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

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

#151

Post by gkanai »

zawerf wrote: post #67

I've heard the argument that this situation is unique to japan due to their aging population and low birthrate. They don't have cheap teenagers to exploit at minimum wages which is why automation is even financially worth it. The amount they are spending ($887 million) can hire 60,000 years of labor at $15,000/yr.

> I've heard the argument that this situation is unique to japan due to their aging population and low birthrate.

There are many other countries (Italy, S. Korea, others) that have the same aging population and low birthrate.

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

#152

Post by adventured »

zjaffee wrote: post #97
endtime wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gun owners are typically on the other side of the aisle from those who support redistribution of wealth. Not saying that couldn't change or that desperation can't trump principle, of course.

This isn't true, most democrats do not support redistribution of wealth, where leftists who do support the redistribution of wealth are generally in favor of gun rights.

There's no chance that's close to true. The further left you go, the more ardently people are anti guns in the US. With few exceptions it's a dramatic difference between the center left and far left on gun rights. The far left is entirely anti gun, the center left occasionally panders to win votes out of necessity.

The two most famous Socialists in the US right now are probably Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Both are very aggressively anti guns.

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

#153

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

petra wrote: post #56
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…

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…

The jobs you listed have largely been augmented rather than replaced. You’re also not accounting for new jobs we can’t even imagine yet.

Ten years ago no one would think YouTuber or Instragram model would be viable jobs for some people. Social media directors at companies large and small have to find unique ways to engage with other humans. The guy that fixes cracked screens on smartphones couldn’t have done that in 1999. UX developer/designers craft human interactions to be better.

Automation taken to the end game may create a Star Trek like world where material goods are so cheap as to almost be free. The economy could shift to value knowledge, art, creativity, novel experiences and more.

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

#154

Post by woodpanel »

Actually sad since manual laborers are wonderful robots. It's just that they get pricier ever since.

Things that make them less advantageous to robots are (e.g):

- the used up demographic dividend of China (with no real replacement in sight)

- western population decline

- western population aging

- west's much better off population, uninterested in manual labor (at least as mid/long term job)

- rising minimum wages

- rising costs of employment

- tightening immigration laws

etc.

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

#155

Post by tlear »

gpm wrote: post #71
lgessler wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering seems safe, if that is what you are primarily thinking of in your question. Developing software at the same level of a skilled engineer is a problem we'd only be able to solve with general AI. Even if program synthesizers (things that take declarative high level requirements and produce code) worked (and they don't at the level required for an non-technical user to use), most engineers today must…

It's not at all clear that software engineering is safe. Sure there will probably always be a few programmers, but as tools (and soon I expect AI) gets better those programmers can do more and more of the work. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find the number of software engineers decreasing in the not too distant future. The only reason it hasn't already is that we've managed to grow the number of things software d…

Some of it has nothing to do with ML/AI, docker probably killed more Sysadmin jobs then all of ML combined.

Better tools allow us to do more, faster etc. Thing is amount of things software can do that it is not doing yet is absolutely immense and ML only opens more and more of it.

I think any actual reduction is so far in the future we have no concept of when that will happen and how.

I mean a am I huge proponent of self driving car.. when is that coming? When it works it will absolutely change economy as massive amount of people are now involved or depend on those that are.

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

#156

Post by dvcrn »

I love uniqlo doubling down on tech.

One thing I found really interesting is that inside the labels are small rfid (I think?) chips. At the cashier, the person just folds them nicely, puts the pile of cloth on a metal pad and the system tells you how many items and how much it is. No manual code scanning!! The first time I noticed that I felt like a kid again discovering something magical.

The next step was to have person-less cashiers with the same system which works great too. So a completely autonomous store was just the next logical way to go.

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

#158

Post by adventured »

jimbokun wrote: post #74
saas_sam wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the lower class is getting simultaneously bigger and also better off? Do you think the bottom 10% is living as bad as they were in 1940? 1980? Things that used to be luxuries are now normal across all income brackets... That's a good thing. :-)

Globally this may be true, but it's just false for the US. Wages haven't increased since the 1970s, and now even metrics like life expectancy are falling.

Wages have increased since the 1970s. Median and average wages are at new all-time highs. The middle class hasn't improved, the bottom 25% have seen dramatic improvements since the 1970s.

That 1970s income figure, is a fluke of history. The sole reason it was that high back then was because the US inherited a unique position post WW2, in which it had 55% of all global manufacturing, temporarily. That caused a brief 20-25 year period of artificial economic results that saw the US pull far away from everyone else. Over time much of the developed world has caught back up.

Total compensation has increased since then. That includes health care, which is very expensive. The per capita cost of healthcare is near ~$11,000 now, several times what it cost in the 1970s inflation adjusted.

Homelessness is near an all-time record low in the US and poverty is near 40 year lows.

A record number of people are covered by health insurance.

The per capita income transfers for social welfare policies have tripled since the mid 1970s, inflation adjusted. That is, the US welfare state has dramatically expanded over 40 years, to the benefit of the poorest.

Sure, there's a lot more to do. That doesn't mean there haven't been some vast improvements.

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

#159

Post by mc32 »

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…

Doesn’t that depend on the characteristics of the work robots are replacing in modern economies?

Let’s take Japan, ftom the article. They are replacing warehouse workers. Demographically, Japan is experiencing a shrinking workforce.

So, the issue isn’t exactly whether ribots replace workers, but whether the pace of replacement is in sync with the reduction in the aging workforce.

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

#160

Post by mschuster91 »

tathougies wrote: post #149
mschuster91 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These capital requirements are regulations that have been introduced as a response to companies fleecing the poor-ish, the uneducated and those who had a bit of cash, but decided to put it into one (fraudulent) investment. Drop them and you'll see what already is happening in the cryptocoin scene: people getting exploited left and right. Point is, no sofa investor will be a shark and get rich, contrary to the ICO pro…

Notice I said 'neighborhood business'. I feel comparing ICOs -- which usually consist of a team you've never met asking you for money for a product you've never seen -- to an established neighborhood business interested in raising capital for expansion of a proven business model is comparing apples to oranges.

Won't take long for the crooks though. Most government regulations are introduced in response to abuse and everywhere they've been rolled back, the abuses come back. No matter if in finance, in taxis (e.g. Uber's surge pricing), net neutrality, whatever.
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