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GM installs robots at flagship EV factory after laying off 1,300 workers
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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It is a little surreal how old school robotic automation, which has been going on since the 60's, seems to be lumped in with AI these days like it's some kind of new wave of industrial revolution.
Afaik we owe the invention of PLCs, the basis for modern industrial automation, to car manufacturing plants.
Yes, at GM no less, along with the robotic arm also first used at GM.
AI is accelerating automation, to the point where you can automate all processes that don't require human involvement. This is why China is currently ahead of the US. They have been strategic and pragmatic in their use of AI instead of focusing solely on achieving AGI.
The US is catching up to China. This means that Trump's "dream" of bringing plants back to the U.S. to create jobs for Americans will not be realized because they will simply build these "dark factories."
No way the US is catching up to China. They are far ahead in everything except weapons and war.
And even with war, I kept hearing something like, "China may have the manpower and even the firepower, but they haven't fought a war in decades. The US has plenty of experience," but experience in what? Losing in the Middle East?
A losing fight is still a teacher. Still, I don't think the current DoD can put down its hubris and adjust for modern war seen in Iran or Ukraine.
You are so wrong I dont have simple words to describe it.
I'm a controls engineer who literally installs automation systems. AI is mostly useless in our industry, Claude barely scratches the surface of what we do. The coding is somewhat simple. The problem is how difficult the physical interaction is.
Having worked with Chinese controls people, they arent any better than the US engineers often they are significantly worse. No idea why. The guys from Mexico are way better from my experience.
the Mexicans have their shit together. they're always great to work with, and they're competent. best factory I've ever been in was in Mexico. place was spotless.
Half of our contractors flew in from Mexico for my current project. Its like 70/30 with them for good/bad. Which is better than basically any installers I've worked with previously.
China in my experience is slavery painted over with the word automation. Any work I've done over there has an insane amount of obscurity to hide the slavery.
Wtf are you talking about. We do use ML for basic maintenance predictions. In general it's useless though.
I'm awake during a fuckin maintenance window right now. You know literally nothing about automation based on how you talk about it.
I was hearing about dark sites about a decade ago. Wonder why it took so long. Probably because we don't want to starve too many blue collar families at once.
Yeah that's... probably not why.