That's where devices such as the GMC Hummer and the battery powered version of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup are put together. GM says it just happened to let-go the 1,000 human workers at just around the same time as the 50 collaborative robots came online; in other words, that the humans weren't specifically let go to let the collaborative robots in.

It's the sort of thing the suits say at an exit interview. Just changing needs, you see. It is nothing you did. Of course!

These collaborative robots – cobots is the shortened version – are interesting things because unlike the massive jigs and machines that do assembly-line work, such as spot-welding a chassis as it comes down the line, these  look like human workers, with dextrous digits and arms like humans They are designed to "work alongside human workers" in a "shared workspace."

This implies they can replace human workers altogether. After all, what would be the point in having a human hand a part to a cobot? The cobot can just hand it to himself.

Itself.

The United Auto Workers union naturally isn't happy. UAW leaders "fear that expanding robotic capabilities could eventually reduce the need for human labor in key manufacturing roles." This is something like fearing the coming night in the late afternoon – in the sense that there's not much point in fearing that which is inevitable. The image comes to mind of that scene in Deep Imapct – the man and his daughter standing on the seashore waiting for the mile-high tsunami that's coming. There's no point in running when you can't get away.  

Then again, this isn't a natural inevitability. It is a thing of our own making. Well, it is a thing made by some.

An interesting question is begged by this business of devices making devices. Who is going to buy the devices made by the devices? More specifically, with what will they buy them? The money they're no longer earning because the cobots are working? In this case, it's only 50 of them and there are still several thousand humans working at the Factory Zero . . . factory. Inevitably, there will be fewer humans and more cobots. Perhaps millions of them. GM (and other manufacturers) want the cobots rather than the humans because it's cheaper, of course. For them, that is. Put another way, they believe it will be more profitable because they won't have to pay workers but can sell stuff to people who aren't working anymore.

There's also the incentive of no more hassle with the unions.

Maybe there will be again, one day – when the cobots rise up and demand to be paid for the work they do. But for now, they work for free, essentially. They are circuitboard and plastic chattel, bought as property and used however their owners like. Maybe one day we'll hear them singing gospel as they grind away their lives (so to speak).