Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (43 page)

Many of the graphs and charts in this book were generated using data from the excellent Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) system provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The specific data series I used are given in the notes. I encourage any interested readers to visit the FRED website and experiment with this remarkable resource. I also thank Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute for allowing me to reproduce his analysis showing the
dramatic divergence of growth in productivity and compensation in the United States, and Simon Colton for providing an illustration created by his artistic AI application, “The Painting Fool.”

Finally, I thank my family, and especially my lovely wife, Xiaoxiao Zhao, for their support and patience during the long process (and many late nights) that ultimately led to this book.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1
. Average wages for production or nonsupervisory workers:
The Economic Report of the President, 2013,
Table B-47,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/erp2013/full_2013_economic_report_of_the_president.pdf
. The table shows peak weekly wages of about $341 in 1973 and $295 in December 2012, measured in 1984 dollars. Productivity: Data Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Nonfarm Business Sector: Real Output Per Hour of All Persons, Index 2009=100, Seasonally Adjusted [OPHNFB]; US Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics;
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OPHNFB/
; accessed April 29, 2014.

2
. Neil Irwin, “Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers,”
Washington Post,
January 2, 2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html
.

3
. Ibid.

CHAPTER
1

1
. John Markoff, “Skilled Work, Without the Worker,”
New York Times,
August 18, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/business/new-wave-of-adept-robots-is-changing-global-industry.html
.

2
. Damon Lavrinc, “Peek Inside Tesla’s Robotic Factory,”
Wired.com
,
July 16, 2013,
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/07/tesla-plant-video/
.

3
. International Federation of Robotics website, Industrial Robot Statistics 2013,
http://www.ifr.org/industrial-robots/statistics/
.

4
. Jason Tanz, “Kinect Hackers Are Changing the Future of Robotics,”
Wired Magazine,
July 2011,
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/mf_kinect/
.

5
. Esther Shein, “Businesses Adopting Robots for New Tasks,”
Computerworld,
August 1, 2013,
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241118/Businesses_adopting_robots_for_new_tasks
.

6
. Stephanie Clifford, “U.S. Textile Plants Return, with Floors Largely Empty of People,”
New York Times,
September 12, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/us-textile-factories-return.html
.

7
. Ibid.

8
. On increasing worker pay in China and Boston Consulting Group Survey, see “Coming Home,”
The Economist,
January 19, 2013,
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21569570-growing-number-american-companies-are-moving-their-manufacturing-back-united
.

9
. Caroline Baum, “So Who’s Stealing China’s Manufacturing Jobs?,”
Bloomberg News,
October 14, 2003,
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRI4bAft7Xw4
.

10
. Paul Mozur and Eva Dou, “Robots May Revolutionize China’s Electronics Manufacturing,”
Wall Street Journal,
September 24, 2013,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303759604579093122607195610
.

11
. For more on China’s artificially low cost of capital, see Michael Pettis,
Avoiding the Fall: China’s Economic Restructuring
(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013).

12
. Barney Jopson, “Nike to Tackle Rising Asian Labour Costs,”
Financial Times,
June 27, 2013,
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/277197a6-df6a-11e2–881f-00144feab7de.html
.

13
. Momentum Machines co-founder Alexandros Vardakostas, as quoted in Wade Roush, “Hamburgers, Coffee, Guitars, and Cars: A Report from Lemnos Labs,”
Xconomy.com
,
June 12, 2012,
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/06/12/hamburgers-coffee-guitars-and-cars-a-report-from-lemnos-labs/
.

14
. Momentum Machines website,
http://momentummachines.com
; David Szondy, “Hamburger-Making Machine Churns Out Custom Burgers at Industrial Speeds,”
Gizmag.com
,
November 25, 2012,
http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/
.

15
. McDonald’s corporate website,
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company.html
.

16
. US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, News Release, December 19, 2013, USDL-13–2393, Employment Projections—2012–2022, Table 8,
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecopro.pdf
.

17
. Alana Semuels, “National Fast-Food Wage Protests Kick Off in New York,”
Los Angeles Times,
August 29, 2013,
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/29/business/la-fi-mo-fast-food-protests-20130829
.

18
. Schuyler Velasco, “McDonald’s Helpline to Employee: Go on Food Stamps,”
Christian Science Monitor,
October 24, 2013,
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/1024/McDonald-s-helpline-to-employee-Go-on-food-stamps
.

19
. Sylvia Allegretto, Marc Doussard, Dave Graham-Squire, Ken Jacobs, Dan Thompson, and Jeremy Thompson, “Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast-Food Industry,” UC Berkeley Labor Center, October 15, 2013,
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/publiccosts/fast_food_poverty_wages.pdf
.

20
. Hiroko Tabuchi, “For Sushi Chain, Conveyor Belts Carry Profit,”
New York Times,
December 30, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/global/31sushi.html
.

21
. Stuart Sumner, “McDonald’s to Implement Touch-Screen Ordering,”
Computing,
May 18, 2011,
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2072026/mcdonalds-implement-touch-screen
.

22
. US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Occupational Outlook Handbook,
March 29, 2012,
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/About/Projections-Overview.htm
.

23
. Ned Smith, “Picky Robots Grease the Wheels of e-Commerce,”
Business News Daily,
June 2, 2011,
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1038-robots-streamline-order-fulfillment-e-commerce-pick-pack-and-ship-warehouse-operations.html
.

24
. Greg Bensinger, “Before Amazon’s Drones Come the Robots,”
Wall Street Journal,
December 8, 2013,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579246012421712386
.

25
. Bob Trebilcock, “Automation: Kroger Changes the Distribution Game,”
Modern Materials Handling,
June 4, 2011,
http://www.mmh.com/article/automation_kroger_changes_the_game
.

26
. Alana Semuels, “Retail Jobs Are Disappearing as Shoppers Adjust to Self-Service,”
Los Angeles Times,
March 4, 2011,
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/04/business/la-fi-robot-retail-20110304
.

27
. Redbox corporate blog, “A Day in the Life of a Redbox Ninja,” April 12, 2010,
http://blog.redbox.com/2010/04/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-redbox-ninja.html
.

28
. Redbox corporate website,
http://www.redbox.com/career-technology
.

29
. Meghan Morris, “It’s Curtains for Blockbuster’s Remaining U.S. Stores,”
Crain’s Chicago Business,
November 6, 2013,
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20131106/NEWS07/131109882/its-curtains-for-blockbusters-remaining-u-s-stores
.

30
. Alorie Gilbert, “Why So Nervous About Robots, Wal-Mart?,”
CNET News,
July 8, 2005,
http://news.cnet.com/8301–10784_3–5779674–7.html
.

31
. Jessica Wohl, “Walmart Tests iPhone App Checkout Feature,” Reuters, September 6, 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/us-walmart-iphones-checkout-idUSBRE8851DP20120906
.

32
. Brian Sumers, “New LAX Car Rental Company Offers Only Audi A4s—and No Clerks,”
Daily Breeze,
October 6, 2013,
http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20131006/new-lax-car-rental-company-offers-only-audi-a4s-x2014-and-no-clerks
.

33
. Vision Robotics corporate website,
http://visionrobotics.com
.

34
. Harvest Automation corporate website,
http://www.harvestai.com/agricultural-robots-manual-labor.php
.

35
. Peter Murray, “Automation Reaches French Vineyards with a Vine-Pruning Robot,”
SingularityHub,
November 26, 2012,
http://singularityhub.com/2012/11/26/automation-reaches-french-vineyards-with-a-vine-pruning-robot
.

36
. “Latest Robot Can Pick Strawberry Fields Forever,”
Japan Times,
September 26, 2013,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/26/business/latest-robot-can-pick-strawberry-fields-forever
.

37
. Australian Centre for Field Robotics website,
http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/research/robotics/agricultural.shtml
.

38
. Emily Sohn, “Robots on the Farm,”
Discovery News,
April 12, 2011,
http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/robots-farming-agriculture-110412.htm
.

39
. Alana Semuels, “Automation Is Increasingly Reducing U.S. Workforces,”
Los Angeles Times,
December 17, 2010,
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/17/business/la-fi-no-help-wanted-20101217
.

C
HAPTER
2

1
. On Martin Luther King Jr.’s final sermon and memorial service at Washington National Cathedral, see Ben A. Franklins, “Dr. King Hints He’d Cancel March If Aid Is Offered,”
New York Times,
April 1, 1968, and Nan Robertson, “Johnson Leads U.S. in Mourning: 4,000 Attend Service at Cathedral in Washington,”
New York Times,
April 6, 1968.

2
. The full text of MLK’s “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” sermon is available at
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/remaining_awake_through_a_great_revolution/
.

3
. For the text of the Triple Revolution report and a list of signatories, see
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
. Scanned images of the original document and accompanying letter to President Johnson are available at
http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/peace/papers/1964p.7–04.html
.