A SUPERB piece of reporting that hit me like a ton of bricks. Where "you are there" on a factory floor for a couple of days as two robots are tried out to come in to do the work of unreliable and hard-to-hire-and-keep low-wage humans depressed about their lives. The robots, cheaper than the low-wage humans, do it well, and two more are ordered. Just the realities, in one example. This story makes very clear that nearly everyone without training or education or a willingness to take on responsibility is going to have to go into service work  within a very few years or be unemployed. As one of the more responsible line workers says: “Me and Val and 12 robots, I would be happy with that.”

Rise of The Machine: The newest hires at a Wisconsin factory in search of reliable workers: Robot 1 and Robot 2

By ChIco Harlan @ WashingtonPost.com, Aug. 5

The factory had 132 job openings, and felt that finding people was like trying to “climb Everest.” In earlier decades, companies would have responded to such labor shortages by either giving up on expansion hopes or boosting wages until they filled their positions. But now, they had another option. Robots had become more affordable.

We are truly living in a revolutionary period.