Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#81

Post by vegabook » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:43 PM UTC

ItsDeathball wrote: post #78

vegabook wrote: post #62

Capital trumps labour, yet again. Talk about a brave new (terrible) world. How is anybody without amazing talent, IQ, and luck in the birth-location lottery, supposed to survive? How are these awful machines helping to advance the wellbeing of humanity? By destroying livelihoods for a few pennies cheaper bananas to those who can already afford to pay more?

In the long run, humanity is better off if we're not paying people below minimum wage under the table to pick pears. If a portion of the surplus value generated by these awful machines can be captured and paid to the people they displace, those people can then do something they actually enjoy.

Very true if, and only if, "a portion of the surplus value generated by these awful machines can be captured and paid to the people they displace".

But a very small group of financiers/entrepreneurs/VCs own all the machines, their ownership of the machines gives them an advantage in owning even more machines, and it is not in their nature (ie, human nature) for them to spread the sunshine. That's the problem. That's why we have a vast underclass already today, and it's not getting any smaller, despite the wishful thinking of the technerati (of which I am one).

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#82

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:43 PM UTC

vegabook wrote: post #79

sliverstorm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are these awful machines helping to advance the wellbeing of humanity? Hypothetically, by freeing humanity from hard manual labor and making goods less costly. Machines have a long history of advancing the wellbeing of humanity. The fire bow, wheel, pottery wheel, bicycle, ox cart, lever, ramp, plow... I could go on and on, from ancient to modern. The modern textile industry is a much closer advancement, that mad…

That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today. We're now on the cusp of destroying this, another whole class of human employability. I am not as confident as you that we can simply extrapolate the past ad infinitum (ie: the "we will adapt and flourish" dogma). It seems to me we're reaching some inflection poin…

Well, first of all painful adjustment in the immediate future is worth the permanent advancement after the adjustment. Second of all I feel we have every reason to believe advancements like this are inexorable, so I would rather devote my thoughts to how best to handle them rather than how to stop them or to lament how unfortunate it is.

I would also argue that the greatest skill humanity possess is not dexterity, pattern matching, or anything else like that. But, rather, adapting.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#83

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:45 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #71

aidenn0 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the quality of a thousand hand sorters. That machine may replace on the order of a hundred hand sorters, but I doubt it's 1000.

6 metric tons of peas per hour per machine. The machine examines the pea from all sides while the pea is in free fall. A human would have to pick up each pea to do a comparable job. A kilogram of peas is about 4000 peas, so 1000 humans would each have to examine 24,000 peas per hour each, or 6 peas per second, to keep up.

[deleted]

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#84

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:47 PM UTC

compostor42 wrote: post #68

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those numbers don't add up. Decreasing population does nothing for the per capita need for working-class people. Unless you think laborers are dying off at a greater rate than the rest of us.

I don't understand, can you explain? Increased automation definitely decreases the per capita need for working-class people. We would probably have a lot more automation already (especially in low-end agriculture/service-industry) if not for a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap labor from south of the border.

Just noting it doesn't matter how our 'native' population grows or shrinks - we'll have about the same available labor supply per capita. In fact as we push education, our labor supply shrinks as the next generation aspires to more than lawn maintenance.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#85

Post by vegabook » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:48 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #82

vegabook wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today. We're now on the cusp of destroying this, another whole class of human employability. I am not as confident as you that we can simply extrapolate the past ad infinitum (ie: the "we will adapt and flourish" dogma). It seems to me we're reaching some inflection poin…

Well, first of all painful adjustment in the immediate future is worth the permanent advancement after the adjustment. Second of all I feel we have every reason to believe advancements like this are inexorable, so I would rather devote my thoughts to how best to handle them rather than how to stop them or to lament how unfortunate it is. I would also argue that the greatest skill humanity possess is not dexterity, pa…

The inevitability assumption. Not borne out by history. There are very long periods of regression if you look at the century-level scale, and it is not unreasonable to contemplate the potential that we might be getting towards "peak tech", right, now.

Will technology move upwards? Most likely. Will technology move in an uninterrupted straight line upwards? most unlikely.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#86

Post by Retric » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:48 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #51

Fruit sorting systems have been in production use for years. They're very impressive. Vision systems, AI, robotics, and the ability to handle huge quantities of produce. Here's a production scale apple sorting and packing system.[1] The part of the video for "big plant" shows the most automated version. Here's a system for sorting peas.[2] Each individual pea is inspected using computer vision. Each individual pea. A…

Your confusing the sorting aspect with the 'picking' aspect. Right now a lot of fruit ends up on the ground and never makes it to the sorting facility.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#87

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #82

vegabook wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today. We're now on the cusp of destroying this, another whole class of human employability. I am not as confident as you that we can simply extrapolate the past ad infinitum (ie: the "we will adapt and flourish" dogma). It seems to me we're reaching some inflection poin…

Well, first of all painful adjustment in the immediate future is worth the permanent advancement after the adjustment. Second of all I feel we have every reason to believe advancements like this are inexorable, so I would rather devote my thoughts to how best to handle them rather than how to stop them or to lament how unfortunate it is. I would also argue that the greatest skill humanity possess is not dexterity, pa…

Easy to say, Guy With A Job. Hungry people have other opinions. If we had, say, a Basic Income in place (or other hunger-proof social network) then I'd lean toward a Utopian view of progress as well.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#88

Post by taco_emoji » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

compostor42 wrote: post #72

BuckRogers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Replace "white" with "jewish" and you'd fit right in with holocaust deniers/apologist. So just to be clear, you have no problem with ethnically cleansing a nation to change its political disposition? What? You're insinuating we're going through a White Holocaust and I'm apologizing for it. You gotta be out of your mind. "Ethnic cleansing"??? Take a breath and realize you're comparing concentration camps to people mi…

You didn't answer the question: You think it is okay to purposefully and systematically replace one ethnic group with another to achieve your political ends? Your desire meets the UN's definition of genocide, congrats: (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Who's "deliberately inflicting" anything? Which "conditions of life" are being so inflicted which are disproportionately deleterious to white populations vs. other populations? Do you understand that the term "physical destruction" means something rather more extensive than a gradual, unguided change in demographics?

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#89

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #71

aidenn0 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the quality of a thousand hand sorters. That machine may replace on the order of a hundred hand sorters, but I doubt it's 1000.

6 metric tons of peas per hour per machine. The machine examines the pea from all sides while the pea is in free fall. A human would have to pick up each pea to do a comparable job. A kilogram of peas is about 4000 peas, so 1000 humans would each have to examine 24,000 peas per hour each, or 6 peas per second, to keep up.

Okay, 6000 peas per second is more than a thousand people could do. I was basing my response off your original description of "hundreds of peas per second" while I know humans can sort at a rate of more than 1 pea per second.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#90

Post by taco_emoji » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

compostor42 wrote: post #77

kmicklas wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you totally unaware of how blatantly racist this is?

You replied to the wrong person. Otherwise explain.

You are equating the encouragement of immigration with the systematic murder of a population. This means that you are either very stupid, or motivated by the virulently racist notion that an undirected, gradual reduction of the demographic status of white people is somehow lamentable. kmicklas did you the favor of presuming you're not stupid.