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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

#211

Post by WillAdams »

naveen99 wrote: post #57
WillAdams wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Maybe jobs that require moving around should be split into 2 hr shifts, and then people with sedentary jobs can moonlight for getting in their cardio, instead of paying a gym, or walking pointlessly.

If Amazon would offer a part-time shift option where it was 1 day a week, I'd probably do it, mostly for the excercise, and partly for the extra money.

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

#212

Post by LadyCailin »

rcstank wrote: post #134
LadyCailin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many people on UBI would be content enough to not search for more work.

So? UBI isn’t about making sure people aren’t lazy. It’s about making sure no one slips between the cracks, and can at least afford the basics.

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

#213

Post by waltbosz »

jedberg wrote: post #165
shrubble wrote: post #152

This is self-reported: remember the 1000 Indians that were watching people shop at the Amazon Go stores? Amazon told us it was all "sensors" because it fit their company narrative to do so. I am not saying that Amazon doesn't have 750k robots and hasn't laid off 100k people... but they usually have some seasonality, plus, the quoted number is from 2021, the height of at-home shopping. "The world's second-largest priv…

The 1000 Indians story was completely incorrect though. They has 1000 people in India tagging the videos after the fact for improvements to the machine learning algorithms. They weren't watching in real time.

Having not read the original story, this makes more sense.

"1000 Indians that were watching people shop at the Amazon Go stores" ...

Conjured up picture in my head of an Indian man inside an Amazon Go store sitting behind a registerless counter. What his purpose would be, I don't know.

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

#214

Post by pixl97 »

starttoaster wrote: post #177
karaterobot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The robots replaced the frontline laborers, yes. But someone now needs to maintain, build, and engineer new robots. Hence they said the laborer's job was replaced with one that requires fewer people at a higher skill (and probably pay) level. Or at least that's what I picked out from their comment.

Please note that while the robot is replacing local jobs, the people engineering, building, and maintaining robots could be ln the other side of the plant also. In a world that's seen a huge amount of consolidation we are likely to see further consolidation.

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

#215

Post by pixl97 »

echelon wrote: post #120
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…

> 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. That isn't some immutable law of the universe. 200 years is a short sample size relative to geologic time. Once we have robots doing the cooking, cleaning, heavy work, etc., what becomes of the Waffle House…

Ya, when people use this argument ask them "the population of humans always grows right?" Because up till recently that was the consensus unless something drastic or terrible happened. Then in the past few decades we see people having far fewer children then even replacement rate.

Upsetting the labor market is leading us into unpredictable territory, much like at the start of the 1900s and the automobile set off a string of events that lead to two massive world wide wars.

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

#216

Post by jmilkbal »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #193
ben_w wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chain of logic is falsified by the Whitney cotton gin: it was a labour saving device, which saved enough labour to make cotton much more profitable, which led to the growth of the cotton plantations in southern USA, which led to increased slavery, and those slavers actively prevented their slaves from learning to read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_th…

The assumption here is that an AI with IQ 100 could do anything a human with an IQ of 100 could do, only cheaper. But that's just averages. Really it would do half the things better and half worse, and then people have jobs doing the things that it does worse. That would continue until it doesn't do anything worse, which may or may not ever happen, but if it did and we're all still alive then the result would be post…

The power structures will never allow it. The conditions for a society of leisure have theoretically existed for some time now. We will simply end up with a a planetary ruling class that lives opulently while the other 99% live in abject poverty.

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

#217

Post by pixl97 »

robofanatic wrote: post #184
quaintdev wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our generation is highly advanced but we have become very short sighted. We have made a mess of our world because of it. I remember a story about Oxford. When it was built they planted entire forest of Oak trees so that in 500 years when Oxford will need repairing they have ample amount of wood available. In that age people were capable of thinking 500 years ahead. And we with all our advancement can't even think bey…

The problem is resources and money are not unlimited.

And that's why 1% of us must hold on to 50% of that money and resources.

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

#218

Post by pixl97 »

bamboozled wrote: post #115
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…

But how do you know what that future looks like? For example, What if we use AGI and make ourselves smarter and more capable as Kurzweil has argued ? You can’t imagine what that will look like so why worry about jobs ?

>What if we use AGI and make ourselves smarter

I mean a large portion of people on the 'information highway' seem to use it to make themselves dumber.

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

#219

Post by dehrmann »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #58
seper8 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How detached from reality are you that you think people can make ends meet while working 15 hours a week?

Some people do do that. Try stepping outside of your bubble.

There's a youtuber I've seen who I think is mostly legit who spent not much money on land in the middle of nowhere and built himself a one-room cabin and an outhouse on it. He's up-front that he isn't actually living off the grid or even in the cabin full-time, but his point is that if you live a very modest life and are handy, you can live on just a side hustle. Like you said, you're unlikely to meet people like this in the (sub) urban tech bubble.

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

#220

Post by pixl97 »

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...

You do realize that most governments run massive jobs programs to ensure this number of available jobs stays high, right? In the US we give massive tax breaks in exchange for hiring numbers.

Computers may have very well reduced job numbers but we're running a contrived system at this point.

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