Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 511 posts

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#241

Post by dnadler »

mft_ wrote: post #189
michaelt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people believe, much like there's a minimum wage and below that you're not allowed to hire someone (even if both employer and employee consent and it's market rate) and minimum safety standards (again, irrespective of mutual consent and market conditions) there should be minimum levels of working conditions.

This what interests me (genuinely - I'm not just trolling here!) If an employer has need for employees to perform a specific type of manual physical work --be it 'picking' for Amazon, or building houses, or working in agriculture, or whatever-- and they pay market rates, and adhere to health-and-safety laws... what other reasonable working conditions must be met? For example, it's difficult to build houses without ex…

> ...and adhere to health-and-safety laws...

Aside from wages, it sounds like you agree with the sentiment of 'minimum working conditions', just perhaps disagree on the specifics of what that means.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#242

Post by bluGill »

sokoloff wrote: post #187
driverdan wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI supporters always seem to forget that the money has to come from somewhere.

I'm a UBI supporter in theory. It's the practical math that always leaves me hung up. Even $600/mo/adult citizen is a seemingly prohibitive amount of money (works out to approximately the entire amount of all individual income tax payments, or about half of total receipts, including FICA). And of course, $600/mo/adult is an extremely meager existence.

I'm not sure if I support UBI or not. There are good arguments on both sides. I suspect that there are unintended consequences of it that are currently completely unknown (I don't know if they are good or bad).

If I'm to support UBI it would be a meager existence: enough that you can eat. Like socialism UBI need to account for eventually somebody needs to do something. Food needs to come from someplace, that means somebody had to work for it, and that somebody should get some reward for it.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#243

Post by tzs »

asdfman123 wrote: post #74
hannasanarion wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a platitude that is said often, but there is no evidence to support it. There is no law of the universe that says whenever a job gets automated, a new type of work pops out of the aether to employ displaced people. It is wishful thinking at best.

Well, if you look at history it keeps happening. Imagine if you said in 1900 that almost all farm jobs would be eliminated in 100 years. The future would be almost unimaginable, but we've turned out okay. However I think the problem is we're at a point where things are churning so rapidly that many are being left behind. Your 50-year-old truck driver is not in a position to learn a new skill every 5-10 years to stay…

In many of those past cases, the new way to do something involved new machines, which required new or expanded manufacturing to build, new or expanded supply chains to provide the materials to make the new machine, and created new jobs to operate and maintain the new machines.

Much of the new present day automation does not involve new machines. It often instead involves just interfacing a computer to an existing machine and writing software to let that computer replace the human operator of the machine. Those computers and interfaces are commodity items, largely built in automated factories.

This seems to me to be a fundamental difference.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#244

Post by cies »

lukewrites wrote: post #220

I'm all for this as soon as we change the laws so companies pay payroll taxes on automation commensurate to the number of paid positions taken by the equipment. Automation is what we should be striving for, but only if workers and society see material benefits from it. ("Your labor potential can be reallocated to a position of higher need"/"You now have the opportunity to retrain" isn't a material benefit.)

Tax on labour (or housing) is quite weird if you look at it with fresh eyes. Don't we want to support people working and living in a house? Then why tax those? Is it a relic from the past?

Thought experiment: what if we (only) tax pollution? All taxes end up being paid by the consumer anyway. But this get the incentive straight to deliver products/services "cleanly".

Just a thought...

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#246

Post by aiyodev »

asdfman123 wrote: post #84
jordache wrote: post #47

andrew yang 2020. no brainer. Surprised why more candidates are not discussing the automation gorilla in the room. there are not enough low-skilled, difficult to automate jobs that can sustain the population.

Candidates are discussing immigration, tariffs and outsourcing because that's actually affecting jobs in the US and people who work on the factory lines know it. Automation is a scary specter off in the distance but it's not as actively harmful to people's livelihoods.

> Automation is a scary specter off in the distance but it's not as actively harmful to people's livelihoods.

http://nber.org/papers/w23285

> According to our estimates, one more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment to population ratio by about 0.18-0.34 percentage points and wages by 0.25-0.5 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/trump-robots-elec...

> No single factor such as tech-driven worker anxiety determines local political behavior. But there’s no mistaking that districts that voted Republican in the 2018 election are subject to higher levels of automation exposure.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#247

Post by [deleted] »

fastball wrote: post #130
sidcool wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has become fashionable to paint everything in black and white. The solution to workplace abuse is removal of jobs? Really? Automation is not bad inherently, but it's socioeconomic impact has to be ascertained.

You're right, automation is not inherently bad. In fact, automation is inherently good. And yes, the solution to jobs that humans don't want is to eliminate those jobs with automation. Working in a warehouse packing boxes doesn't suck because it's Amazon and they are a big bad employer -- it sucks because it's working in a warehouse packing boxes . We don't need to "ascertain it's[sic] socioeconomic impact" before we…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#248

Post by adrianmonk »

sandworm101 wrote: post #35

I'm surprised that Amazon still uses boxes. They have the market power to insist manufacturers comply with amazon-specific packaging requirements. Why not just insist that all products be packaged in postal-compatible packaging? Then the amazon warehouse robot need only slap a label on the product and throw it in the shipping bin. Another answer would be to have products packaged in standard, or at lease square, boxe…

All products? That would be 12 million different products according to this site: https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/resources/type/infographic...

Even as big as they are, I don't think they have that much power. So maybe they could do that with some items, but they're still going to have to package some items.

In some cases, it might even be less efficient to do it this way. It means spending more up front on packaging, so the time value of money is a factor. Also, some products never sell, so why create packaging for them that will never be used? And an already-packaged product may take up more space on warehouse shelves. It might only be 10% more space or something, but 10% of everything adds up.

Also, sometimes people order more than one item. It is probably more economical to ship everything in one box. (Postage would be lower, and it might still cost less even if Amazon does the delivery themselves.)

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#249

Post by mikeash »

lukewrites wrote: post #220

I'm all for this as soon as we change the laws so companies pay payroll taxes on automation commensurate to the number of paid positions taken by the equipment. Automation is what we should be striving for, but only if workers and society see material benefits from it. ("Your labor potential can be reallocated to a position of higher need"/"You now have the opportunity to retrain" isn't a material benefit.)

That seems tough to determine. Does an autonomous bulldozer count as one employee because you would have had one person driving it? Or does it count as five employees because you run it 24/7? Or does it count as five hundred employees because that’s how many people you’d need if they were using shovels?

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#250

Post by _1 »

mikeash wrote: post #245

I wonder if this means I’ll stop receiving boxes the size of a small house containing a single small item, or if it’ll be even worse.

That's usually due to delivery/packing requirements, not a human unable to find the smallest possible box.
Post reply on HN