Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots • Hacker News Board

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#131

Post by TaylorAlexander » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

mooneater wrote: post #116

SequoiaHope wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative, which I advocate for, is that the lower class form productive collectives, stop contributing to the ultra wealthy, and generate their own real wealth. Much of the worlds wealth exists in wealth-generating infrastructure and information that is accessible to all of us. If we simply divest from the ultra wealthy and build a new economy based on cooperation, we can construct a system that inherently lift…

downvoters please share your reasons with us

Seriously! I consider my political philosophy to be about as inoffensive as they come, and am surprised I would be downvoted for this.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#132

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #76

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then give some examples. The "well, we've always found a way before" is just hand waving without specifics. Importantly, if you consider a model where the rate of technological progress steadily increases, it's very possible that rate at one point will overtake the rate at which new jobs are created. When/if that happens, the calamity will come quite suddenly, even if decades and centuries prior we always found more…

I do find it hilarious that as people we generally hate going to work, but at the same time we also fear losing our jobs. Jobs/careers are a relatively new idea as far as I know, I think we can figure out something to do without them.

> I do find it hilarious that as people we generally hate going to work, but at the same time we also fear losing our jobs.

People also like eating, and buying Netflix subscriptions. There are plenty of people in places like Africa and Asia that have lots of time on their hands without jobs, and I don't think they think it's a plus.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#133

Post by refurb » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #61

mikepurvis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? I don't understand which populations you're referring to as having become decoupled from force projection? In the US at least, there's 1+ gun for every man, woman, and child. Even if the elite class is backed by the entire US military, there's something to be said for overwhelming force of numbers.

Guns don't do anything without bullets. Bullets don't do anything if they don't hit a target. Disable power and communications and most people become immediately useless at living, let alone mounting an assault. The days of sheer numbers being useful are long past in the era of modern warfare.

I’d say the recent experience in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan runs counter to your claims.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#134

Post by existencebox » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

krrrh wrote: post #123

knieveltech wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?

They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented. In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never. Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effe…

This may be a slight tangent, but I always took the interpretation of Metropolis as one of humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them), less in replacement; the "moloch" scene comes to mind. The only robot in the movie seemed more an analog for questions of humanity, blurring the line of human and machine, and additionally touching on the whole classic "reviving a loved one" tropes.

(Not to distract from your point, other works such as Rossam's universal Robots definitely covered the subject matter you refer to, I'm being pedantic about Metropolis largely because the subtle difference I'm emphasizing feels to me as what makes it _so much more accurate and predictive_ to the actual relationship between man, machine, and the owners of production.)

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#135

Post by briandear » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

krupan wrote: post #39

liquidise wrote: post #3

Modern societies are going to have a very real problem to grapple with as this replacement goes from newsworthy to the norm. This could result in significant worker displacement with massive bottom-line ROI for companies in the next decade or two, particularly as minimum wages rise. I'm not of the opinion that this automation will create an equal number of jobs for the ones they replace. Even if they do, it is unlike…

We've been replacing jobs with automation for a century. It already is the norm. Why are you so worried? EDIT: more thoughts I just finished reading an Asimov novel written in 1955. There were computers in this book. They were people. Computer was a job title. Now we have machines that do that job, and we have an entire new industry employing lots and lots of people that didn't exist before that one job, Computer, wa…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Same "fears" different century.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#136

Post by refurb » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #114

endtime wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm a socialist and yet I believe that neither Stalin's Gulags nor Mao's mass hunger deaths are something that should be repeated. Authoritarian socialism has been proven to not work, what the world desperately needs is liberal/libertarian socialism. We can learn from history - ok, those who openly fly the Nazi flag not, but majority of society can see the problems like homelessness, drug epidemics and exploding rent…

Libertarian socialism? So a minimal govt that owns all the means of production?

My head just exploded.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#137

Post by briandear » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

apercu wrote: post #17

I worked in a warehouse for a summer in school because the hours fit around my other job and the pay was little higher than some other options (retail). But the Teamsters union ran the show and it was so political that I went back to the food/beverage service business. All that said, it's too bad that warehouse work isn't going to be an option for many people. There are fewer and fewer jobs for a lot of people. Note:…

> That union, however....

Exactly. All unions become "that union" when given enough power and influence.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#138

Post by why_only_15 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

acd wrote: post #87

The Question is if Robots should pay income tax? Robots replaced humans that paid tax. The society still needs income. Tax wise do you replace the replaced workers with zero tax robots or do you tax robot workers? When a company do not pay tax or pay lower tax they do not pay for schools and roads. That is not cool. We still need roads and schools to build a future society. Ie the bigger question is that of income di…

The money saved gets taxed twice: as corporate income and then when distributed to shareholders again as individual income. It likely gets taxed at a higher rate, actually, because the income tax rate of the workers this replaces is probably very low but the rate of the company + the individual could easily be 60%.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#139

Post by briandear » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #115

ry_ry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly playing devil's advocate, but is the lifelong employment of their staff uniqlo's problem? If you found a cheaper supplier of milk, would you feel obligated to reimburse your milk man? (may be a misplaced cultural reference, but in the UK 20+ years ago a chap delivering you milk to your door every morning on a rolling contract basis was the norm - generally they do other stuff now)

> If you found a cheaper supplier of milk, would you feel obligated to reimburse your milk man? According to the TWU, yes - the MTA is required to pay the TWU $450,000 whenever it uses a machine to bore tunnels, because forty years ago, that job would have been performed by a human instead.

Well that's just dumb. Taxpayers are subsidizing TWU -- actually paying for absolutely nothing in return.

Re: Uniqlo cut 90% of staff at one warehouse by replacing them with robots

#140

Post by cf498 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #111

petra wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

high skill jobs are at risk too. It's reasonable to assume, given recent tech developments(AI, low code for software, generative design for graphic design/engineering and architecture, blockchain for professions working on trust in transaction like accounting, some automation in the legal field, automation in insurance) that many high-skill professions will suffer unemployment too. And can someone with high-skill job…

People are under the assumption that high skilled jobs are safe, because that's what the actual facts on the ground show. Engineering salaries and jobs have skyrocketed in the past decade, and they only show signs of continuing to increase. I have heard people yell about how we are all going to be replaced, every year, for the last 10 years, and yet here we are, with that future not coming true. Eventually, after mak…

You assume a continuing trend based on what exactly? Because it worked that way in the past under different circumstances? The different circumstances are kind of the point.

Where are actually market ready solutions for automation of high skilled jobs today or in the past? Once market ready solutions exit, this will very likely be a completely different situation.

And there is a wide array of even high skilled jobs, where it is feasible, that automation can replace people in the next generation. Maybe not next year or in 10 years, but it is on the horizon for quite alot of professions. Starting such a career now has a different risk scenario then 50 years ago. It is similar to lower skilled jobs like truck driver or warehouse worker. We are not there yet, that they go the way of the street lamp lightener, but assuming a positive trend for warehouse workers, based on past demand seems to be rather distorted. The difference is a warehouse worker doesnt spend years and years and thousands of dollars to enter his field.