WHy not also let them answer questions from customers?
Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
141–150 of 332 posts
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't think wages have any effect on the decision to automate? I will always vote for raising the minimum wage but at the same time I know it probably makes automation more attractive.
I don't think it has as extreme an impact as the people posting images of a self-service menu imply it does. I will concede that a lot of my aversion to the argument is from the disdain for people with lower-class jobs that I read into it. But while I agree there is an impact, I also don't think we should avoid automation simply to have someone doing a mindless job if it could effectively be automated. People don't n…
"lot of my aversion to the argument is from the disdain for people with lower-class jobs that I read into it".
Trying to read someone's mind is a tell for someone brainwashed. Do you think people who argue that raising minimum wage speeds up automation and hurts the people it intends to help, are making the argument in bad faith, and not based on data? Maybe you cannot argue based on facts and so instead you are attacking the character of people arguing against your socialist position.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the foreseable future, robots and chatbots will be poorer UX than speaking to a human. Since it's not adding value to their product it's obviously being done for cost cutting and scale reasons.
I rarely get useful assistance in large chain stores. Asking "where is the pesto?" usually gets an answer like "I dunno, somewhere in aisle 7 maybe" with an indifferent shrug. I'd happily make three attempts at using a clunky voice interface if I got the answer "Aisle 7, bay 11, shelves 3 and 4. We have 18 different kinds of pesto currently in stock. Would you like me to take you there?" It almost seems too obvious t…
I have the opposite experience. Pretty much any store around here, Walmart included, the employees are very willing to help you find stuff, and if they don't know where something is, they will find or call to an employee that does know.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#144> The robots are designed to free up store employees' time so they can use it to help customers. ...which is bullshit; Walmart just doesn't want the "robots taking our jobs" angle here. If they consider the current level at which employees help customers in the aisles sufficient, then they'll be cutting jobs to match that level rather than "freeing up" employees to do more of it.
For the foreseable future, robots and chatbots will be poorer UX than speaking to a human. Since it's not adding value to their product it's obviously being done for cost cutting and scale reasons.
Ya, they're probably desprate to find a way to compete with Amazon right now. AMZN's been killing them on price and convenience, afaik.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#145WHy not also let them answer questions from customers?
Maybe some future version. Baby steps.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you go down this rabbit hole? How do you pick between buying wheat and taking it to the miller (preserving his job) and buying flour from the grocer? Do you seek out gas stations that still pump gas for you? Do you worry that buying a fuel efficient vehicle or insulated building can have a negative impact on people working for energy producers?
>Do you go down this rabbit hole? What requires me to go all the way down the rabbit hole? Everybody has moral beliefs that they don't follow to their extremist conclusions. I see people getting laid off or turnover being allowed to happen - I see that the replacement job for a cashier gig is sometimes even worse - I do my little part to make society a little less bad. I also don't feel that pure individualism is rea…
Nobody wants to be a cashier for 8 hours a day though. The only reason we see losing your job to automation as a negative is because our welfare and education systems are broken.
All you're really doing is creating more pointless work to treat the symptoms.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the foreseable future, robots and chatbots will be poorer UX than speaking to a human. Since it's not adding value to their product it's obviously being done for cost cutting and scale reasons.
I rarely get useful assistance in large chain stores. Asking "where is the pesto?" usually gets an answer like "I dunno, somewhere in aisle 7 maybe" with an indifferent shrug. I'd happily make three attempts at using a clunky voice interface if I got the answer "Aisle 7, bay 11, shelves 3 and 4. We have 18 different kinds of pesto currently in stock. Would you like me to take you there?" It almost seems too obvious t…
Part of this has to do with demographics. We prefer to deal with robots and order stuff on web interfaces. I was talking with my aunt and uncle the other day. They were telling me that they prefer to bring their paper checks to the bank and interact with the teller rather than scan it in the app from the comfort of their home.
That blew my mind.
I think there's a huge age gap when it comes to preference for human vs mechanical interface. Until the older generation dies out these sort of redundant service jobs will exist. As they say, sometimes progress only happens one funeral at a time.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#148Shouldn't we increase minimum wage again?! Fun to read all the panic and denial of leftists on this topic. Raise minimum wage and you speed up automation and throw out poor people from their jobs. One has to be brainwashed to argue that mandating higher wages does not force a company to adopt automation sooner. Walmart is doing the correct thing. Leftist policies are destroying jobs for poor people and forcing them to become welfare dependents. Good job socialists -- keep the denial going.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#149> The robots are designed to free up store employees' time so they can use it to help customers.
If you’ve ever been to a Walmart at 2am, you know that this isn’t true. A lot of people will lose jobs over this.
Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores
#150Judging from the pictures they'll still use paper price labels. Why? It seems extremely arcane to still use paper price labels in 2017, especially for stores as big and centrally run as Walmart. With digital price labels you can update prices centrally across the whole country within seconds, and it costs basically nothing to implement too, when the labor cost of manually updating paper price labels are factored in.
>it costs basically nothing to implement too, Eh. Don't be so sure of this. Yes, this technology exists. No, it's typically not feasible to implement. The ROI simply doesn't make sense. Each store houses about 250,000 unique products. That means you'll need that many digital price tags. If they're $4 a peice (highly unlikely), thats 1M per store - and that's only in the new hardware. You also need to test different e…
Would you be so kind as to source some of your numbers? Here it says that a store has 120,000-142,000 products: https://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/news-archive/2005/01/07...
And doing the math here, it appears to be circa $3m in just capex per new store: https://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/news-archive/2014/02/20...
I'm also suspicious of your claim of opportunity cost. Walmart has circa 6k stores and has annual profits in the $15 billion range, and the ability to tap the capital markets as needed. They appear to be able to afford both new stores and price tags.