Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by bombcar » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:40 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #114

chillingeffect wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not convinced that animal husbandry is less skilled than working in cars. Different skill, and as I've never done it I can't be certain, but horses are wet and messy biology with brains that are terrified of anything they've never seen before. Production line work I did do as a summer holiday job during my A-levels aged 17 or 18, it wasn't skilled work but also that was HVAC production line not cars.

The specialization has certainly taken off - people are much more specialized in their jobs now whereas “farmer” was really a jack-of-all-trades with passing capabilities in many different skill sets.

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

#122

Post by SoftTalker » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:41 PM UTC

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.

Be careful what you wish for. Humans tend to do poorly when they have a lot of leisure time. Especially young people, especially males.

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

#123

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:42 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #61

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once the capital owners possess the technology that brings the cost of labor near zero Most Americans are capital owners. You’re describing a world in which most Americans live in a utopia.

A quick google says that 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not. There will be some fraction of that 47% who have their own businesses, but I’m guessing that these would be people at the bottom end of the business scale. Would it really be fair to call the guys driving a truck through the alleys collecting crap metal capital owners who would live in a utopia? The same article that…

> 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not

Does that include 401(k)s and pensions?

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

#124

Post by starbugs » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:43 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #117

Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?

There's ESG. But that comes with its own challenges.

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

#125

Post by thechao » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:43 PM UTC

rdedev wrote: post #118

snowwrestler wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The key point being it's created more jobs so far but we cannot extrapolate the same thing if AGI comes up tomorrow. Like let's say open ai comes up with a new LLM that is capable of replacing a human in let's say software development. What new jobs would it create? All technological advancement so far has created new jobs because you need someone to actually work on it, like a chip factory or doing devops. As far as…

I'm sorry, why would an AGI be interested in programming? My kids are AGI, and they're not interested. I think there's a real moral conundrum when we say "programmer AGI" because, I think, we're implicitly talking about terminating every non-programmer AGI, to meet our labor force whims. Replace "programmer" with intellectual task of your choice.

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

#126

Post by rcstank » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #117

Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?

Who would create the weights that balance this system?

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

#127

Post by SoftTalker » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #56

tacocataco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That’s too hard to do. What is “a robot” and “a job?” Replacing workers is easy enough to calculate that with, but what if I start a brand new factory that only ever used robots? The solution is wealth tax and UBI. Get rid of regular income tax, then do a progressive wealth tax, which is enough to pay for a progressive UBI. This way, it’s no problem if you lay off all your workers to replace them with robots. In fact…

Very few people hoard wealth. You imagine wealthy people like Scrooge McDuck with a room full of gold coins. It's almost always invested in stocks which helps companies grow or in bonds which helps finance public works.

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

#128

Post by Ekaros » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #117

Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?

Value delivered or increase of value per unit of labour is very murky to measure, but something to think about. In some sense Amazon improving efficiency of retail could be a good thing in general improving the purchasing power of average consunmer.

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

#129

Post by notyourwork » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:46 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #117

Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?

Amount of taxes paid is a benefit to society? Does that mean anyone who uses deductions is less valuable to society?

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

#130

Post by paxys » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 8:46 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #117

Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?

Every attempt to algorithmically boil down a complex economy into a single number does more harm than good. Figure out your own priorities and decide for yourself.