The future is apparently somewhere between Terminator and WALL-E, but it's definitely gonna involve a lot of robots:
Companies in North America added a record number of robots in the first nine months of this year as they rushed to speed up assembly lines and struggled to add human workers.
Factories and other industrial users ordered 29,000 robots, 37% more than during the same period last year, valued at $1.48 billion, according to data compiled by the industry group the Association for Advancing Automation. That surpassed the previous peak set in the same time period in 2017, before the global pandemic upended economies.
I'm sure this is fine.
The advancement of industry is inevitable, right? It's not like this is happening due to a mess of government policy and media-stoked fear that's driving inflation and a worker shortage at the same time!
"Businesses just can't find the people they need - that's why they're racing to automate," said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, known as A3.
Robots also continue to push into more corners of the economy. Auto companies have long bought most industrial robots. But in 2020, combined sales to other types of businesses surpassed the auto sector for the first time - and that trend continued this year. In the first nine months of the year, auto-related orders for robots grew 20% to 12,544 units, according to A3, while orders by non-automotive companies expanded 53% to 16,355.
I wonder how long it'll be before we have no reason to ever leave our couches while the elites inform us we'll be happy with no property:
Oh wait... that's already happening, isn't it?
I gotta say: if the future is between fighting the robot overlords or sitting in a hoverchair eating burgers all day, I kinda hope we get the war-with-the-machines option so we at least have something to fight for!
Who knows though?
Maybe we'll get lucky and it won't be I, Robot, The Matrix, Terminator, or any other of the 5,000 various dystopias and we'll get helpful little droids who can help us smuggle lightsabers for the Rebellion!
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