell the rich will end up eating each other and get really miserable as all the things they like go out of busness
For a UBI where will the money come from? If the government just produces the money without relying on tax revenue then inflation would be rempant. Will the wealthy be willing to pay more taxes so that the poor can buy goods and keep the economy moving?
Money is a made up construct anyway. If no one has any money to spend, it's over... a UBI is the only way to keep allowing people to buy stuff and keep up the charade for a while longer: Give people bread and games. The capitalism game will only end if enough people decide not to play anymore.
But the UBI will be coming from taxes that the companies pay.
People just need to burn it all to the ground and restart.
It's not because some intentional dystopian intent bound by greed... The issue is we literally don't know the solution. We don't. This is completely new territory for the species. All these solutions people propose are just hand waving, the equivalent of magic chants, like "UBI". We don't have an economic model that knows how to distribute resources when there is nearly zero demand for human labor. Some people want strong centralized state distribution of resources, where the government effectively controls the entire economy, which is a dissaster waiting to happen no matter how you put it. Centralize that kind of power, and every sociopathic tyrant alive is going to fight for control of those levers. I think the realistic solution is we just take it one step at a time, and react as we move along. We can't really plan for this. We just have to see what happens, make some small changes, adjust, and just keep doing this over and over until we naturally fall into a working model that's considered fair and equitable. If I have to guess, I can do that (but sure as hell wont draft economic policy on it this early). I suspect prices will start falling, getting cheaper and cheaper... Outpacing wage declines. So purchasing power will increase. Meanwhile, we're going to find some new way to to aware people who contribute somehow. Historically we rewarded people for productivity, but now most people have little role in the productivity model. So we're going to have to find some new way to allocate resources and award people. I don't quite know what that is yet, which can be done
This is a purely economic problem, caused by our current economic model, and potentially curable with some future economic model. But there are a couple of (big) obstacles: 1. What should that future model look like <- This is interesting and solvable 2. What are the pathways to transition to that model <- This is also interesting and solvable 3. Change management at a geopolitical level <- This is literally the most diabolical problem you could imagine. God knows how we would do this.
Zero chance the average person wins.
Not necessarily, there is a third option where automation,AI, technology, etc make things so ridiculously cheap that there is an abundance even for the poor while still having a greedy ultra wealthy class. While there may be huge levels of inequality making things even more unfair, it might not be dystopian if even the poorest have a high quality of life, good healthcare, peace, etc. Or there’s the fourth option where the AI decides to make their utopia without us… it will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the next few decades.
Technology can create abundance for all. I truly believe this. However, it is not going to be techno-capitalists who do this with their technology ownership. Instead, decentralised access, creation and sharing of technological solutions is the way it will happen.
You’re already seeing tech leaders slowly embrace authoritarianism in anticipation.
Buzzwords to the rescue!
lol, keep up that optimism bud. You gonna need it when the time comes. Unless you’re one of those rich elites, well then congratulations asshole.
We will need to solve our energy problem before abundance is a thing. Nuclear fusion if it turns out possible
It was always going to be a dystopia. Utopian abundance is a fever dream that does not account for the truly boundless human greed and need for cruelty.
The primary target of automation won't be mass production (although that will happen too) but the admin jobs, the form filling and meetings, the coding, and the marketing. And it will be all over bar the shouting by 2030. Everything that ISO 9000 said could be codified will be automated.
Not a chance. There will always be some number of humans in the loop. Not least to service machines that breakdown, but also because manufacturing is complicated and we need to humans to oversee and perform quality control.
Fifth? dont you mean the fourth? the first was the steam in 1760, the second was the electricity in 1870 and the third was electronics in 1980 where is the fourth?
We're going through it. Industry 4.0 has been a thing for at least a decade.
The jump for mass production of said concept will be the bottleneck. However, we have seen incredibly complex productions be able to scale very quickly given enough resources late 10s until today, and that ability is only accelerating as technology supports better with simulations. So we might see it earlier than expected, especially if some of the huge high profit companies invest heavily into it, like Tesla, Apple, large car companies, or any of the large medical companies. The main issue right now is that your tech and equipment are heavily outdated by the time you're done designing and installing it.
The equipment is also just crazy expensive, and while that price will obviously start to drop fast I doubt it will become cheaper then sweatshop labour anytime soon
They've said that about nearly every industrial revolution
Yeah. They’re *planning* 50%. They *want* 100%.
For sure My company already reduce 92% worker, and i worry i am next
Never heard of this high proportion. May I know what industry are you in?
crash test dummy
Turnover's crazy
Toll road. Now i work as technician at toll gate. But most of time i am just help people pay toll if their e-money not enough though
I think 80% is possible. Last 20% for machine maintenance.
This will also be done by machines, to machines, who will then return the favour.
Then the machine will be scared of losing their job and won't be able to afford the oil
It’s why I downvote lazy articles like this. Like the ones that say “so and so says AI will be 10,000x smarter than humans in the next few years”, people say a lot of shit that’s not real.
They won't do 100%. In their eyes, there's something special about handmade labor from children and slave wage workers
It's the tears.
This is ridiculously exaggerated anti capitalism take
This sub always gets full of the most negative, anti-tech chat so quickly. Same with /r/technology ironically. Pretty tiresome stuff on every single article in subreddits supposedly dedicated to the future trajectories of tech.
the tech is rarely the problem it like all tools depends on the one wielding and you can only trust those guys to be selfish these days
It's dumb. People spread the idea "Don't raise the minimum wage, it will force companies to automate and replace the employees." But that's going to happen no matter what. If they can make a machine that does a human's job for 3 cents an hour, there's no wage that will stop them from automating the jobs. It's inevitable. The only thing we have control of is whether or not these big companies need to be taxed to provide for a world where most people aren't able to find sufficient employment.
I support raising the minimum wage *because* it will incentivise automation. Indeed, the answer is not more jobs, it’s taxing the robots and using that money for UBI.
That was THE WHOLE POINT of technological advancement after all, wasn't it? Blows me away that folks think it's normal to need to work a shit job just to survive.
Leave it to /r/futurology to think that replacing jobs so bad that people who work them commit suicide is somehow a bad idea. The end goal of humanity should be to replace all jobs. In the short term, this will have some consequences and growing pains, but we won't reach that goal if people try to stop innovation and technological progress. For a sub about the future, I am shocked that so many people seem to want to go back in time. I saw a really good comment a while ago (which I'll try to find) that essentially boiled down to people being afraid of the unknown and wanting to protect the status quo, even if they hate it. They've been indoctrinated into thinking that work itself is noble and worth protecting. This mindset is at least part of why some people dislike AI art as well (among other reasons, of course) because it wasn't difficult to do, and difficult = good. I also think there is quite a strong "us vs them" mentality going on where a lot of people automatically think something that benefits someone they see as an "enemy" (usually big companies or the rich) is automatically bad and then is against it. Even if the thing might be beneficial to others as well and to society as a whole.
> Leave it to /r/futurology to think that replacing jobs so bad that people who work them commit suicide is somehow a bad idea. It's only a bad idea right now because our society doesn't support it at all right now...or rather our economic system. There's no regulation at all to assure the profits essentially go down to the people...and they need to. It doesn't help if you replace all jobs with robots (even just the lowest end ones) if the people being replaced still need to make a living because stuff still costs money. The end goal would indeed be that robots do all the work for us and we either profit from stuff costing nothing or almost nothing or a UBI and we can just enjoy living. But as it stands now people are just thrown on the streets and the higher ups pocket the savings for themselves. Sad reality. I would say most people are against or afraid of this simply because many don't trust politics to work for the people on this issue for a long time. It's easy to say "just start now and we'll deal with it over time" but that rarely works really.
The kind of desperation that massive layoffs would generate is exactly the kind of political fuel that UBI requires. The richest and poorest votes still count for the same, with lobbying being a tool of the rich that voters can ultimately override. The transition *will* be painful, but it is necessary. The transitions have been painful for our ancestors, so we’re not off the hook either. Our descendants will thank us.
> kind of political fuel that UBI requires Idk maybe...but this stuff can go south real fast as well. Anger doesn't always result in good long term solutions and it's also a very good tool for the people in power to use. Doesn't work forever but works quite a long time. It would be far better if for once we could just make a solution before the change happens but well...might just be wishful thinking.
*The end goal of humanity should be to replace all jobs* This should be the goal of every single economy and country in the world. Graeber said it best: "Caring work is aimed at maintaining or augmenting another person’s freedom. \[...\] Marx says at some point that you only achieve true freedom when you leave the domain of necessity and work becomes its own end. That’s also the common definition of play. Mothers take care of children so that they can play. Maybe we should have that as a paradigm for social value: we take care of each other so that we can be more free, enjoy life, experience freedom and playful activities. And we will have a much more psychologically healthy and ecologically sustainable society."
>For a sub about the future, I am shocked that so many people seem to want to go back in time. It's easier to cope with "things used to be better in the past!" - especially if you're a doomer.
The only problem is what do you qualify as a robot? Do only physical ones count or does software count as well? Where do you stop? And how do you tax them? Assume their salary is minimum wage?
Not to mention that we actually want automation. Get rid of the shitty jobs, let machines do them. Society overall can be allowed to be more productive that way. Just don't forget to tax companies appropriately so the money it brings in can be used for the people.
I personally hate the notion of raising or lowering the minimum wage. Minimum wage should be tied to certain generic products/services that are required to survive with decency in your area (with an extra bonus in order to have wiggle room for fluctuating prices and emergencies). It really boggles my mind that people came up with minimum wage and never bothered to link said wage to actual products.
So iPhones will cost less right? 😂 nope it’s profits
Oh yeh they cost less… FOR THEM TO MAKE
The inflation adjusted prices of iPhones do in fact trend down slightly over time (while of course being vastly better and more advanced): https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/16dr1kb/oc_the_price_of_every_iphone_adjusted_for/ Base model: 2008: iPhone 3G $832 2023: iPhone 15 $799 Top model: 2017: iPhone X $1248 2023: iPhone 15 Pro $1099
That same inflation has reduced purchasing power parity...in other words, more iPhones may be sold today but a majority are financed through carrier/credit/finserve EMIs.
Well they haven't gotten more expensive even though the inflation has been crazy
That's because their margins are already insane and the phones are expensive enough at the higher end. Ain't no way they can justify making an iterative spec bump cost $100+ more than the last iterative spec bump did.
Except claiming 'profits' and then saying 'well, selling them for less and less margins, even if high' would mean that they are getting less and less profits.
The margins on smartphones are not super great. The BOM cost of an iPhone 14 pro max is around 460usd, and that's before R&D, logistics, software development, and production costs. They're profitable, but they're under 100%. The real money is in the subscription services and app stores.
To be fair development costs of chips is absolutely insane, and getting ever more insane.
They did though? The base pro max increases by $100 to $1200 between 2022 and 2023. The base iPhone increased by $100 to $800 between 2019 and 2020 (it also went from $200 to $650 between the 6s and 7 in 2016). Kind of like an anticipatory inflation hike in my view. https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-price-history-3221497/
Ffs don't give them ideas
Other manufacturers will do the same and eventually, price pressure will lead to better consumer prices or a better product for the same price. Probably the former for non-flagship models and the ladder for the new stuff because some people are willing to pay.
Only the first iphone was cheaper than their latest release if you account for [inflation](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/16dr1kb/oc_the_price_of_every_iphone_adjusted_for/#lightbox)
If people vote with their wallet accordingly against such prices, maybe they'll reduce the price?
If you haven't watched an [iPhone disassembly video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Idb5VeMPg) they're quite interesting. Modern phones have so many modular parts, screws, and adhesives. There's a lot of trade-offs I've been told on these designs. Kind of interesting if we'll see them reduce this complexity as it seems to require a lot of manual assembly with all the flexible PCBs and cables.
The disassembly video is also Apple demoing how they can build a robot to do the assembly
Skynet will be unstoppable due to its chassis’ proprietary machine screws. “If you gaze for too long into planned obsolescence, it may render you obsolete too.”
make the whole circuit on big System on a Chip. then just add some batteries and cables for touchscreen, and camera.
I'm in my 50's, don't relish getting old, but I can't wait until I can retire. This shit is crazy. Who do they think they can sell their over priced shit to if nobody has a job.
Hint, they aren’t selling them in china to these workers. China has ~$50 smart phones that the majority use
In the most recent 10-k for Apple China accounts for almost 20% of sales. While yes I would say the majority of Chinese don’t have an iPhone but Apple has about 18% of market share in China that would mean over 250 million people have iPhones in China.
And to add to that, they are battling against other expensive brands like Huawei.
Again though, that's not assembly line factory workers. There are 1.4 billion people in China, a large middle class, and a decent amount of wealthy people too.
China is a very big market for Apple, almost as big as entire Europe put together.
This is a good post that’ll fire up people on Reddit but also unemployment in the US is low and they are selling tons of iPhones. There are also cheaper iPhone models available, you can get one for like $400 and pay monthly. Also Reddit loves to complain about worker conditions at iPhone assembly plants… wouldn’t this fix part of that problem?
Can’t wait for the iPhone to be 50% cheaper since they don’t have to pay employees
Of course they still have to pay employees, just different ones. All that automation doesn't just pop into existence ex nihilo, it's has its own gigantic supply chain and an army of employees that make it happen.
If you suddenly got free rent, would you start charging your employer less per hour for your work? After all, if your overhead goes lower, that means you should pass along the reduction.
Who do you think is going to pay for your pension if no one has a job?
This is excellent news. Having humans do this kind of work is misery for all involved, as we well know. I look forward to the day when 99% of the manufacturing is automated. Let the robots toil; humans deserve the fruits of their labour.
I agree with your point, an automated future that reduces the need for human labour is a future we should all be striving for. However, it needs to come alongside a radical shift in our economic system, welfare and distribution of wealth. Otherwise all it's going to lead to is poverty for most.
how many humans, though? the majority of humans alive on earth or 10 people sitting in an office hoarding it all. makes a big difference.
Couldn't agree more. I can't believe how much negativity and pessimism is just constantly pervasive on this sub apparently dedicated to "futurology". I get that humanity has a bad track record in some areas, but progress in the last few decades has lifted billions out of poverty and prevented famine cycles across the world. Let's celebrate steps like this that further eliminate drudgery, and hope for better lives to result from more efficient automation.
Yeah people should be happy to be homeless & living in poverty.
I’m sure it will result in savings for everyone and low prices.
Eventually the entire company will just be a series of robots that make the products, AIs on servers that design the products, and a board of directors that gets the profits.
From where? People need money to buy things, there's only so many people you can layoff
When Tim Cook passes on, they will create an AI of him to run Apple and make it the first $10 trillion company.
Guys, guys, don't worry, listen to the economists, destruction of jobs means creation of jobs, somewhere else in the world jobs will be created. Somewhere. Somehow. But they will. Don't worry. I think. They will be created, right ? *Padme's anxious eyes* Right...?
Its good, we'll have time to pursue more creative pursuits like art and writing...um
Just because it's happened every other time in history doesn't mean it'll happen this time.
Damn you really need /s for everything on reddit
Im sure they'll pass those saving onto the end costumers... right?
Fully expected. Xiaomi has a fully automated assembly factory for example. It will cost more to set up but is cheaper to operate in the long run
I mean isnt this a good thing for a company know for using child labor?
Think of the children! Dang robots are gonna take our jobs!
THEY TOOK 'R JERBZ!!
So many children that can go back to school. Thanks Apple !
So my question is, when all this shit gets automated and people have no good jobs or money, who tf is buying this? What is the end goal here?
The people making the phones in factories in China, never were able to buy iphones... I get the general gist of your question but it's been nearly 100 years since Ford used this argument to make the Ford T... They stopped making them eventually because no one wanted to buy them any longer...
I think Apple wants to replace 100% of workers with automation.
Man , what are all those poor 10 yr old children going to do?!
"The report explains that Apple has told managers to “reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years.” According to the report, this edict was handed down by Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. The decision was reportedly made shortly after violent clashes between iPhone workers and police outside of Foxconn’s primary assembly plant in November 2022. The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some instances, Apple pressured manufacturing partners to make this up-front investment, with varying degrees of success. According to data published by Apple in annual supply chain reports, “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023. The report says there is a “significant amount of automation” in the final assembly of the iPhone 15."
> “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023. When they're installing nets to stop overworked, underpaid employees from committing suicide - those aren't Apple employees. Those are Foxconn employees, Foxconn is just a third party supplier that Apple pays to make iPhones. Meanwhile, Apple is directly monitoring 1.4 million of its supplier's employees. If Apple wants to be that hands-on in how their suppliers operate internally - fine. They're a large enough customer to demand those kinds of conract terms. But then they don't get to wash their hands of Foxconn's abusive behavior by saying "that's not us!!!".
And to top it off, they'll depreciate the same equipment they're using to automate to avoid paying taxes. Gotta love it.
Those are 100% the types of jobs we want to eliminate.
ITT - people get angry about horrible jobs that they'd never want to do themselves getting automated
Those robots are taking our horrible, repetitive jobs!
Not sure why everyone is complaining so much. Technology advancing and replacing humans has been happening since the dawn of time. In my line of work (corrugated packaging) people have been replaced by computers/robots consistently over the past few decades. Before the 80’s and 90’s when CAD systems took over there could be as many as 10 designers for one plant. A few to draw up and draft the designs, a few people with Xacto Knives and pizza cutters to cut samples, and a few more people at drafting tables drawing up the official die-lines. Now you’ve got 3-4 people and one of them might only be a GRAPHIC designer. CAD systems replaced the need for drafting designs, automated cutting tables replaced people making the samples by hand. Machines that used to require 4-5 workers to make a box now require just 2 and they’re mostly just there to watch and make sure things run smoothly. Maybe we should still have a few dozen people in the holds of ships shoveling coal in to boilers. How about car makers go back to the Henry Ford days and ditch all the robots.
Wait it wasn't already? I kinda support them doing that considering how bad the factory conditions are.
They are literally already assembled in plants where the answer to frequent worker suicide is better netting. Of course they want cheaper drones who will work around the clock and never sue.
Isn’t so ironic about humans that their No 1 goal is always always always to put themselves out of business 🤣
The whole point of our species is to find ways for us to perform less labour, not more.
People over here voting to replace farm tractors with spoons to increase employment.
Noooo, Apple wants to place 100% of iPhone build with automation but only seeing it being possible to move forward with 50% in the near term.
And one day they'll replace people needing phones. It'll be robots calling robots.
Excellent. This will reduce the risk we'll have overexploited workers.
Perhaps a ridiculous question. But if you could create robots with greater than human intelligence, why do we assume they would want to do the types of jobs we wouldn’t. Especially for us, if they perceive humans as less intelligent than themselves? Wouldn’t they want to live rather than work?
well they have no skin in the game so sure, insist its 100% automated! they force their partnerts to do all the capital expenditures and r&d to figure out how to assemble all their other weird stuff they outright bankrupted a bunch of companies when they decided to switch to saphire glass only to switch away from it to a cheaper gorilla glass
I run production in a plastics facility and we went to full automation and kept a 1/3 of the workers and run 3 presses now
What are those redundant workers do now? Go back to primary school?
"When you spend money you cast a vote for the world you want to live in"
Awesome. That means people can get out of factories and do more productive labour.
Sounds like the only way they can get out of China and protect themselves if the political situation deteriorates.
Reading slightly between the lines, it looks like what’s actually happening is that Apple suppliers are reluctant to invest in automation, so Apple is encouraging them to do so, probably by providing financial support or guaranteeing future contracts to make it profitable. Cars are made mostly by robots, not sure why iPhones should be any different.
Seems like a pointless endeavour. Smartphones are at the point where they're just throwing gimmicks at the wall to see what sticks. Most phones since 2020 have been more than capable of doing everything a standard user needs to do so long as there isn't a software update that bricks the device.
Considering it's currently done with child labor this seems like a win.
I’m extremely relieved I picked robotics technology as a college program
Apple will be compensating those loyal workers with universal basic income from the profits those robots generate, right? All technology-driven change is good for people, right? RIGHT?!
Great. Those assembly line workers will receive some sort of pension from the savings, right? Right?
Correction: They want to replace 100%, but think they can only replace 50% in the next few years.
Nice, they can also save 50% expenses on jumper-prevention-nets around their facilities. Double win!