In response to so-called “labor shortages,” companies are finally looking to replace workers with machines, and robotics companies couldn’t be happier.
David Zapico, CEO of robotics company Ametek Inc., told Bloomberg News that his company “is in full swing” because, as he put it, “people want to eliminate workers”.
He is not alone in his thoughts. Executives at Hormel Foods Corp and Domino’s Pizza also confirmed to Bloomberg that they are investing in automation to reduce labor costs and respond to “labor shortages,” as a Hormel vice president put it.
The trend begs a troubling question: What about humans?
In a word, the ethic that robots replace human workers is strained.
If the trend continues to rise, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu told Bloomberg, “Labor demand will grow slowly, inequality will rise, and the outlook for many low-educated workers will not be very good. ”
And as Greg Nichols wrote on ZDNet: “The robot revolution is not coming”, “it is here”.
The founder of a company called Brain Corp even told Nichols that his “fleet” of autonomous robots did the “equivalent of 6.8 million hours of human labor.”
“We’re excited to celebrate our fleet coverage of 100 billion square feet, which is the square feet of all commercial space in the United States,” CEO Eugene Izhikevich told ZDNet.
