Factory Paying Human Worker to Watch Robot Worker All Day

"For eight hours each day, the bipedal bot toils at the Schaeffler plant in Cheraw, SC, where - under the watchful eyes of a human "Agility contractor" - it operates a stamping press. For now, the robot operates from within a plexiglass enclosure, a cage in which it's observed by its fleshbag supervisor. Digit, the WSJ explains, can't detect human beings in its environment just yet, requiring it to be penned off due to machine-guarding regulations."

"Agility, the company behind Digit, told the paper that the robots currently pan out to between $10 to $25 an hour, depending on how the factory decides to deploy them. Going forward, Agility's co-founder, Damion Shelton, said the goal is to hit around $2 to $3 an hour. Entry-level jobs at the Cheraw plant begin at $20 an hour."

""Efficiency is the name of the game and it's relentless," Doug Thompson, a 14-year manufacturing worker at the Schaeffler plant told the WSJ. "It's not going to stop." That news comes on the wings of a handful of successful manufacturing trials featuring humanoid robots."

Humanoid robots are emerging in manufacturing facilities, with Digit operating at a Schaeffler plant in South Carolina under human supervision. Currently confined to plexiglass enclosures due to safety regulations, these robots are expected to operate freely by year's end. Agility, the manufacturer, projects operational costs will decrease significantly from current $10-$25 hourly rates to $2-$3 per hour. Entry-level factory workers at the facility earn $20 per hour, creating economic pressure for automation adoption. Multiple successful manufacturing trials with humanoid robots globally suggest widespread industrial deployment is imminent, raising concerns about workforce displacement.

Read at Futurism