Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Sure, all you need to do is retrain warehouse workers as nurses. Any progress there?
Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
They aren’t doing those jobs because they like it, they need it. Sure, they have better things to do, but step one is always, “don’t starve” right? Taking their marginal living and waiting for some mystical market force to save them is just... shitty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Wow, 1 economist back in 1891 considered it a fallacy. You know, before the advent of modern quantitative economics as a science and all the labor econ research that's been done since then.
Now it has a wiki article that's missing citations in the most important key points.
Thanks for changing my viewpoint!
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. If you mean bottom of cost, that is. Humans have better things to do than grueling warehouse jobs.
Haha yeah, low-skilled workers don't deserve to have food or shelter or any sense of purpose in life... am I right or am I right? Guys???
History has proved the Luddites wrong time and time again, perhaps this time will be different, but I doubt it.
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#44This is what I think no one will be able to compete with amazon on warehouse logistics. Kiva's model of bringing the shelf to the picker is hard to improve upon. And it is probably patented.
Well, you could replace the pickers with robots, for instance.
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#45I am starting to get annoyed by the overloaded term "robot." This article is really about automated warehouses. That is interesting, but is sufficiently advanced automation truly robotics? If so, where does it cross that line? Many hobbyist "robotics" (think BattleBots) are just remote-controlled vehicles. Neither have autonomous behavior. It'd be nice to have terms for each but I can't think of what would be appropr…
I teach robotics to students age 11 - 14. We have settled on the definition that a robot must do three things: sense, think, act. First thing I do is take away all of the remote controls and tell them they have to program it. I wish that programs like VEX and FLL would do away with the "tele-operated" portions of their competitions. Kids may enjoy it, but too many of them fall into the trap of treating it all like a…
This makes an Alexa device a robot, especially when integrated in a smart house. I don't like that. (It's an occasional source of disagreement I have with a friend.) I think in order to be a robot, it needs movement. Either it can move something that could reasonably be called "itself", or it has direct peripherals like an arm on the same "itself" that can move things around it. Thus giving an Alexa device a robot arm, or some robot wheels, and letting it move itself or manipulate things around itself, would make it a robot, even if most of the brains are in the cloud.
Of course even with the requirement of mechanical motion, you could still argue a toaster is a robot. It's hard to define robot: http://robohub.org/robohub-roundtable-why-is-it-so-difficult...
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that definition, a clothes dryer with a humidity sensor is a robot. (And I'm fine with that!)
My favourite robot is a dishwasher. Mostly because it is so different from what some people naively imagine when you asked them to think of a design for a robot to wash dishes.
The dishwasher is missing the thinking part... It only ever does the exact thing ordered to it.
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Sure, all you need to do is retrain warehouse workers as nurses. Any progress there?
Progress Report: We managed to stack the patients three levels high per room today. Automated transport is coming along nicely. The lower level constantly suffers bruises, which makes it necessary to ship it with a reduced price..
On a personal note, most of them seem to be former warehouse workers like myself, i can tell by the cursing...
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Humans have better things to do than grueling warehouse jobs. Sadly, they also need to eat, and the only way they can do so now is by doing soul- and body-crushing work at Amazon "fulfillment centers."
LA Times published an article that indicates that these warehouse jobs are replacing retail jobs, and they pay better. Even better, the warehouses are revitalizing parts of the country that have been blighted for decades. For instance, I used to live in San Bernardino, and these warehouse jobs have created opportunities in that city that simply didn't exist a decade ago. Instead of spending two hours a day commuting…
Could you dig up the URL for that article, please?
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favourite robot is a dishwasher. Mostly because it is so different from what some people naively imagine when you asked them to think of a design for a robot to wash dishes.
The dishwasher is missing the thinking part... It only ever does the exact thing ordered to it.
Bashing one's head against the wall in a day long debugging session for some hard bug usually cures people of the opinion that "computers only ever do what we tell them to do" is a serious limitation on their range of behaviours in practice.
Re: Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, all you need to do is retrain warehouse workers as nurses. Any progress there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma