How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race • Hacker News Board

Re: How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race

#101

Post by robotresearcher » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #12

peterkshultz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine that people who need such picking jobs would rather have them around than not.

That people "need" awful picking jobs they hate doing but can be done better by robots is basically the existential problem humanity needs to solve this century or we are very likely to get Filtered, Robin Hanson style.

The only reason those jobs exist right now is that humans are still much better than robots. Amazon is working on pick/pack robots in the hope of changing that.

Re: How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race

#102

Post by iandanforth » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:48 PM UTC

desdiv wrote: post #23

iandanforth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too late to join one! We (Fetch Robotics) are hiring for many roles!

FYI the link on your profile, http://fetchrobotics.com/?page_id=30 , is bouncing to an outdated page: http://fetchrobotics.com/careers-old .

Fixed. Thanks!

Re: How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race

#103

Post by iandanforth » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

are595 wrote: post #79

iandanforth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too late to join one! We (Fetch Robotics) are hiring for many roles!

As a Computer Engineering student, what sort of courses do you recommend I take in order to work on robotics? My only experience with the field so far has been high school robotics competitions really.

Robotics is a hugely interdisciplinary field. Some of the hardest parts to work on are motion planning and navigation. For us familiarity with ROS is pretty important and project courses where you build something that actually works are super important. Search algorithms come up all the time, spatial searching especially.

For specifics I'd refer to the CMU Masters courseload or the WPI undergrad:

https://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=469

http://www.wpi.edu/academics/robotics/ugprograms.html