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Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
41–50 of 332 posts
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#42It seems interesting to me, that computers seem to be taking on managerial roles and humans are left with manual labor. The robot knows how to tell a human to fix a problem but doesn't know how to restock the shelves itself. Similarly, in warehouses, computers tell humans what to do, and the human's job is basically just to grab things. In the end, the robot is already higher on the ladder than the humans.
Reminds of me of the Warren Bennis quote: The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#43You guys think there will be a backlash to this? Some sort of modern luddite movement? Whenever I shop I refuse to use the self-checkout, you think that sort of thing might spread?
Given the previous reactions to any sort of move by fast food chains toward anything like automation, I can't imagine this won't be picked up as fodder for the "look what happens when you ask for a living wage" contingent.
You don't think wages have any effect on the decision to automate?
I will always vote for raising the minimum wage but at the same time I know it probably makes automation more attractive.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#44What will the People of Walmart make of this? Personally, I think store robots like these don't really help much. A novelty at first, I think the image of Walmart as a cheapskate on all things human, will give the robot a negative reputation.
> What will the People of Walmart make of this?
That depends entirely upon whether or not the robots can help deliver their "I thought it was just gas" bathroom babies.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#45> the robots are 50% more efficient than a human doing the same task. They can also scan shelves three times more quickly and are a lot more accurate. Human employees can only scan shelves about twice a week. Personally, I want to see up-to-date retail stock mapping (that I can search) Walmart is testing a robot from Bossa Nova (Pittsburgh and SF) http://www.bossanova.com/ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/boss…
> Personally, I want to see up-to-date retail stock mapping (that I can search) Isn’t something Walmart doesn’t want you to have? Having a mapping means being more efficient when shopping in the store, which means less time in it and so less opportunities to buy things.
This reminds me of the argument some (now dead) portal page/search engine company made to Larry Page when Larry and Sergey showed off their page rank algorithm.
It was basically something like the following: "This is no good - if the search results are too good then people won't stay on our page long enough to see the ads"
This is basically what triggered them to start their own company instead of licensing the tech (I'm remembering most of this from In The Plex which I read a while back).
Basically it's stupid not to make the core thing better - especially in the case where Walmart's real competition is Amazon.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#46You guys think there will be a backlash to this? Some sort of modern luddite movement? Whenever I shop I refuse to use the self-checkout, you think that sort of thing might spread?
Why do you refuse to use the self checkout?
I prefer self checkout in theory, but often the machine doesn't work properly, and you need a human to login and fix it anyway.
The whole thing where it checks if something is in bagging area seems to be pretty buggy in most of the stores where I've used them.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't answer for GP, but I use human checkout to provide epsilon demand for cashiers who need the job. Efficiency isn't everything.
If there was a 1% service fee for using the cashier (or a 1% rebate for self-checkout), would you still use a cashier?
> If there was a 1% service fee for using the cashier (or a 1% rebate for self-checkout), would you still use a cashier?
Definitely. Our average grocery bill ranges from maybe USD $50 to $125 (we're empty nesters), so 1% of that would be noise level. Heck, back when baggers accepted tips, I always tipped at least $1 (when I was a teenaged grocery bagger it was for tips only); that's more than the 1% would be.
Probably
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#48It seems interesting to me, that computers seem to be taking on managerial roles and humans are left with manual labor. The robot knows how to tell a human to fix a problem but doesn't know how to restock the shelves itself. Similarly, in warehouses, computers tell humans what to do, and the human's job is basically just to grab things. In the end, the robot is already higher on the ladder than the humans.
Its not that we cannot build robots that restock shelves, it is that shelves are designed for humans to stock. And emulating the range of movement and dexterity of human hands and the sensory data we get when interacting with such shelves is really expensive, rather than prohibitive. Especially to maintain. Think of all the fine motor joints you would need in such a robot that could break all the time (like how fragile human fingers are). But how else are they supposed to stock individual bottles of maple syrup with weird handles while stocking jars or bags of flour a shelf over?
In situations designed for robots, like Amazon warehouses, they don't have a problem stocking shelves as long as the range of required behavior is much more restricted so the instrumentation can be more rugged and less articulate.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#49It seems interesting to me, that computers seem to be taking on managerial roles and humans are left with manual labor. The robot knows how to tell a human to fix a problem but doesn't know how to restock the shelves itself. Similarly, in warehouses, computers tell humans what to do, and the human's job is basically just to grab things. In the end, the robot is already higher on the ladder than the humans.
It's not too different from a static type system. Humans are great at general problem solving, but computers are better at precision (but only when you can precise measure something).
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#50I wonder why they settled on putting the cameras in robots that are on the floor. Why not use cameras attached to the ceiling? If the cameras need to move to get a good angle, they could move up and down the aisle on tracks or Walmart could simply install more cameras. If the ceiling is a bad angle, they could put them on the floor under the shelving, or on top of the shelves, or in several other places.
None of those solutions need navigation, their presences is more persistent, and the persistent visual could be used for other purposes: 'Are we out of produce bags? Check camera 5b.' 'What is on the floor in aisle 8?'