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Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

reuters.com

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

#351

Post by deburo »

tomc1985 wrote: post #300
dfilppi wrote: post #259

Cool. After all Amazon's product isn't "jobs". It is customer service, and robots are better.

Such a shame that this is the top comment here. People at that level are watching their job options shrink at an incredible place. Qualify your statement; robots are only "better" because they are cheaper.

The issue isnt that low-skill jobs are being replaced by robots, since many of them are kind of shitty and/or physically harmful by being repetitive, etc. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to see them disappear.

The problem we have is with the existing low-skill workforce: how can we re-train them in an effective manner.

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

#352

Post by [deleted] »

smpetrey wrote: post #303

Anyone parading around like this is bad news has never worked in an assembly line or warehouse job. This might reduce the workforce overall long-term, but honestly this is hard back-breaking long-workday labor. Anything that improves the livelihood of the warehouse workers is a win in my book.

[deleted]

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

#353

Post by gridlockd »

sim_card_map wrote: post #253
sokoloff wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we take all the money the Netherlands spends on social security, welfare, pensions, etc, and add extra money from increased taxes (make it flat 50-60%), every single household can have a UBI of about 42 000 euros/year. The numbers are similar for other western economies.

> If we take all the money the Netherlands spends on social security, welfare, pensions...

Okay...

> ... add extra money from increased taxes (make it flat 50-60%)

No. You can't presume anything about increased revenue from extra taxes. If you taxed income for any amount of work at 50% and you give every "household" 42,000€ (which I assume is livable in NL) you would drastically reduce the incentive to work and pay taxes, so your actual tax revenue goes down.

> The numbers are similar for other western economies.

The numbers generally say that if you pool all the social spending, you can redistribute it to everyone and it will pay for a subsistence level of living. However, a big part of that pool is pensions, which are liabilities in proportion to the amount paid by the individual. A lot of pensioners would be subsidizing people who never paid into the system. That's the main problem.

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

#354

Post by Ajedi32 »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #237
Ajedi32 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, because 1$ to a poor person is actually 1.12$ returned to the economy. Okay, so >60% then, assuming the average worker at an Amazon warehouse meets your definition of "poor". Still a totally achievable figure. > Even if you give money to wealthy people We're not talking about _giving_ money to anyone here, we're talking about automation. Automation means efficiency gains for _Amazon_ (the corporation) not Bezos…

A >60% efficiency gain is not small at scale, and part of the reason why automation is succeeding but not exactly in all the spaces we expect. Even the article covers that jobs are being lost, but not many jobs as one would intuitively believe. Furthermore, someone who is out of work as a result of automation will also be a loss in the broader economy (as they will need services, the government loses income tax where…

I think the reason automation isn't taking over as quickly as expected isn't because the efficiency gains are small, but because the capital investment required to automate is often large, and because many of the jobs that haven't yet been automated are complicated to solve in the general case. (This machine, for example, only handles boxing; it can't actually pick products off the shelves because that's a very general problem that's more difficult to solve.)

There are also numerous other economic effects to consider, such as the increased activity from capital spending on automation equipment and software, and (as you pointed out) the economic losses from higher short-term unemployment.

My initial question was only made in reply to a reductionist and intellectually lazy statement implying that the company owner is the only one who benefits from automation. I asked that question in an attempt to get the other commenter to think more carefully about their position (the answer isn't "nowhere" by the way, as the very figures you yourself provided indicate that 70% of it goes directly back into the economy). Unfortunately it doesn't look like they ever replied, but nonetheless I think I've made my point.

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

#355

Post by EpicEng »

sim_card_map wrote: post #343
EpicEng wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>add extra money from increased taxes (make it flat 50-60%) Good luck passing a bill that raises my effective tax rate from 17% to 55%. Obviously if you take a whole lot more money from everyone else there will be more to hand out to others.

There's no way your effective rate goes from 17% to 55%. Did you include the extra 3000/month you'll be getting?

Ok that's fair; I completely ignored the ~$36,000 deduction I'd be getting.

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

#356

Post by CodeMage »

ekianjo wrote: post #184
CodeMage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's good news, just not for the people you're thinking of. Think about people who work in Amazon warehouses despite those conditions. Why do they do that? Because the alternatives are worse. This just removes these jobs and leaves them to face those alternatives.

> Think about people who work in Amazon warehouses despite those conditions. I thought everyone wanted these jobs to disappear because Amazon was like a sweatshop or something? Now that Amazon is getting rid of such tedious jobs people are complaining? You can't have it both ways.

First of all, if you think the worst thing about these jobs is that they're tedious, you really should take a better look at the reports about the working conditions involved.

As for "having it both ways", you're presenting a false dichotomy. You're implying that the society must: either 1) preserve the status quo that makes those people work in those conditions, or 2) eliminate those jobs in a fashion that makes it worse for those people. Those are not the only options.

This is not really a completely new situation that humanity has never faced before. Throughout our history, there have been numerous examples of undesirable jobs being so tightly entangled with the economy that getting rid of them is problematic.

A few examples that come to mind are cocaleros in places like Bolivia, sex tourism for pedophiles in places like Sri Lanka, or child labor just about everywhere. I think that -- despite the horrific lack of empathy present in some other comments -- we can assume most people would agree that these are things we need to get rid of. If you study the history of the efforts to do so, you will find that going about it in a ham-fisted way only makes things worse. Despite that, nobody will argue that the only alternative is to just preserve status quo.

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

#357

Post by gridlockd »

sim_card_map wrote: post #343
EpicEng wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>add extra money from increased taxes (make it flat 50-60%) Good luck passing a bill that raises my effective tax rate from 17% to 55%. Obviously if you take a whole lot more money from everyone else there will be more to hand out to others.

There's no way your effective rate goes from 17% to 55%. Did you include the extra 3000/month you'll be getting?

The effective total rate of taxes may not be 55%, but the rate on income earned would be. Who would work full-time in an ordinary job if it was taxed at 55% when they simultaneously get paid a generous UBI?

Also remember you counted in pensions into your budget, those are separate from taxes. So the net profit from working would be maybe 30% or less - ridiculous!

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

#358

Post by Animats »

This is a minor improvement in packaging. It's not automated picking, which will be a big deal if Amazon cracks that. They've been trying and failing for years now. Amazon gave up on their robotic picking challenge after 2017. Here's the winner of the last challenge.[1] Way too slow and not reliable enough.

Amazon has about 100,000 robots now. Most are Kiva machines, moving storage racks to human pickers. Here's what that looks like.[2] The pickers stay in one place, take things out of bins brought to them, and put them in outgoing bins. A laser pointer tells them what to pick. That's almost 10 years old, but Amazon has not yet been able to replace humans in that job.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AljePt7Mh6U

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UxZDJ1HiPE

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

#359

Post by 52-6F-62 »

mft_ wrote: post #256
ceejayoz wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.mcall.com/news/watchdog/mc-allentown-amazon-comp... > During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to…

Thanks - that's a great example. As a non-expert, I'm frankly amazed that such working conditions aren't already outlawed by health and safety regulations. However, to be specific, it does seem somewhat geography- and time-dependent - i.e. it's not so much a standard condition experienced when working for Amazon, and so perhaps not an example of Amazon's warehouse job conditions being consistently "inhumane". It is,…

In many cases and locations they are illegal conditions.

It however is [maybe] [some] company practice to push the boundaries as far as they can be pushed, as a cultural motive. Often pressure from the top down, not with explicit instruction, but implicit general direction that X needs to be done to meet Y requirement. "Shit rolls downhill" as the saying goes. Then it just happens that Joe on the end of the line doesn't get to take a washroom break for 8 hours, every day—and if Joe were to ask about it, Joe would be fired, and Joe [like most] can't afford to be fired.

I've seen it in other industries. It's not unique to Amazon. Amazon's notoriety comes from its size and ubiquity in North American life.

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

#360

Post by KorematsuFred »

elamje wrote: post #301

Articles about Amazon are quick to mention the workplace conditions or robots automating something. Rarely do they mention that machines equal lower prices for the consumers 9 times out of 10. You can think what you want about Amazon but I’m not complaining that I have 100’s of options for my phone case, all for 1/5 the price of the previous days buying them at Verizon or Apple. Edit: would be awesome to hear about A…

Another advantage is there that the frequent claim that amazon abuses its employees will finally be put to rest as there will be mostly machines doing the work. No workplace abuse is a big win.
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