Western Executives Shaken After Visiting China (futurism.com)
- Reference: 0179803486
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/16/006222/western-executives-shaken-after-visiting-china
- Source link: https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/western-executives-shaken-visiting-china
> Western automotive and green energy executives who visit China are returning humbled -- and even terrified. As [2]The Telegraph reports, the executives are warning that the country's heavily automated manufacturing industry [3]could quickly leave Western nations behind , especially when it comes to electric vehicles. "We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs," Ford CEO Jim Farley [4]told The Verge last month. "And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford." Some companies are giving up on new initiatives altogether, with the founder of mining company Fortescue, Andrew Forrest, claiming that his recent trip to China led to him abandoning attempts to produce EV powertrains in-house. "There are no people -- everything is robotic," he told The Telegraph.
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> Other executives recalled touring "dark factories" that don't even need to keep the lights on, as most work is being done around the clock by robots. "You get this sense of a change, where China's competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number of highly skilled, educated engineers who are innovating like mad," British energy supplier Octopus CEO Greg Jackson told the newspaper. According to recent figures by the International Federation of Robotics, China has deployed orders of magnitude more industrial robots than Germany, the US, and the UK.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~mspohr
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/12/why-western-executives-visit-china-coming-back-terrified/
[3] https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/western-executives-shaken-visiting-china
[4] https://www.theverge.com/podcast/784875/ford-ceo-jim-farley-interview-ev-cars-china-trump-tariffs-carplay
Curious catch 22 (Score:2)
If you automate everything then you break the social contract. Millions of unemployed people lead to unrest in the land.
Winning is losing.
Re: (Score:1)
If you automate everything then you break the social contract.
You don't automate everything. You just automate the things that are economical to automate.
Some things are difficult or impossible to automate, and other things may be left to humans because it's more economical as long as there are people willing to do the job for less than it costs to automate.
Re: Curious catch 22 (Score:2)
Factories do not have to be the main source of employment today - like agriculture did not have to be the main source of employment after the 19th century.
Re: Curious catch 22 (Score:2)
"There are no people -- everything is robotic," he told The Telegraph.
Just sayin' those non robotic people might get poor, then unhappy. That strikes fear into the heart of power.
Re: Curious catch 22 (Score:1)
No. There will always be jobs. Stupid jobs that pay nothing, but there will always be jobs. Why? Because having people you control is a kink for the oligarchs.
Thatâ(TM)s it. Itâ(TM)s about slavery. Never expect UBI, as long as billionaires exist. They want to keep you poor, weak, and most importantly *dependent*.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it is not. Sure, they need to find new ways of wealth-distribution, but doing things by hand that robots are better at is simply insane.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what happened in agriculture, which used to be the main source of employment (for centuries). During the 20th century in the US, the labor required dropped by more than 90% as industrialization took over. And it was hugely disruptive. The resulting overproduction of goods that people were not making enough money to buy caused the great depression.
Re: (Score:2)
> Winning is losing.
Then, and I *hate* to admit this, Trump was right, "It’s too much winning."
Though this premise makes me worried about his intent to force more winning on us. From his campaign:
> We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore, Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’
IDK, maybe the winners and losers aren't the same people in all this ...
Re: (Score:1)
> If you automate everything then you break the social contract. Millions of unemployed people lead to unrest in the land. Winning is losing.
Over 100 million dead citizens lay at the feet of Communist Socialism.
Let me know why you think they give a shit.
What's the big deal? (Score:2)
"I mean, aren't you guys already fully automated? We saw it in one of your [1]manufacturing documentaries [youtu.be]."
[1] https://youtu.be/7omoVzuynmE&t=1m27s
remove health care from jobs in the usa the work p (Score:2)
remove health care from jobs in the usa the work place should be providing health care other then workers comp
Re: (Score:2)
Have you _read_ the story? Like, at all?
Re: (Score:2)
> They have way too many people living in desperate poverty versus the people here living in desperate poverty.
Not really comparable. Their government will find something for their desperately poor do do. Our desperately poor will pull some fake malady out of their ass and claim an inability to work.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you have a group of people to blame problems on, I guess you don't have to think anymore.
Capitalism (Score:3)
When China does capitalism harder than you.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't believe luddism was ever a tenet of communism. The Soviets certainly didn't think so when they were winning the space race, neither did China when it totally committed to the Great Leap Forward. The classic commies always envisioned a glorious shining high-tech future in which nature was subdued in the name of economic output.
Fine. Who needs EVs? (Score:2)
> "We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs," Ford CEO Jim Farley told The Verge last month.
Wait until the U.S. starts making vehicles that run on "beautiful, clean coal".
China can't compete with that, they don't even have coal ... wait, what?
:-)
I can remember ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... back in the 1990s, when I worked for Boeing, our execs visited Japanese factories. They were shaken by the Japanese drive for quality and efficiency. But did they lift a finger to try and catch up? Nope.
You can shake Western executives pretty hard. And all you hear is something loose rattling between their ears.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they did one thing, they started outsourcing more - especially to Japan. I suppose that's more "cost efficient" than, you know, trying to catch up.
[1]https://www.boeing.com/content... [boeing.com]
[1] https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/company/key_orgs/boeing-international/pdf/japanbackgrounder.pdf
time to lower the full time hours? and make OT cos (Score:2)
time to lower the full time hours? and make OT cost more with the salary bar to not pay OT being alot higher.
Or do you want heavily automated manufacturing with 1-2 people being on call 24/7 with NO added pay being on call just the LUCKY to still have an job perk.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it is time to make a new social contract. A simple ask is that when productivity gains are made in a Company, that wages increase in proportion, and that all of the money does not simply go to the worthless eaters, the "Investment Class", who do none of the work at that Company.
Good. (Score:2)
These assholes have been dragging there feet and putting off transitioning to building EVs for waaaaay too long. They need a kick in the teeth so they will get their ass in gear and actually do something. However, knowing that they are assholes, they are more likely to simply ask to block EV imports.
Re: (Score:1)
they already did man. do you see any BYD cars in the US? its already illegal because of "security". apparently they're not even illegal in the UK, which is hilarious to me that the US is now removing EV incentives while banning cheaper ones. we want to lose.
Wait a moment (Score:2)
Didn't we had the same song back in the 80s about the japanese robot factories?
Huawei (Score:2)
Huawei have had dark factories and placing them on the sanctioned list of companies only spurred them to "get good" even more. Even before they came under fire they were already scaling back their workforce at the factories as they had already started to see the benefits of dark factories. What other dark factories other industries may have is hard to tell but this is an evolution of manufacturing technology.
Ford CEO has been driving chinese EV for months (Score:3)
It's not just this trip. The Ford CEO bought an EV from a chinese company months back which he used as a daily driver for a while. He was very impressed and quite humbled.
Look the North American market abandoned economy cars a long long time ago now and focuses exclusively on luxury vehicles now. That brought in the money but it didn't really help Americans (or Canadians) who need economy cars still. China produces mostly economy cars and they are very good at it (unlike the soviets). Maybe we need a reasonable tariff on them (say 50%) and start allowing them in since there's nothing here to fill that part of the market anyway. Or even a 100% tariff.