Detroit Wheels

Yes, but much smaller and smarter.

Mass produced and relatively inexpensive robots with surgical precision manufacture consumer electronics. Smart "blue collar" workers train and continuously improve the robots' performance (lower the per piece cost while increasing yield).

Economies of scale make the precision robots affordable. Because of their programmability they are flexible enough to easily accommodate incremental design changes. High volume of programmable devices (think iPad, iPhone et. al) can be manufactured cost-effectively without foreign labor that exploits workers.

The repetitive nature of manufacturing assembly will hopefully translate into faster throughput as compared to robots designed for surgical use. Starting with numbers like $1.3 million per robot for the very real-time interactive unit made in small volume, what is a reasonable cost reduction associated with eliminating unused capability?

NOTE: Some of the foregoing in this BuzzTheHill post is not fictional. Consider it a public disclosure and as such, to the degree something novel and not obvious to those skilled in the art has been addressed, the specific intent was/is to put it in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

© 2012 Buzz Hill