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

finance.yahoo.com

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

#101

Post by humanrebar »

tacocataco wrote: post #32
onion2k wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is humanity really at a point where we can't think of anything more useful than "carry things about" and "put things in a box" for those people to do? If that's really the state we're in then a bunch of robots doing it instead is the least of our problems.

I think getting adequate housing, food, and Healthcare is useful for workers. Perhaps if people didn't need to prove that they deserve these necessities this conversation about robots replacing humans wouldn't be so dire.

It doesn't seem like we are close to robotics providing housing, food, and healthcare for nominal costs to everyone. Seems like we still need a lot of humans working in those spaces.

In particular, durable goods (and human bodies and even hair) need a lot of maintenance. So far, at least, robots aren't especially gifted at maintenance tasks.

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

#102

Post by hanniabu »

air7 wrote: post #52

It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable. The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the…

> It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result.

That was true in the past, but as technology gets better that won't be the case. Yes new jobs will be created, but there'll be fewer and fewer.

Technology will allow for more generalized approaches that can be quickly adapted to new solutions. So new jobs will also be replaced quicker and quicker.

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

#103

Post by MichaelZuo »

0xedd wrote: post #90
wolverine876 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That project took half a job out of the economy. A decent one at that, a nice cushy desk job. Or it allowed the employee to shift to more valuable, interesting work rather than menial tasks that could easily be done by a computer.

But, some already operate at their peak. Then, you automate that and they can only shift to unemployment. The conversation shouldn't be about replacing the most skilled workers. The conversation should be about what happens to the average worker. That has an average IQ level. That can't learn something to compete with the automation. These people have families. These people will suffer.

Has anyone claimed technological changes will impact every group and subgroup on a literally equal basis?

Some will have better prospects and others will have worse. Since roughly half the population must have below median average prospects by definition.

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

#104

Post by Adverblessly »

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…

> There are plenty of 15 hour jobs out there. You can get one right now!

Not without a 90% pay cut (i.e. as opposed to the ~60% pay cut you'd expect for working 40% of the hours), I've checked.

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

#105

Post by ranger_danger »

karaterobot wrote: post #93
ranger_danger wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point.

Not by my reading of the original comment. Seems like they're saying that layoffs result in higher skilled jobs. And here's my basis for that conclusion: > The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. And what I'm saying is that there may not be new jobs, and if they are they may be lower skill jobs if history is any indication.

My understanding was that they're saying it's the act of replacing the worker with a robot that requires more skilled workers to maintain/design/manufacture/etc., not that it merely resulted in a layoff.

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

#106

Post by chucke1992 »

air7 wrote: post #52

It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable. The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the…

Neither computers nor cars, nor office nor photoshop decreased the amount of available jobs...

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

#107

Post by ameister14 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #63
air7 wrote: post #52

It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable. The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the…

> The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the average intelligence requirement for jobs increases over time (though never stated directly). This means that as time and technology progress, a growing percentage of people will have no…

>yes, a growing economy requires higher-skilled work, but that's good because that work comes with higher pay.

The problem, of course, is that wages stagnated from '99 to 2014 and the job participation rate has been decreasing since 2000 while cost of living and general production increased; so no, in a dynamic market work does not necessarily come with higher pay. It actually wouldn't really make sense for all new work to come with higher pay; if you have changes in supply (which is what we are really talking about) that come with associated lower labor costs, the people that used to provide higher cost labor for the initial supply level will have to accept significantly reduced salaries in their industry.

That's what happened with the industrial revolution. Wages overall increased because people entered the workforce for the first time as skill requirements went down, but the average wage of previously employed people went way down as artisan and highly skilled labor was outcompeted by factory work.

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

#108

Post by snowwrestler »

air7 wrote: post #52

It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable. The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the…

> It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable.

It’s not debatable; we have over 200 years of technological development to look back on and the trend is clear: the total number of jobs has increased at least as fast as human population growth over that time.

In addition, the nations driving the most technological growth domestically have experienced the greatest job growth over that time. With the result that many of them, like the U.S. and UK, have had to develop robust immigration programs.

Even within a single nation, like China, there is temporal correlation between technological development and job creation. As China has leaned into tech over the past few decades, job creation accelerated there.

> So by definition, the average intelligence requirement for jobs increases over time (though never stated directly). This means that as time and technology progress, a growing percentage of people will have no jobs that they are capable of doing.

Again, the evidence shows the opposite correlation: technological development results in more people working, not less.

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

#109

Post by chillingeffect »

chucke1992 wrote: post #106
air7 wrote: post #52

It's clear that technological development creates a shift in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable. The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the…

Neither computers nor cars, nor office nor photoshop decreased the amount of available jobs...

But exactly as the person you replied to said, they increased the average intelligence needed to do the new jobs. That leaves so many marginal people unemployable. They could have maintained horses but working in cars is harder. I like this observation.

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

#110

Post by ameister14 »

chillingeffect wrote: post #109
chucke1992 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither computers nor cars, nor office nor photoshop decreased the amount of available jobs...

But exactly as the person you replied to said, they increased the average intelligence needed to do the new jobs. That leaves so many marginal people unemployable. They could have maintained horses but working in cars is harder. I like this observation.

They actually resulted in a decrease in overall skills required. It takes a lot of skill to use a loom and make a napkin, the same is not needed for factory work yet you can make 100 napkins at the same time.

Similarly, we had the rise of the service industry in the US - manufacturing required a lot of skilled labor; retail and wait-staff do not require the same skill.

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