Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 298 posts

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#141

Post by burningChrome »

tombert wrote: post #104
vidarh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ocado warehouse automation is pretty crazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

Walmart isn't considered a super high-tech company, but I took a tour of one of their warehouses in Bentonville and even that was quite cool. There were tons of conveyor belts everywhere, it kind of felt like something you'd see in Satisfactory.

Back in the early aughts when I was still in college, My roommate was an IE and worked as an efficiency engineer intern during his Summers. I vividly remember him talking about the company he was working for had a huge project to improve UPS's efficiencies. Their big improvements was to add dozens and dozens of conveyor belts in order to move the packages faster. He concluded his experience by saying, "Yeah man, its crazy, this is what the future is going to look like. This is how they're going to automate everything."

Interesting to know companies are still using them as a means to automate their work.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#142

Post by noisy_boy »

bdangubic wrote: post #139
thisisnotauser wrote: post #138

Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?

UBI FTW :)

There is a crucial Basic in the middle.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#144

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

foobarian wrote: post #135
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how Amazon handles fire in the midst of their Kiva pods. Do they have procedures for retasking an army of robots to clear a path for humans to get access?

If there are really no humans there they could just fill the warehouse with nitrogen or something. No fire!

Lithium battery fires don't feed on atmospheric oxygen. That's the most likely ignition source.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#145

Post by disambiguation »

thisisnotauser wrote: post #138

Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?

Once Bezos replaces everyone with robots, why would he need anyone to buy his junk anymore?

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#146

Post by littlestymaar »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #124
throw310822 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredibile! Also, from the comments: "My favorite thing about this is how 2 weeks after this video went up, they had an accident where two robots collided and caused a gigantic fire that cost them like 50 million dollars."

Meanwhile, the warehouse down the road underwent a strike that put them out of commission for weeks, forced expensive wage concessions, and incurred NRLB fines, costing them like... 60 million dollars. One of these things can be fixed, the other will always be a risk as long as humans are involved.

> One of these things can be fixe

That's correct, the second one can get fixed with higher wages and benefits, like when Ford introduced the “$5 a day” (doubling market average).

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#147

Post by littlestymaar »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #144
foobarian wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are really no humans there they could just fill the warehouse with nitrogen or something. No fire!

Lithium battery fires don't feed on atmospheric oxygen. That's the most likely ignition source.

True, though the problem isn't just robot batteries burning up, but setting all the stock ablaze and this part is indeed feeding in atmospheric oxygen.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#148

Post by kajumix »

thisisnotauser wrote: post #138

Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?

Once he replaces everyone with robots, and all the factories do the same, people will get stuff at home for watching ads.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#149

Post by vlovich123 »

thisisnotauser wrote: post #138

Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?

Henry Ford just wanted to be rich and said something that sounded good and inspired people to work for him. Bezos does similar things for his workers.

Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

#150

Post by iamtheworstdev »

kajumix wrote: post #148
thisisnotauser wrote: post #138

Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?

Once he replaces everyone with robots, and all the factories do the same, people will get stuff at home for watching ads.

but ads exist to convince people to buy things. if people can't afford to buy things, why would you need ads?
Post reply on HN