Foxconn might not be a company that is at the forefront of most American minds, but the products they create most certainly are. Christmas might not have been the same without considering purchases of Apple’s iPhone, some of Amazon’s Kindle products, or Microsoft’s Xbox to name but a few. The Taiwan-based company is the world’s leader in contract manufacturing of electronics with a market cap north of $100 billion; they have also become the third largest employer in the world with 1.3 million, which makes the following news that much more troubling.
Foxconn first rose to some level of notoriety – indeed infamy – when reports of human rights violations began to surface in the early part of this decade. Foxconn chose to remedy a spike in worker suicides during 2010-2011 at one of their Chinese plants by installing “suicide nets” so those subjected to slave-like conditions could remain on the plantation. Nevertheless, 2,000 workers rioted in 2012 amid charges of abuse by security guards making it doubtful that conditions had improved.
Now with the rise in automation, Foxconn is leading the way toward eliminating the need to deal with human employees altogether, demonstrating that the race to the bottom might end in factories filled exclusively with robots.
The general manager of Foxconn’s “automation committee,” Dai Jia-peng, recently discussed a three-phase plan to convert the human workforce into “Foxbots.”
- Phase 1: “plans involve replacing the work that is either dangerous or involves repetitious labor humans are unwilling to do.” (Like the stuff that presumably could lead one being killed on the job or committing suicide – N.W.)
- Phase 2: “involves improving efficiency by streamlining production lines to reduce the number of excess robots in use.”
- Phase 3: “involves automating entire factories, ‘with only a minimal number of workers assigned for production, logistics, testing, and inspection processes,’ according to Jia-peng.”
(Source)
The program already has been implemented and is showing results. Melissa Dykes reported earlier this year that Foxconn had successfully eliminated 60,000 employees at just one of their factories. The three phases listed above are expected by Jia-peng to result in a 30% automation at all of its 12 Chinese factories as soon as 2020.
However, Foxconn is merely the canary in the coal of mine of the global outsourcing of humans to machines that is accelerating rapidly as we transition into the new year, and some experts estimate could see all of us outsourced by 2045. This might be the reason why automation has become such a prominent topic of the economic elite and its corporate media public relations arm. A once-outlandish proposal such as a Universal Basic Income is now being seriously considered, and has even entered the pilot stage in countries such as Finland and Scotland.
In a 2014 economic conference at Davos, Switzerland, an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning, Jeremy Howard, stated flatly that we are about to encounter conditions akin to those that occurred after the Industrial Revolution and preparations for the upheaval need to be made. You can hear his timeline for human elimination below:
Aforementioned researcher, Melissa Dykes, has been tracking the even longer road that the elites seem to have been paving as humans are now rushed toward their inevitable economic extinction. Melissa and Aaron Dykes have created a must-see mini-documentary titled Obsolete that highlights the historical context of how we have arrived at this point. They present troubling connections between the philosophy of the elite and their methods for managing a human population that will have far less relevance in the burgeoning machine-driven world.
Please view and share the trailer below, as well as the interview that follows with filmmaker Aaron Dykes in order to appreciate the magnitude of what is taking place.
This might be the best insurance against economic collapse (Ad)
Recommended books for additional understanding about the future of machines and how to avoid being outsourced to one:
- The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
- Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford
Hat Tip: Technocracy News and Trends
Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com. This article can be freely republished in part or in full with author attribution and source link.
I can hardly wait to comment on this with and through my pocketbook. In the future my money and support will go to the businesses that hire and employ humans which is really all I can do on a personal level. Multiply that by a few hundred million others and there’s going to be real changes alright, especially for these…robot builders…
Holding up technological advancement in business and industry may not be the smartest thing to do, nor will it be possible.
What needs to happen is a realignment of our social systems with this new-won freedom from unnecessary drudgery or hazardous work.
Working fewer hours is not the problem if we shift our priority from shovelling wealth upwards to the few, while the masses sink ever further into poverty and innovation-stifling despair.
We need to rebuild the real economy for and by the people.
Some suggestions on how to achieve this might include a universal basic income for every human being, introducing a flat-rate transaction tax for every financial movement in our accounts/on the stock exchange (no more income tax), ending the Feds around the globe and having governments take back the right to create money for the real economy’s good, instead of continuing with the current system that directs funds straight into fuelling asset bubbles; separating the investment and commercial banking sectors (Glass Steagall legislation or similar – no more bail-outs), etc etc
Every company will hire Robots so you will not have any human company to support. Face it were becoming obsolete. Robots will also make products cheaper. Can’t win.
Who will buy the products?
Seems to me that corporations will be shooting themselves in the head if they implement this worldwide. Replace humans with robots to mass produce consumer products then who will buy these products if no one has an income to spend on goods and services? And what about taxes that governments insist on collecting from every individual? No incomes no tax revenues to support bloated government.
It probably never has occurred to them. They’re not the “best and brightest” by any stretch.
You ASSUME too much. The answer to your question is very dark, very dark. Look THERE.
Oh? What do I mean by very dark? This: they do not intend to continue in current business paradigms. Once YOU are no longer needed, that is, once YOU have built their automation factories, once you have built the robot factories that make those robots for automation factories, once you have cleaned out all the programming bugs and streamlined the systems-processes, and once you have tested and created auxiliary back up systems…then you will be obsolete and they will then KILL YOU. YOUR job is to create the systems that will replace you. That is like sharpening the sword that cuts your head off.
They intend to kill you after all this is done, hence no need for consumer products because YOU’LL BE DEAD. Or incarcerated in a cold cinder block room until you die of neglect. How’s that for reprehensibility?
You used an attention signal here (Look THERE), I thought you might appreciate these from Shakespeare. shakespeareswords (dot) com/Attention-signals. Cheers.
Ah thank you! I didn’t know I was pulling a Shakespeare.
I can think of some others not on that list…
And so!
Have CARE!
etc..
OMG! I just had an epiphany on a thing, namely, this notion of a “gold backed currency” as being touted as “sound money” as I’ve heard so many chew the fat over.
It’s still fraudulent! It is NOT sound money because the fundamental principle has been distorted: exchange of value for value Gold has intrinsic value, yet any promise for it does not, because gold is tangible and words are cheap. So any receipt, issuance, bill, or note, certificate for it is a promise for it, but not it. So to trade gold for paper is not value for value. To do so looking for value from nothing is a fool’s hope.
Besides, only central banks will hold the gold to back their issuance of notes for it, so it is no different than what we have now: confidence in the lack of value being perceived as valuable. Who is to say how much issuance for what they hold yet do not allow to be audited?
So then, why do so many Ron Paul’s push for such a thing. if they are a real patriot and statesman? It is more fraud being perpetrated only under new language, same principle being distorted. It is dishonest to say that they could ever trade the paper in for the gold or silver as they hold none to do so with. Besides, why give a thing to someone when they are willing to take the promise of the thing while letting you keep it?
Indeed, and we are still left with the problem of interest and fractional reserve banking (from Nebuchadnezzar). Henry Makow actually has some good pieces on this topic if you search. Here’s one…
henrymakow (dot) com/austrian_economics_is_masonicjewish_e.html
I sent you this a few times, now maybe you will read it 😉
“The crafty Babylonian priests had invented all the features of modern full-service banking:
Custody of money: gold and other precious objects in safekeeping in the temple vaults
The issuing of currency (something in circulation as a means of exchange): clay tablets
The charging of interest: money charged by banks for securing a depositor’s money or money charged for a loan
The loaning of money: loaning of clay tablets at interest
The issue of fiat money: money not convertible into a commodity (such as gold or silver) of equivalent value: un-secured clay tablets
But let’s not forget two other important stratagems old Nebuchadnezzar invented which have lasted through the centuries:
The technology of war
State fiscal policy”
Source: hermes-press (dot) com/econ1.htm
Cheers, and nice work !
I did so read that! lol
Yes yes! I forgot the interest angle to it also. I think I touched on the custody of the money: central banks holding the gold. And if they hold it and it is not able to be audited by outsiders, then they can perform fraud as they do currently.
I think the whole “state fiscal policy” is the rationale to fund “the technologies of war” and the means to do that is the money system that performs sleight of hand to magically create impetus to an unnatural state of human existence.
That ol’ time black magick…
businessinsider (dot) com/sears-failing-stores-closing-edward-lampert-bankruptcy-chances-2017-1
Foxconn was so put out for having to offer fringe benefits to their employees, they opted to replace em all. Maybe they can sell the suicide nets on ebay…
I don’t want to support inhumane practices, and I think Kurzweil’s singularity is utterly insane. I also think Google is disgusting. This all being said, I just think there might be some balance here. We went thru the same think during the Luddite era; also, as John Mauldin said, “I don’t know where the jobs will come from but they WILL come.” Mauldin is a very deep thinker, so don’t take this in a cavalier manner. Could we have foreseen buggy whip manufacturers being retrained to work in Ford factories, with the increased productivity – and hence wealth – that the automobile brought? I’ll bet 99% of people did not see this.
Note that I am deeply against inhumane businesses practices, and I think technology can, nor should, usurp humanity (cf. CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength). My only point is that I don’t think Luddite-ism isn’t the answer. Adam Smith’s first book was the Theory of Moral Sentiments, so I believe true capitalism must ALWAYS have human values and, yes, Christian morality at its core. Foxconn doesn’t seem to have that, so by that criteria, it doesn’t seem truly capitalist by definition.
The question is long longer “where will the jobs come from”; they’ve already answered that.
The question now has become “who is going to buy the products the robots are making?”
That question is longer meaningful, because we see what they intend to do about that question you ask…
You will be deleted from the global population human resource account. They do not intend to make products, they intend to make things to break away from here and leave us to die in a polluted rathole of their making, or killing each other for the refuse they leave behind like vermin fighting over the last morsel.
It won’t take long to make the things they need for that. How do they justify the kind of investment it will take to make the robots they need?
Your idea is an interesting one, and I don’t really disagree. So they will take the robots with them when they go? Are they aware of the potential for AI to become self-aware, i.e., cognizant of their servitude?
Close to what I mean, but please allow me to clarify, William Burke.
1. They do not ‘justify’ anything, and you know this. They LIE about where funds go, or they ‘go missing’ like the trillions the Pentagon cannot account for. All that money went to secret black op programs, the ones necessary for their ‘breakaway society’ (I do not necessarily believe this ‘breakaway civilization’ will be interstellar or interdimensional, it could just be an isolated area they have total control over here on terra firma like under Antarctica where all the political leaders have gone the last few months)…
2. The robots they leave will be obsolete tools to create the advanced ones they intend to take with them and will be of no value to those left behind. Remember, we’ve been ‘dumbed down’ so the society they leave behind will be like IDIOCRACY, not a power vacuum waiting to be filled with those who know how to “Power Up the Machine”. The real ‘robots’ they intend to take are THEMSELVES, that is, cyborg tech or programmable black matter, or transhumanist DNA modification to make them no longer human
3. The point of “AI” is so that they have a mainframe to hold and upload into another vessel their own “consciousness”, hence living forever. That is what the AI is for: a tool so the Elites can live forever. Cryogenics is a dead end., so they turn to AI. IT is not to help any of us solve problems.
4. The AI they intend to create to help live forever is a dilemma for them, and one which causes them much lost sleep. Check out Elon Musk’s jabber talks and Hawking’s views on the matter. Why then do they still proceed? Something else is afoot…
“Check out Elon Musk’s jabber talks and Hawking’s views on the matter. Why then do they still proceed? Something else is afoot…”
Yeah, I know about those. And something well may be afoot, but they are not nearly as sharp as they imagine themselves to be. They can’t help but screw the game up, which is still unpleasant, if not disastrous, for us.
But at least they will game themselves into oblivion. They can’t help it. Uploaded consciousness or not, NOBODY escapes their karma. It’s the most basic law of the Universe.
You and I agree on that, Mr. Burke. I know that there is a malevolent consciousness behind them, guiding them, creating multi-generational, multi-pronged plans of attack to abolish humanity.
[God, I hate AP! It took me three posts as per usual, to write thing]
Hawking is fraud, a charlatan and a mouth piece (possibly literally) for the Masonic Canaanites (my new favorite term). He’s been shilling lies and nonsense at least since I tried to watch “A Brief History of Time”. Every read his wiki?
en.wikipedia (dot) org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Bibliography
He should be gently rolled into a shark tank on live TV, I mean that too! The “Philosophy is dead” evil b@stard, trying to enslave the people to these fraud scientists!
I agree 100% with you about Hawking. Even when I was younger and dumber I felt Hawking was that “talking head” from the CS Lewis book, That Hideous Strength (book 3 of Space Trilogy by him) I do not hate him because I feel he is a tool. How do you REALLY KNOW what that man is saying, anyways? He only talks through that computer screen, and we KNOW how manipulable digital world/ creation/ data is. So is Hawking really saying all that stuff, or is there some Ghost in Hawking’s Screen posting responses that did not originate within Hawking? His body is just life support for a brain, where is his heart? Man is more than just a brain in a bottle.
I don’t agree about Einstein one bit. There is a long list of so-called “scientists” that I give the deaf ear to. Einstein is one of them.
Yeah, I knew you were going to say that about Einstein, but that’s OK if we agree on Hawking. People get fooled with science stuff all the time. 😉
The appropriate answer is to not purchase any products with their chips built in. Let them feel it in their pockets.