Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because of massive price increases due to a monopoly.
Can you share more on this? What monopoly?
CVS/Walgreens
Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
331–340 of 400 posts
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX aren't just proclaiming things. They are building a skyscraper-sized fully reusable rocket with completely new engines to get away from the Earth cheaply.
...and they are building it for NASA's Artemis program. SpaceX evaporates the moment the juicy billion dollar public contracts dry up. Mars is still a pipe dream. You might as well give the credit to Edgar Rice Burroughs for as far as realizing it has come.
"SpaceX evaporates the moment the juicy billion dollar public contracts dry up."
So, not in the foreseeable future, given the new Space Race with China.
Ofc the government is an important customer for any launch provider (not just SpaceX), given that a lot of current space activity is military in nature. That just comes with the territory.
Edgar Rice Borroughs died before the first man-made rocket reached the orbit. Writing about Mars isn't the same as building a ship that can reach it.
I am not a native speaker of English, so I am not sure how much deprecation does the term "pipe dream" contain. But I don't think that manned flight to Mars is wild and unattainable fantasy. I would say that it is on the same level as manned flight to the orbit by 1945 - not yet here, but technically and economically feasible in a decade or two.
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a software developer, I've personally eliminated many jobs. Software was eliminated entire classes of jobs. Almost all investment in technology by businesses is about cost reduction and the number one cost is labour. I think we're past the point where technology is making new jobs -- all that low hanging fruit has been gone for decades now. Growth now is all about optimization.
That's undeniably true, but not the point: obviously new technology eliminates entire classes of jobs (not much call for telephone switchboard operators these days), but ultimately if more jobs are created than are lost, we're fine. I personally do wonder, though, if many of the new jobs that are created are worse jobs. For example, I have not yet taken any work in the "gig economy", but most of it seems pretty miser…
> but ultimately if more jobs are created than are lost
For people who believe more jobs are created, it seems like they rely in chaos theory or something. They can't see how or where these new jobs will be created or how automation leads to it. We automated physical labour so we increased intellectual labour. Now are automating intellectual labour too so what's being increased now?
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX aren't just proclaiming things. They are building a skyscraper-sized fully reusable rocket with completely new engines to get away from the Earth cheaply.
The first crewed mission to Mars is very likely going to be a join SpaceX-NASA mission... to set up a crewed research station. Basically the same thing as Artemis Base Camp, except further away. Yes, SpaceX wants to ship millions of people to Mars, but realistically they are several decades away from even starting that. You want to get a small permanent settlement on Mars (like a crewed research station), and get som…
I don't think anyone can say what will 'very likely' happen, but NASA often hires many contractors and also does much work internally (e.g., at JPL) for a major project. Also, there may be other national space programs partnering in the mission.
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#335Earlier 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…
You are saying "IQ" and "intelligence" to explain people's career prospects, but what you actually mean is "social class".
No, what they mean is IQ/intelligence, just as they stated. Social class is part of the story, more so in the past than it is now, but it's not the entire story. High intelligence is a way out of upbringing and circumstances at the margins, when you can capture opportunities to escape. Tech jobs are filled with people who didn't come from higher social classes, many who suffered inequities during their childhood even from their social peers, but persevered due to having drive and intelligence.
Their argument is exactly what they stated, no hidden meaning here about social class. Not everything is class warfare.
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. There are many tropes to unpack, including that IQ is somehow fixed and people's fate, and that even the "average" person "can't learn something". Also, it of course glorifies and cements the power of the wealthy who think they are smart and very special and d…
That's a good point but things do change. Malthus was correct about humanities past but won't about the future (from his point in time). Even aside from that, Learning takes time for everyone. At a certain point we're automating new tasks faster than humans can learn them. Scaling works against humans too. Say it takes 1 year to train a human in something, and 1 year for a robot/AI. well it might take 1 year for the…
A lot of that subconciously assumes the doomsday outcome - machines and automation will sweep people aside, and then the reasoning becomes circular.
> At a certain point we're automating new tasks faster than humans can learn them.
That assumes the pace of automation is increasing, but similar concerns have been around for a long time, going back to the industrial revolution. Read Dickens or HG Wells (though a specific cite doesn't come to mind), or look at the 1927 silent film, Metropolis.
But right now businesses can't find enough employees.
> Say it takes 1 year to train a human in something, and 1 year for a robot/AI. well it might take 1 year for the first AI, but copying software is easy. Training the next person takes another year. Even if it's parallelized and you save some time, the cost of training the marginal additional person is was larger.
That's how automation works. Then the people go on to the higher skilled jobs that the machines can't do, including designing, manufacturing, operating, and servicing the machines. Cars made the entire horse industry redundant; calculators and computers put lots of human calculators out of work.
Yet today, with a much larger population, employers can't find enough workers.
If things like that didn't happen, then productivity wouldn't increase and we would be able to afford more shelter, food, healthcare, education, etc.
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It is not uncommon to move across the United States for work. Across the planet might be a different story.
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#338This 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…
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Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My bet is that some large fraction of people are currently doing jobs that are far less demanding ("robotic") than what they are capable of doing Agreed, hence the caveat of 100 watts when at human speed: Humans are not capable of competing against costs of 100W * $0.10/kWh = $0.01/hour even when the only expense that human has is the cheapest available calories.
Agreed. I also forgot: c/ as far as I can tell, "jobs" have been steadily becoming less skilled over the centuries (because we expect people to switch more frequently between them?); can we accelerate that? So might a way out be that people do regular 100 IQ people stuff (yoga instructors, community theatre, etc.) and automation does (almost) all the heavy lifting? Bring on the Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy? If the Morloc…
TIL there are amazingly many articles online regarding the calorie content of an adult human body; at 125 000 kcal I get USD ~15 per person, making me suspect that they can easily be put to higher NPV use than their carcass value.
(I did not go so far as to search out tanning instructions for making gloves)
Re: Amazon grows to over 750k robots, replacing 100k humans
#340This 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…
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