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

Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

finance.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 400 posts

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#41

Post by tacocataco »

okasaki wrote: post #2

> The significant investment in robotics showcases Amazon’s commitment to innovation in its supply chain and highlights the company’s belief in the synergistic potential of human-robot collaboration. Despite the massive scale of automation, Amazon emphasizes that deploying robots has led to the creation of new skilled job categories at the company, reflecting a broader industry trend toward the integration of advance…

Maybe robots should pay taxes like humans since they are taking the jobs and the tax base that goes along with them.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#42

Post by exe34 »

FlyingAvatar wrote: post #12
methuselah_in wrote: post #9

I don't know for aging economics this is somewhat good. But for developing countries it's horrible. Where humans has to search work each day to find food for night

I would suspect that in these countries labor is cheap enough that replacing it with robots would not be cost effective.

And once it's cost effective for robots to do it, you might as well move the factories close to where the stuff is needed and transport raw material that's more fungible.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#43

Post by xemra »

VHRanger wrote: post #34
aczerepinski wrote: post #25

I wish I could believe that all this automation would lead to more leisure time for all of humanity, but it certainly won’t happen on its own out of generosity from the robot owners.

We've been saying that for a long time. [Keynes predicted we'd be working 15 hour weeks by now]( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecca.12439 ) The thing is, people don't actually want to tradeoff their labor time for leisure time all that well. They value consumption too much. There are plenty of 15 hour jobs out there. You can get one right now! But you'd need to have a smaller appartment, an older c…

Or maybe it's the security net that comes with it.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#44

Post by tacocataco »

smcin wrote: post #3
okasaki wrote: post #2

> The significant investment in robotics showcases Amazon’s commitment to innovation in its supply chain and highlights the company’s belief in the synergistic potential of human-robot collaboration. Despite the massive scale of automation, Amazon emphasizes that deploying robots has led to the creation of new skilled job categories at the company, reflecting a broader industry trend toward the integration of advance…

Who will inform the turtles they are no longer needed?

Trust me, they'll know.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#45

Post by exe34 »

tacocataco wrote: post #38
082349872349872 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we also sufficiently automated food production, there ought to be enough calories to feed everyone, right? Right?

Food waste is tragic. Now no one eats that $5 iceberg lettuce head, and people are forced to eat unhealthy low nutritional carbs for sustenance.

Why don't they eat the $5 lettuce? Is the argument that it's too expensive here? I thought fast food was more expensive.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#46

Post by dpflan »

VHRanger wrote: post #34
aczerepinski wrote: post #25

I wish I could believe that all this automation would lead to more leisure time for all of humanity, but it certainly won’t happen on its own out of generosity from the robot owners.

We've been saying that for a long time. [Keynes predicted we'd be working 15 hour weeks by now]( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecca.12439 ) The thing is, people don't actually want to tradeoff their labor time for leisure time all that well. They value consumption too much. There are plenty of 15 hour jobs out there. You can get one right now! But you'd need to have a smaller appartment, an older c…

What if you bring the ideas of measuring productivity and wage growth of employees? How have productivity, wage growth, and corporate profit changed over the decades since Keynes? What was that 15 hour work week, how "productive" and paying is it supposed to be?

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#47

Post by exe34 »

tacocataco wrote: post #41
okasaki wrote: post #2

> The significant investment in robotics showcases Amazon’s commitment to innovation in its supply chain and highlights the company’s belief in the synergistic potential of human-robot collaboration. Despite the massive scale of automation, Amazon emphasizes that deploying robots has led to the creation of new skilled job categories at the company, reflecting a broader industry trend toward the integration of advance…

Maybe robots should pay taxes like humans since they are taking the jobs and the tax base that goes along with them.

Or you could tax the companies on revenue, the way employees are.

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#48

Post by exe34 »

ta1243 wrote: post #10
okasaki wrote: post #2

> The significant investment in robotics showcases Amazon’s commitment to innovation in its supply chain and highlights the company’s belief in the synergistic potential of human-robot collaboration. Despite the massive scale of automation, Amazon emphasizes that deploying robots has led to the creation of new skilled job categories at the company, reflecting a broader industry trend toward the integration of advance…

Don't forget all the robots reading it. It seems the end goal of the advertising industry -- robots doing, robots writing, robots reading. Like cockroaches and twinkies, one of the few things to survive nuclear war.

Have you read Accelerando by Charlie stross? He talks about a Vile Offspring that's basically what you said!

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#49

Post by WillAdams »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #7

But will the robots be given piss bottles?

When I worked in an Amazon Warehouse, while a bathroom break was considered time-off-task, it wasn't a big deal to use the bathroom (or take some other break) whenever one wished.

https://old.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/dmnuts/53mamazon_fulfi...

Basically, it was just a gym membership which I got paid for (and couldn't skip out on beyond what my available time off facilitated).

Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans

#50

Post by ed_balls »

aczerepinski wrote: post #25

I wish I could believe that all this automation would lead to more leisure time for all of humanity, but it certainly won’t happen on its own out of generosity from the robot owners.

It would in places where robot owners care about. To avoid social unrest they will be forced to pay for UBI.

The two remaining problems would be:

- purpose and identity.

- places like Bangladesh where industries like textile will disappear.

Post reply on HN