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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

#401

Post by bad-joke »

fastball wrote: post #138
bad-joke wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your view, what should Amazon do to not systemically oppress the working class? Convert itself into a co-op: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Definition_...

Or how about instead, all these oppressed workers just leave Amazon and form a competitor to Amazon that is a Co-op? Presumably they'll do pretty well since there won't be any big bad corporate overlords to steal the value of their labor.

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that co-ops are supposedly more profitable than autocratic workplaces. Co-ops still compete in the marketplace but they distribute ownership and profit among the workers in a democratic fashion, typically on the basis of their contribution.

The parent comment asked how Amazon could stop systematically oppressing their workers, not how workers could stop being the targets of systematic oppression. Amazon could accomplish this goal by distributing corporate ownership among the workers and giving them a democratic platform to make decisions about their workplace in an egalitarian way.

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

#402

Post by hrktb »

asdfman123 wrote: post #62
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.

I think HN's tune would be quite different if someone came up with a technology that eliminated half of all programming jobs. Not quite so many people would be saying, "This is great! I for one look forward to technological advancement." I do think the future should involve more automation, I just think we should be -- I dunno, a little less gleeful about it and think about the people it's impacting.

I’d bet half of the programming jobs continually disappear in a cyclic way.

What proportion of bare metal system administrators is there left now that AWS/GCP/Azure has taken the world ? What proportion of people still work in C ? etc.

Programming is perhaps different because people expect from the start the floor to move under their feet, and try to stay ahead and keep learning new stuff constantly.

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

#403

Post by shpongled »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #389
dzmien wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for Amazon in what was then a brand new warehouse for a few months in 2015. I worked 10 hour shifts, from 20:00 to 07:00 (the extra hour was for lunch and breaks). My job was picking orders. It seemed easy at first (and it was, but mentally, not so much). All I had to do was stand in one place while robots brought me pod after endless pod of products. There was nothing to it, and that was the problem. The po…

> I was literally just a robot arm with a human brain attached to it, and for what? This is how I felt as an undergrad working in a research lab. Endless, annoying pipetting. Labeling tubes. Bitchwork that the postdoc didn't want to do. I kept thinking... there's no way they can't come up with a robot to do this. My guess is the technology to do it is there but the motivation isn't - most undergrads (me included) wor…

>Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way

Lol.

It's not that the motivation isn't there to get robots to do the bitchwork in science, it's that the money isn't there in an academic setting.

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

#404

Post by Yhippa »

dzmien wrote: post #350
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.

I worked for Amazon in what was then a brand new warehouse for a few months in 2015. I worked 10 hour shifts, from 20:00 to 07:00 (the extra hour was for lunch and breaks). My job was picking orders. It seemed easy at first (and it was, but mentally, not so much). All I had to do was stand in one place while robots brought me pod after endless pod of products. There was nothing to it, and that was the problem. The po…

Your story seems like it's right out of the game "What Remains of Edith Finch".

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

#405

Post by yhoneycomb »

shpongled wrote: post #403
yhoneycomb wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was literally just a robot arm with a human brain attached to it, and for what? This is how I felt as an undergrad working in a research lab. Endless, annoying pipetting. Labeling tubes. Bitchwork that the postdoc didn't want to do. I kept thinking... there's no way they can't come up with a robot to do this. My guess is the technology to do it is there but the motivation isn't - most undergrads (me included) wor…

>Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way Lol. It's not that the motivation isn't there to get robots to do the bitchwork in science, it's that the money isn't there in an academic setting.

I think we mean the same thing but we're expressing it differently!

What I meant was - the motivation isn't there because you can just get people to do your bitchwork for way less than it would cost to invest in a robot.

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

#406

Post by dahart »

gdy wrote: post #369
dzmien wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for Amazon in what was then a brand new warehouse for a few months in 2015. I worked 10 hour shifts, from 20:00 to 07:00 (the extra hour was for lunch and breaks). My job was picking orders. It seemed easy at first (and it was, but mentally, not so much). All I had to do was stand in one place while robots brought me pod after endless pod of products. There was nothing to it, and that was the problem. The po…

"And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it." A billion of people around the world would be happy to work with that hourly rate.

Would you?

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

#407

Post by ksec »

o_p wrote: post #312
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…

>machines bring lower prices Do you have any source about this? If the costumer is already willing to pay a price there would be no point in lowering the price just because you automated the process. Or better said, theres no point in investing in machines if your profit margin is not going to get wider.

>If the costumer is already willing to pay a price there would be no point in lowering the price just because you automated the process.

Your margins is someone else opportunity. I believe Jeff said something similar along the line. By having a economy of scale in Warehouses, Automation, Transportation and consistently lower margin Amazon achieve a moat that can not be easily replicated even with billions of dollars.

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

#408

Post by SubiculumCode »

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…

The problem isn't lower prices, it is lack of money by consumers who lose their jobs. The displacement of retail jobs is massive and really hurting people.

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

#409

Post by Yhippa »

CodeMage wrote: post #371
mft_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just clarify: you're saying that Amazon, despite offering jobs which are (apparently) less bad than other alternatives, are participating in systemic oppression of the working class? In your view, what should Amazon do to not systemically oppress the working class?

Yes, I am saying precisely that. The key word here is "systemic". It doesn't mean that "Amazon is systemically oppressing the working class", as you put it in your second question. It means that Amazon participates in a larger system that oppresses the working class. It follows that Amazon cannot, on its own, completely eliminate that oppression. That, however, does not mean that there's nothing Amazon can do to make…

We all want to get rid of drug cultivation?

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

#410

Post by michaelt »

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…

Googling 'Amazon working conditions' produces a variety of reports.

Regular ambulance call-outs. Timed toilet breaks. Top floors at very high temperatures in summer. Workers doing heavy lifting complaining of back pain. Mandatory overtime of 60 hours a week. Performance targets calibrated for the young and healthy meaning pregnant women get fired for underperforming. Firing people for taking sick leave, even with a doctor's note. Wasting doctors' time by forcing employees to get doctors' notes for trivial ailments. Firing workers automatically without human intervention.

All of these would be unusual in a white-collar job; the biggest complaint I have at work is when the free bean-to-cup coffee machine breaks down and only instant coffee is on offer.

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