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Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

businessinsider.com

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Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#251

Post by timthelion »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243
timthelion wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monarchies of the late 19th century were technologically advanced, but that did not stop Europe from adopting democracy in the 20th century. The monastic system was the main scientific institution for over a milenia, both in Europe and China. Only an ignorant person argue that this system developed no new technologies. You say "only capitalism", but what are you comparing capitalism to? In the past 200 years, cap…

> In the past 200 years, capitalism has been the only economic institution in the world This is not true.

Ok, I'll admit that some remote tribes were not. But even the USSR was a market economy.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#252

Post by timthelion »

PeachPlum wrote: post #231
timthelion wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monarchies of the late 19th century were technologically advanced, but that did not stop Europe from adopting democracy in the 20th century. The monastic system was the main scientific institution for over a milenia, both in Europe and China. Only an ignorant person argue that this system developed no new technologies. You say "only capitalism", but what are you comparing capitalism to? In the past 200 years, cap…

Communism works when the communist dictators don't commit genocide or run a brutal police state. Its such a good system it needs to be implemented and maintained by force.

I didn't claim that "communism works" I said that it was technologically advanced and capable of attaining post-scarcity. As a counter to castle-bravo's claim that only capitalism is capable of developing the tech required to attain post-scarcity.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#253

Post by timthelion »

linkregister wrote: post #157
timthelion wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean.

Stop sign. I don’t think it’s a good analogy.

Actually, I think that anarchists would tell you it is a great analogy. They would claim that we are being controlled by a system of laws, a system which is like a computer program written by novice programmers who do not know how to debug, and who paid no attention to the finer details. That not only is the legal system like a robot which controls us, but it is like a stupid, primitive, and brutal robot which controls us.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#254

Post by douglaswlance »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #138
baron816 wrote: post #130

I wonder how many more jobs you would restore by taking away the original retail robot: the cash register. If you just made employees record all sales by hand in a ledger, companies like Walmart would have to hire thousands or millions more people to check out customers. Think of all those beautiful jobs! That would surely make America great again.

You jest, but I actually wonder sometimes if this type of thing would be better for society. The dream of automation and technology was always to "let the machines do the work so we're free to enjoy life and pursue our dreams" but in a capitalist economy it ends up benefiting the owners of the machines primarily, like Walmart and Amazon, not necessarily society at large (though obviously they enable people to buy thi…

Anyone can own machines. Go buy one. Automate some stuff. Make some money. Stop being a stick in the mud and get with it.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#255

Post by slivym »

douglaswlance wrote: post #254
QuadrupleA wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I actually wonder sometimes if this type of thing would be better for society. The dream of automation and technology was always to "let the machines do the work so we're free to enjoy life and pursue our dreams" but in a capitalist economy it ends up benefiting the owners of the machines primarily, like Walmart and Amazon, not necessarily society at large (though obviously they enable people to buy thi…

Anyone can own machines. Go buy one. Automate some stuff. Make some money. Stop being a stick in the mud and get with it.

Step one: be rich enough to afford to significantly invest in automation. Step Two: Get Richer.

The problem is that to get that initial investment money you need to work, and the jobs that you're doing to earn that money are disappearing due to automation. So you fall one side of the divide or the other - if you're already rich you'll get richer, if you're not rich your opportunities to become rich are disappearing.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#256

Post by lorenzhs »

woobar wrote: post #85
Isamu wrote: post #2

> 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) Just got from Lowes and they do it on the web and in their app. Search for an item, and if it is in stock it will show you its location on the store map. OTOH, every Walmart I've visted is unable to keep their shelves full. [1] How hard it is to keep something non-perishable (like deodorant) in stock? Somehow Target figured that out. [1]…

There are software solutions for managing resupply, even for perishable products like fresh meat where you want to minimise write-offs: https://www.blue-yonder.com/en/solutions/replenishment-optim...

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#257

Post by thenomad »

improv32 wrote: post #131
jdietrich wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely get useful assistance in large chain stores. Asking "where is the pesto?" usually gets an answer like "I dunno, somewhere in aisle 7 maybe" with an indifferent shrug. I'd happily make three attempts at using a clunky voice interface if I got the answer "Aisle 7, bay 11, shelves 3 and 4. We have 18 different kinds of pesto currently in stock. Would you like me to take you there?" It almost seems too obvious t…

Trader Joe's is excellent about this. I'm not sure if it's explicit policy but every single time I've asked an employee where something is they dropped what they were doing, walked over to the exact spot and literally handed me the item I was looking for. I guess that's only possible in a small store though.

This is absolutely standard in the UK in all the supermarkets I'm aware of. If a member of staff doesn't know where the item is, they'll go and find someone who does.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#258

Post by lorenzhs »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #119
rconti wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they scan your ID? If not, I'm surprised someone hasn't come knocking about this...

Sadly, it's not that simple. Facial verification has come a long way, but it's not accurate enough. You need a person to verify the person's ID matches the face of the customer that is buying it - otherwise some teenager can swipe his Dad's ID and buy alcohol. Plus you need someone to verify the customer is not already drunk - selling to someone who is already visibily intoxicated is a great way to a lawsuit.

It's obviously not the same thing as a self-checkout machine, but there are automated border control systems in some countries (e.g. Germany). Scan your biometric passport, step into the mantrap, look into the camera, welcome to Germany! If it's good enough to let people pass border control, it should be good enough to sell alcohol. The technology exists, I just wouldn't want to use it at a grocery store.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#259

Post by B-Con »

notatoad wrote: post #167

The immediate take away i get from this is that it really isn't about taking over human jobs. humans don't do this job nearly as frequently as the robots would do it, because in a standard retail environment like wal-mart, it doesn't really matter all that much if the reported in-stock quantity is slightly off for an item. that is to say, it matters, but not so much that the big-box retail environments i've worked in…

Or it's an experiment. They're giving it a lower importance job during the pilot program. Hard to imagine the initial deployment being on a mission critical path for the store's operation.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#260

Post by mseebach »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #164
monk_e_boy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does raise the question of what jobs are worth saving? So a robot takes someones job, but it was a crappy job that they hated anyway. But they needed the money. Tough.

That is a generic end-of-work question. Ideally, everyone would have jobs they liked, and all the dull stuff would be automated (Star Trek outcome). Pessimistically, the machines will become better than humans at everything and we will just become obsolete (Terminator outcome). If automation picks up, we will have to deal with these questions sooner rather than later, but it will happen eventually.

It's not a linear outcome space. There's also the outcome where automation enables tons of new dull (but in different ways) jobs, currently embodied by the so-called gig economy. I think this area is nacent and has a lot of potential[1].

Also, incidentally, this outcome is consistent with a couple of centuries of economic history.

1: No, these jobs aren't great compared to classic middle class jobs. But going from shelf stocker or check out clerk to Instacart shopper and/or Uber driver isn't obviously a step backwards on net.

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