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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

#181

Post by jairuhme »

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…

> 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 think you, like many others, fell into the trap of just looking at the headline. The 1k people were labeling training data, not watching you shop like a puppet master..

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

#182

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by jrflowers »

thechao wrote: post #125
rdedev wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point being it's created more jobs so far but we cannot extrapolate the same thing if AGI comes up tomorrow. Like let's say open ai comes up with a new LLM that is capable of replacing a human in let's say software development. What new jobs would it create? All technological advancement so far has created new jobs because you need someone to actually work on it, like a chip factory or doing devops. As far as…

I'm sorry, why would an AGI be interested in programming? My kids are AGI, and they're not interested. I think there's a real moral conundrum when we say "programmer AGI" because, I think, we're implicitly talking about terminating every non-programmer AGI, to meet our labor force whims. Replace "programmer" with intellectual task of your choice.

Your kids are artificial general intelligence?

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

#184

Post by robofanatic »

quaintdev wrote: post #100
robofanatic wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Living on another planet is a hard problem but only one company is working on that. There’s a lot of unknowns in that and ROI can take very very long time. Not many people can or are willing to take that risk. If that one company is successful then you’ll see that space flooded with new companies.

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.

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

#185

Post by fragmede »

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…

Just like the Turing test turned out to be the wrong problem, AGI is the wrong goal. As long as AI can stoichastic parrot its way to success, who cares if it's AGI? My washing machine broke and I want my robot to fix it. it doesn't need AGI to diagnose and fix the problem, it just needs to have seen that in the training data.

The real shift comes when the robots are dexterous enough to fix each other. that's when no new jobs will be created to fix them because they can do it themselves.

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

#186

Post by Nevermark »

Automation can eliminate lots of jobs without replacement jobs.

But other times will also created new higher level jobs.

Especially when automation impacts a companies total cost for a high-demand independently consumed service or product. So that decrease costs can translate into decreased pricing for an upwardly elastic demand. And the revenue growth results offsets the need for fewer workers per revenue.

—

But most jobs within a company are only part of a product or service. With other parts not as automatable.

In this case, even automation that produces higher level jobs is likely to produce far fewer of them. Since savings in part of a value chain increase profits but impact total costs, and therefore pricing, at a much lower percentage. So increased demand is less likely to offset job reduction.

This is also true for any product or service from one company whose demand is anchored to any complimentary services or products from other companies.

—

Worse still, automation taking over only part of a high employee count, low skill job is very bad for employees. The number of workers is likely reduced, and as the job becomes simpler, their replacability goes up. Their value, and therefore pay and respect, go down.

They start to get managed ruthlessly, like just another part of the overall automation.

I expect the vast majority of Amazon’s headcount, across each of its logistical divisions, fall into that latter category.

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

#187

Post by Kerbonut »

jairuhme wrote: post #181
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…

> 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 think you, like many others, fell into the trap of just looking at the headline. The 1k people were labeling training data, not watching you shop like a puppet master..

Per the articles I read, they did more than label training data. They also did other things to facilitate the checkout process. They didn't get into what those things were however.

> "Associates may also validate a small minority of shopping visits where our computer vision technology cannot determine with complete confidence an individual's purchases," the spokesperson said.

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

#188

Post by xg15 »

Nevermark wrote: post #186

Automation can eliminate lots of jobs without replacement jobs. But other times will also created new higher level jobs. Especially when automation impacts a companies total cost for a high-demand independently consumed service or product. So that decrease costs can translate into decreased pricing for an upwardly elastic demand. And the revenue growth results offsets the need for fewer workers per revenue. — But mos…

This seems a bit backwards. Most demand for automating existing jobs is driven by the specific goal to reduce workers and labour costs, so of course there will be fewer jobs afterwards than before - otherwise the automation didn't fulfill its goal from the companies' POV.

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

#189

Post by dhosek »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
dhosek wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick google says that 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not. There will be some fraction of that 47% who have their own businesses, but I’m guessing that these would be people at the bottom end of the business scale. Would it really be fair to call the guys driving a truck through the alleys collecting crap metal capital owners who would live in a utopia? The same article that…

> 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not Does that include 401(k)s and pensions?

Yes. 401(k)s but not pensions. The latter are defined benefit programs where participants are not responsible for making investment decisions.

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

#190

Post by AnthonyMouse »

karaterobot wrote: post #66
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…

Wait a minute. Higher skill jobs? For at least a decade, the place jobs shifted to was Amazon. If you lost your job because Amazon put your company out of business, you could get a worse, more humiliating job working at an Amazon warehouse, or as an Amazon driver. It was not higher skill jobs the market shifted to, it was Nomadland jobs. Now that Amazon is switching to robots, where are those people Amazon is putting…

> For at least a decade, the place jobs shifted to was Amazon.

It wasn't so much the jobs that shifted there as the customers, and the reason for that is that Amazon had better prices. Then people complained about the jobs they did offer because they're mechanistic and exhausting, so they automate them and then people complain about that. But that too should result in lower prices -- Amazon's retail operation doesn't make any money, it's all going to competition with Walmart, who is doing the same things to lower costs.

But lowering prices creates jobs. People pay less for a dress or a phone case and then spend the money on something else. New jobs are created doing the something else.

Where this becomes a problem is for the things where the prices don't come down, like real estate. You have extra money and now you want to buy a house, but zoning laws inhibit new housing from being built, so instead if people have any money the monthly payment you need goes up or the landlord increases your rent. Or you have to buy something from some monopolist who can raise prices to eat your disposable income. Then the money goes into some corporate holding company that just keeps growing their hoard and never spends it on products and services.

The problem isn't robots, it's certificate of need laws and high tuition.

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