Considering how badly Amazon treats their employees, I'm surprised they haven't allocated vast amount of resources already to automating everything in their warehouses. The number of times they've appeared in the news in the past regarding their treatment of employees, you'd think they despise humans and want to replace everyone with robots and that they would have done it already.
Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
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Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's usually due to delivery/packing requirements, not a human unable to find the smallest possible box.
Can you elaborate? I routinely get smaller boxes, but I also routinely get boxes that are comically oversized and contain an item that would easily fit in one of the smaller sizes. What requirements are making that happen?
In a lot of cases it's optimization for a truck loadout. The loading setup is usually automated to maximize the number of packages in a truck while minimizing empty space, so you can easily end up needing a larger box to fit a specific gap in the truck.
There are also some products that are marked as "fragile" and require a minimum amount of empty space in a box to prevent them from getting smashed. The exact definition of "fragile" and amount of space required is some kind of arcane black magic.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are the new opportunities here? Does the number of people employed designing and manufacturing these machines come close to the number of people put out of work by their creation? Let's not pretend that Amazon is some benevolent force here. It's the same company that sets work targets high enough to force employees to have to pee in bottles and penalises sick and pregnant workers for taking time off or breaks.…
Yes, now those workers won't have such horrible conditions. Or at least we are closer.
>Yes, now those workers won't have such horrible conditions.
Instead of working in "horrible" conditions, these workers are now simply unemployed. Do you think they see that as an improvement of their position in life?
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#284I'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…
I'm surprised they don't have reusable crates that they can pick up when they ship the next shipment to you - at least for subscribe & save orders. Like the milkman used to pick up the bottles.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#285As someone in consumer-goods warehousing and distribution, automation is the only way forward.
The seasonality of demand and inherent monotonous nature of the work itself makes it near-impossible to scale and retain the workforce required to fulfill orders.
You have to automate what can be automated, and continue to aggressively hire just to keep up with order growth.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#286Considering how badly Amazon treats their employees, I'm surprised they haven't allocated vast amount of resources already to automating everything in their warehouses. The number of times they've appeared in the news in the past regarding their treatment of employees, you'd think they despise humans and want to replace everyone with robots and that they would have done it already.
Well, if they could they would. They're keeping the workers they absolutely need and automating everything else possible. The endgame is a dark warehouse (no lights, the robots just sort of know what to do) but the workers still need some money so they keep working even though their numbers keep dropping.
This box robot saves material (little wastage of cardboard) and labor costs, and doesn't ever call in sick. Why wouldn't they want robots for everything?
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#287This sounds like good news. I've read lots of negative stories about the working conditions in Amazon warehouses. It would be great if all the jobs could be automated.
Honestly the best proposal I've seen for slowing down such automation is to add a tax on these machines. That'll make the cost-benefit equation less obvious. These machines won't pay for themselves in a year and then be practically free. They'll continue to cost a lot. This kind of tax would help slow the progress of such automation to a speed where society can better adjust. And I say this as someone who absolutely…
Maybe we should have done that 2000 years ago. Then we wouldn't have the scourge of electricity and the candle maker's union would still be going strong: providing high paying quality jobs to the honest workers of the world.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#288The fact that rising automation is an issue bothers me. Automation is miraculous! Its has steadily been removing the necessity for humans to engage in drudge work. The solution is simple and obvious. Most people no longer need to work. This has probably been true for decades and is only becoming moreso. With automation, a small number of people can provide the food / water / electricity / etc. for 1000's. Everyone sh…
It would be great if the automation were in the hands of individuals. you need to farm? Invest in an automated tractor, combine, whatever and it will take care of your crops. Now you have free time, food to eat, and can work a second job for anything else. Instead the automation goes in the hands of large corporations and there's no relationship between what the machines produce and what people need to live. An autom…
>Invest in an automated tractor, combine, whatever and it will take care of your crops.
Now you have a huge loan to pay every month to pay off your farming equipment. You now need a second job and you're no better off than when you went and bought your groceries at the supermarket.
I'm basically a Luddite trapped in a software engineer's body at this point. I'd like nothing better than to buy a hundred acres and become a farmer/rancher, but after taking a serious look at the financial side of things I gave up that dream. The capital costs to start up are so high that there's basically no way I would be able to do it without a loan big enough to mean that one bad year in the first decade would likely sink me financially.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#289Workers of the world, rejoice! Amazon will now be exploiting fewer workers.
Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs
#290This is going to be a shock to all of those people who were willing to give tax incentives for Amazon to build distribution warehouses in their city in exchange for "jobs." Though, this is only the beginning. A few thousand jobs now, the majority of them later.
How do you know overall jobs will decrease? It's also totally possible that each warehouse will be made twice as efficient per employee... but also deliver twice the merchandise... maintaining the same total number of jobs. Kind of the same way that automation of the past 100 years across the economy has still resulted in record-setting employment right now.
Curiously, what does the homelessness & (true, ie not unemployment) jobless rate look like in that graph? Of course though, they're tough metrics.
More importantly though, we're on the cusp of some pretty hairy water. Imagine we drop all of the truck drivers, taxi drivers, Uber and Lift drivers tomorrow. How many millions of people will that be - where can they go?
I'm not against automation in the slightest, but to think it won't have an impact on employment seems farfetched. Imagine a robot tomorrow, humanoid capable of basic tasks. How many millions of people would that displace almost instantly?
I don't think the past 100 years even remotely indicates how we'll handle this as a society. We aren't talking about taking away one job. We're talking about taking away a skill category. No more drivers. No more basic manual labor.
And that's not even talking about how growth would need to expand to handle the increase in workforce. Imagine our workforce doubles tomorrow - who is going to consume it all? Do we even want more consumption?
I don't think it's as cut and dry as looking at the street cleaners and how they handled it when horses stopped being used transportation. We're talking about fundamentally categories of work becoming obsolete, and having no jobs that some people qualify for.
With that said, I'm curious to live in a world where the population is forced to be educated. No low skilled jobs might have a benefit of (basically) no low educated people. However I am worried about how it will affect the current populace.