cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/4251786
Bringing manufacturing jobs home has been in the news lately, but it’s not the 1950s or even the 1980s anymore. Today’s factories need far less humans. Global car sales were 78,000,000 in 2024 and the global automotive workforce was 2,500,000. However, if the global workforce was as efficient as this Honda factory, it could build those cars with only 20% of that workforce.
If something can be done for 20% of the cost, that is probably the direction of travel. Bear in mind too, factories will get even more automated and efficient than today’s 2025 Honda factory.
It’s not improbable within a few years we will have 100% robot-staffed factories that need no humans at all. Who’ll have the money to buy all the cars they make is another question entirely.
I wonder if the west actually will be able to reindustrialize if factory automation is getting this efficient. Maybe, we could end up with a semi-deglobalized world where each trade block has their own efficient automated manufacturing spheres, and more localized mining/heavy industry.
Phrenologically, it seems like caucoids lack the capability for term planning though.
Reindustrialization means actually building shit. Even in the last remaining manufacturing states of the west, they keep shutting down production lines and refuse to buy materials to repair industrial machinery. I dont really see a lot of adapting AI, especially not with the energy crisis and run down energy infrastructure.
China will probably not be giving the US that tech
Even if factory automation is developed globally, you still need to build and maintain the automated factories… which requires re-industrialization.