Dark Factories - The Night Shift

Step into a vast, silent factory. Sparks flash from robotic arms spot-welding steel, briefly lighting an ocean of machines before darkness swallows it again. The air is cool, metallic, and heavy with the sound of presses pounding and hydraulics hissing.

What’s missing is life. No footsteps. No chatter. No foreman’s whistle. Just machines working endlessly. These are Dark Factories — real places where production carries on without humans, and without lights.

How They Started

The idea came from Japan in the 1980s. FANUC famously ran “lights-out” plants where robots built more robots in total darkness. China took it further: Foxconn has pushed automated lines, and Xiaomi now boasts a “smart factory” in Beijing that needs no human workers at all. What began as an efficiency experiment has become a business model.

Ghost Ships of Industry

Imagine a ship sailing with engines roaring and rudders turning — but no crew aboard. Just systems running as designed, ghostlike in their purpose. That’s the feeling of a Dark Factory: alive with motion, emptied of humanity.

Night vs Day

Factories of old were hot, loud, and human. Sweat on the floors, boots scuffing concrete, foremen shouting above conveyor belts. Radios in the background. Arguments, laughter, danger.

Dark Factories are their opposite. Clean floors. Sterile air. Robotic arms hissing in rhythm. Not chaos, but indifference. Not day, but night.

What Comes Next

The logic is ruthless: machines don’t sleep, strike, or call in sick. So why stop at factories? Warehouses could vanish into shadow. Supermarkets could become silent fulfilment vaults. Even offices could go dark, with only servers humming in the black. Entire industries risk becoming ghost ships — working perfectly, but without crews.

The Question

Factories have already gone dark. What else in our lives might follow?

When the lights go out, what will we still be needed for?