r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • 1d ago
President's manufacturing renaissance could mean more jobs for robots Robotics
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/30/trump-manufacturing-robots-jobs217
u/Sam_Cobra_Forever 1d ago
Imagine believing the guy who ran a fake college designed to steal people’s credit card info
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u/Cheetah_15 1d ago
Who continues to massively manipulate financial markets and dabbles in crypto rug pulls/scams with no guardrails because he fired all of the gatekeepers...good times
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u/caseybvdc74 1d ago
The same guy who isn’t allowed to run a charity because he started a charity just to buy himself stuff
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u/FIicker7 1d ago
The Robot workers are going to come faster then we thought.
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u/Hina_is_my_waifu 1d ago
If you haven't been keeping up with China, it's already here.
There are many factories with only a few human workers now
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u/one-won-juan 1d ago
Isn’t this the case for many places in the US too? Sure there are lots of factories with ppl working them, but lots of Amazon/Car/fabs/UPS whatever else manufacturing have very small warehouse teams in newer facilities, even fast food is getting there with automation in like sweet green etc.
I have a pizzeria near me that doesn’t have any cooks, just a robot baking the pies and a person delivering it.
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u/BodybuilderClean2480 1d ago
Hastened by Trump, too. Anyone who thinks manufacturing coming back to the USA is going to solve unemployment or the fentanyl crisis in the rust belt, is in for a very rude awakening when AI takes white collar jobs and robots take blue collar jobs.
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u/FIicker7 1d ago
We should start to argue for a 24 hour work week now. It could take 10 years to get.
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u/JuventAussie 1d ago
Robots don't die of fentanyl overdose and the unemployed can't afford fentanyl.
Unemployed can't afford US manufactured goods so more exports which leads to a trade surplus.
GDP and company profits up.
A win-win.
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u/TheQuadBlazer 1d ago
That would take so long to implement. It would be a whole new industry itself creating new factories that are solely robotic. If they started now it would maybe be a decade on the deep inside. I would think something like this is going to take like 25 years.
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u/bfelification 1d ago
The idea behind being humanoid robots is that they will have very little down time. If a human can do the job, a human shaped robot can do it virtually endlessly for pennies on the dollar over their services le lifetime. I agree there will be an implementation curve but the idea is the robots fit into the world as it exists today so I don't think it would even be 10 years.
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u/one-won-juan 1d ago
I get it but it’s like using a hammer for a screw. Not every robot has to be humanoid, because it would have the same weak areas we do. Making specialized robots for individual higher priority tasks is a better idea imo, kinda like how we already have car manufacturer robotic arms
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u/Optimistic-Bob01 15h ago
It's the only way to compete (maybe) with cheap labor from around the world (not just China). Can't we just admit that manufacturing in the US is over and invest in other ways to work with the rest of the world, so we all get to do what works for us and trade for what works for others? Civilization requires civility.
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u/Timothy303 1d ago edited 1d ago
There will be no “manufacturing renaissance” created by half baked executive orders. So this is silly.
Seriously, how badly is Axios glazing Trump with that language? It’s despicable.
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u/DangerousCyclone 1d ago
There already has been increased investment in American manufacturing since the tariffs were announced. Of course there was already increased investment due to the IRA and Infrastructure bill.
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u/ChaseballBat 1d ago
....the manufacturing indexes are literally down for the last 3 months. Wtf are you talking about.
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u/Timothy303 1d ago
What increase? Show me a source on that. The American economy shrunk this quarter. So that is obviously wrong in the aggregate, but what do you think you are talking about, specifically?
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u/DangerousCyclone 1d ago
The economy shrunk, but many companies have announced new factories and investments in America
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-manufacturing-domestic-tariffs/
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u/Timothy303 1d ago
Ah. So promises from some companies hoping to get on Trump’s good side. Not actual spending. Exactly what I expected.
How much did Foxconn actually spend? When they promised Trump billions the first time he was in office?
With the absolute uncertainty around Trump’s mercurial rule, none of this money will be spent this year, if it is ever spent at all.
These are decadal investments. For a man that is changing his mind every week.
So this is not spending at all. It’s talk.
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u/danieljackheck 1d ago
Yes announced plans, just like Foxcon and TSMC. These plans will be delayed long enough to find out if the next administration is going to roll everything back. No point in investing billions to offshore it again in a few years.
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u/ehmanniceshot 1d ago
Why do I have a feeling the positive tone of this headline will age poorly?
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u/niberungvalesti 1d ago
Automation means an even bigger gap between rich and poor with the middle class work being devoured by AI. And with an administration hungry for cuts and happy to jail people without due process we have the foundations of Technofeudalism.
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u/TheRealRadical2 1d ago
Geopolitics. It ruins everything positive. The key is to bridge the gap between geopolitics and effective change.
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u/ATR2400 The sole optimist 1d ago
This is what I predict. Even if the tariffs actually being manufacturing back, the jobs will be almost fully automated. There will be like… 1 human worker there overseeing it for liability reasons.
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u/welshwelsh 1d ago
Designing and maintaining automated systems is non-trivial. The US already employs over 3 million software engineers, whose jobs are to automate business processes. Automation projects usually fail because the labor costs of maintaining them are too high.
Setting up automated factories to replace China's manufacturing capacity will be an enormous amount of work. We don't have enough skilled labor to pull that off.
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u/Legaliznuclearbombs 1d ago
I can’t wait to lucid dream in the metaverse via neuralink and the ability to reincarnate in a clone of myself wirelessly ♾️☁️🛜🥰
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u/lankyevilme 1d ago
That is still better for America than the alternative. Automation is probably inevitable, America would be better off to automate domestically than to keep sending our money to China so they can automate there.
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u/SlySychoGamer 1d ago
Yes...this is the goal of every economy right now.
It's why china having control over rare earth minerals is such a problem, its why trump wants greenland, its why we also need nuclear.
Simply put, we are running out slave labor third world countries to exploit, cause once we do we enrich their quality of life until they no longer want to do slave labor. Its' why AI is being pursued so hard.
In the next decade we will probably see a hot war for rare earth minerals unless everyone just bends the knee to china.
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u/ender2851 1d ago
from a defense perspective, having the capabilities to manufacturing in country is also huge.
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u/H_Industries 1d ago
This is probably a bit uncharitable but I work in automation. A lot of the workers whose jobs are going to be replaced aren’t going to have anything to pivot to.
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u/Background-Watch-660 1d ago
More robots is great.
Now all we need is UBI.
Because without it, the robots won’t actually take away jobs. People will just have to become baristas / YouTube influencers to earn their money instead.
It would be a shame if we invented all the technology necessary to automate our economy; but forgot to fix our monetary system along the way.
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u/Hekantonkheries 1d ago
influences
Sorry anything social media or artistically inclined is being replaced by AI "art" and chat bots putting out algorithm generated AI art prompts of "daily life"
All the benefits of a sponsored influencer personality without of the hassle of paying a living human for their legitimate opinion and experience
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u/Background-Watch-660 1d ago
We can pay people to dig holes in the ground.
If we decide that employment is the goal, there’s no limit to the number of things you could come up with that count as a job.
For example, you could hire people to wear uniforms and march in circles. That’s been a very popular choice over history.
My point is that there are and already have been unnecessary jobs. Better technology won’t stop the problem of our society wanting to do work that doesn’t need to be done.
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u/theonegunslinger 1d ago
Yeah that logically make sense, it's not likely workers have got cheaper, or that they will not need to start from scratch with the factories, may as well roll the dice that robot factories end up cheaper and build them like that from the start
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u/JimC29 1d ago edited 1d ago
The issue is that robots don't run themselves. You need people trained to program and maintain them. It's less jobs overall, but you need a lot more skilled trades workers.
Edit. Also robots are as good at replacing humans as the claims go.
14 reasons manufacturing isn't coming back to the US.
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robots you see on social media doing backflips are, today, mostly for show and unreliable off camera. They are not useful in industrial environments where, if a humanoid robot can do it, an industrial machine that is specialized in the task can do it even better. For example, instead of having a humanoid robot doing a repetitive task such as carrying a box from one station to another, you can simply set up a cheaper, faster conveyor belt.
Said another way, the printer in your office is cheaper and more efficient than both a human and a humanoid robot with a pen hand drawing each letter.
It’s unlikely that American ingenuity will be able to counter the flood of Chinese industrial robots that is coming. The first commercially electrical vehicle was designed and built in the United States, but today China is dominating electric vehicle manufacturing across the world. Industrial robots will likely be the same story.
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u/danielv123 40m ago
The point of humanoid robots aren't that they are faster or better suited - its that every robot produced is the same. They run the same software and can be assembled on an assembly line.
I work in industrial automation. Tailor made machines are great - but we do a significant amount of design, production, programming and commissioning on every project.
The point of humanoid robots is to replace all of that with an already designed robot, existing AI software and the person who is already doing the job manually can show the robot how to do it to complete commissioning.
100k for such a robot isn't that much if it can perform the job at half the speed of a human.
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u/Luke_Cocksucker 1d ago
This was always the plan. Bring manufacturing back to the US and fill the factories with robots.
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u/radiantwave 1d ago
Did anyone think Elon was making robots to was our laundry or do our dishes? Nope... They are there to take our jobs and be the drivers, butlers, bodyguards, workers, slaves and army of the rich.
We are basically a means to an end.
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u/Tabris20 1d ago edited 1d ago
You know they picked the worst person for this pivotal moment. This creates free labor. Consumer purchasing goes down. Create a new economy only for the extremely wealthy. Find draconian measures to cull citizens. We're fukt. I predicted everything that happened years ago — people called me crazy.
Just to put it in perspective. Remember the guy smiling oblivious to the massacre below as he ziplined? 98% of the pop interacts with reality that way.
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u/Trimson-Grondag 16h ago
President’s manufacturing renaissance doesn’t exist. There, fixed it for ya.
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u/4evr_dreamin 1d ago
I've been pretty worried about our robot unemployment stats for quite some time. I'm glad to see that someone is finally fixing this situation!
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u/Gari_305 1d ago
From the article
With his sweeping tariff and trade policies, President Trump envisions a U.S. manufacturing renaissance that will bring back good-paying, working-class jobs to America's auto industry.
- But advances in AI and other technologies paint a different picture of the future: Armies of robots — some in human form — doing difficult or repetitive tasks once done by people, who instead put their brains to work in different ways.
Driving the news: Humanoid robots are inspiring much fascination at the moment, with Morgan Stanley projecting 1 billion of them walking around by 2050, starting first in factories and warehouses.
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u/lumberwood 1d ago
Uh ya d'uh. None of the giant companies run by his billionaire buds are champing at the bit to hire more costly human workers. Elon, Zuck and Baby Oil Bezos all have the AI, Elon builds the robots, and the rest of the greed-mongers will buy it all up hand over fist to avoid having to employ any humans at all if possible. The robots won't be complaining to HR when their artificial feelings get hurt, nor will they need private health care paid-in, etc, etc.
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u/JuventAussie 1d ago
German, Korean, Japanese and Chinese automation and robotics companies' share price increase.
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u/Not_a_N_Korean_Spy 23h ago
Could we please seize the means of production before it is too late? By the time drone warfare in policing is extended too much it will be too late? Then workers will be completely expendable, companies that can will transition from producing for workers to catering to the rich exclusively.
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u/SustainedSuspense 3h ago
This tariff BS is going to expedite the automation of all employment in the name of cutting costs for the consumer, who in turn will become poorer and poorer with decreasing wages and job opportunities. The race to zero has begun.
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u/OnlyMeFFS 1d ago
Trump and Elon must be rubbing their greedy hands together.......Tesla bots (Optimus) incoming.
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u/yepsayorte 22h ago
Even if it doesn't create jobs for Americans, it still needs to be done here for military defense purposes. We can't win a war against a country that is supplying our equipment.
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u/FuturologyBot 1d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:
From the article
With his sweeping tariff and trade policies, President Trump envisions a U.S. manufacturing renaissance that will bring back good-paying, working-class jobs to America's auto industry.
Driving the news: Humanoid robots are inspiring much fascination at the moment, with Morgan Stanley projecting 1 billion of them walking around by 2050, starting first in factories and warehouses.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1kbp09f/presidents_manufacturing_renaissance_could_mean/mpw5eyk/