The chair of Taiwanese technology company Foxconn claimed that developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) and robots could lead to the end of low-end manufacturing jobs, during a keynote address in Taipei.
Foxconn is already a big advocate of the technology, having implemented it into its own production systems, and is looking to invest in it further with a new AI data center with NVIDIA and their own manufacturing-centric model.
At the moment, we’ve seen our fair share of AI failures in the workplace. Recently, tech giant Klarna announced it will be re-hiring humans after an AI-fueled layoff period, due to the technology not performing as expected. Whether AI is currently equipped to have a positive impact on the workplace is still up for debate.
Foxconn Chair Predicts End to Manufacturing Jobs
The Chair of Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer, has claimed that generative AI and robotics will remove the need for low-end manufacturing jobs. The claim was made by Young Liu during a keynote address at the Computex conference in Taiwan.
Liu theorized that rich nations will have to rely less on immigration and low-GDP countries to keep manufactured goods low in price, because of immigration becoming a political issue and low-GDP countries running out. To fill this void, manufacturing will turn to AI and robotics.
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Liu then went on to highlight how Foxconn have been successfully using AI and robotics thus far, in particular, emphasizing the company’s ability to build robots with other robots.
Foxconn Is Already a Generative AI Advocate
Likewise, Liu did not shy away from sharing Foxconn’s successes with generative AI. In his address, he noted that software alone, after being applied with AI, can do 80% of the work required to set up equipment for a new production run. It also does so faster than people. However, the AI can struggle without human assistance.
“We thought maybe we could replace every human. We quickly realized we could not.” – Young Liu
Not only does Foxconn already have its own gAI in place, but it doesn’t appear to be slowing down in implementing more. In fact, Liu announced that the company has now turned its attention to a manufacturing-centric model that will blend Meta’s Llama 3 and 4 models and data from Foxconn’s own operations, called “FoxBrain.”
Foxconn has also recently announced a new AI data center that it is building with NVIDIA, the world’s largest semiconductor company.
AI, The Next Powerhouse of the Workforce?
You can’t blame anyone for being skeptical about the impact of AI, particularly because of surveys reporting that most of the time, companies are too scared about what will happen if they don’t implement AI. So much so, executives think about it more than whether the technology will have a tangible impact on their company.
Where AI has been implemented, results have been mixed. There are reports of AI creating more work for employees rather than saving them time, and of companies made entirely of AI agents being complete disasters.
Despite these reports, companies such as Microsoft are still insisting that AI agents are the future employees. While low-end manufacturing jobs could be at risk if they are easily automated, AI has proven limited in sectors where it was expected to thrive in before, so nothing can be predicted currently.
