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Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

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

#181

Post by dan-robertson »

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?

Plenty of people who don’t work for Amazon already buy stuff from there. I guess I mostly see the jobs as exchanging labour for something that society values and so by automating, there is more labour available to do things society values and so society gets more of what it values. And if you think working for Amazon is bad for people then you should be happy if automation is decreasing the number of people suffering that bad thing (though automation won’t always decrease this, eg see rise in number of bank tellers/branches in the US). But that isn’t really the way that lots of people talk about jobs and so if what you want is for people to have somewhere local where they can exchange their time for money to spend on goods and services then I guess automation and efficiency don’t really matter because the point of the job is to ensure the worker has money coming in rather than to ensure that something useful comes out of it. That latter point of view is pretty popular and I think I’m describing it pretty terribly – I’m sure there is a much more reasonable argument for it.

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

#182

Post by pixl97 »

kajumix wrote: post #152
iamtheworstdev wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

you may not need to buy a box of cereal or a vacuum cleaner, but maybe a flight to moon, or a humanoid companion? products move up a level

And what labor are you going to be doing to afford those upleveled products?

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

#183

Post by tombert »

barbazoo wrote: post #133
tombert wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your argument begins with "people should just..." then generally you've already lost the argument. The fact is that people aren't doing whatever you're suggesting, for whatever reason, and no amount of righteous indignation is going to suddenly make people change that. I guess you can sit there smug and feel good about yourself, and that's worth something, but you can't expect people to give a shit about that. In…

> I guess you can sit there smug and feel good about yourself, and that's worth something, but you can't expect people to give a shit about that. You can assume that that’s the kind of person you’re conversing with but you’d be wrong. I agree with you on taxing things to account and pay for externalities.

Sorry, I think I read a bit more indignation in your message than you intended.

I mostly have a visceral reaction to "people should just.." arguments because I heard stuff like that brought up a lot during abortion arguments, particularly in regards to birth control.

"Teenagers should just stop having sex!!" was something I thought was particularly dumb, because a) have they never been a teenager? that's all a lot of them think about cuz hormones and b) whether or not they should, they're going to anyway.

Anyway, sorry for the kind of pissy response, no offense meant.

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

#184

Post by nemomarx »

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.

if you incurred nrlb fines aren't you breaking the law?

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

#185

Post by jabroni_salad »

maintainarmsx wrote: post #48
bayindirh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's pretty expensive in the long run. They want raises, are finicky about their health, have pesky habits like going home, having life partners and something silly called work/life balance. Also, they sometimes organize and become collective bodies under something called a union. In reality, I'm a strong supporter of everything above. Maybe we can really provide people better jobs by delegating repetitive a…

>are finicky about their health Machines are anything but reliable. They need constant servicing and maintenance and still break entirely

All moving parts degrade. A nice thing about machines is you can service and refurbish them to like-new condition.

There are options to deal with your shitty knees, hip, and back, but none of them get you back to 100% of your original capabilities and, carry an element of gambling, and will involve the kinds of painkillers that can ruin you far more comprehensively than a shitty joint will.

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

#186

Post by dh2022 »

disambiguation wrote: post #145
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?

That is one of his ways of extracting value from society - by selling his junk.

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

#187

Post by CamperBob2 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #146
CamperBob2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes, if you're going to pay humans to suffer the indignity of doing a robot's job, it makes sense to pay well.

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

#188

Post by ido »

havblue wrote: post #90
RaSoJo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ocado did run into multiple fire issues due to these robots colliding with each other. In 2019 and 2021 [1] Wonder if the matter has been resolved. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57883332

I'd suggest robots with fire extinguishers.

Or non-combustible robots

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

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Closi wrote: post #102
gjm11 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a big patent lawsuit related to this, which as I understand it Ocado won pretty comprehensively. ( https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/ocado-wins-... -- case in UK court concluded that AutoStore's patents were all invalid and in any case Ocado didn't infringe them; there were a bunch of related cases in other jurisdictions but https://www.ocadogroup.com/media/news/autostore-and-ocado-se... indi…

AutoStore losing a patent dispute doesn't mean that Ocado didn't copy them. Just looking at the patent dispute ignores that the first automated Ocado distribution centre was actually purchased from AutoStore, who had been selling their robot-digging tote system since 1996. Ocado's initial patents as well were actually modifications of Autostore's robots, running on an Autostore grid, and Autostore manufactured the ro…

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by guhidalg »

dan-robertson wrote: post #181
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?

Plenty of people who don’t work for Amazon already buy stuff from there. I guess I mostly see the jobs as exchanging labour for something that society values and so by automating, there is more labour available to do things society values and so society gets more of what it values. And if you think working for Amazon is bad for people then you should be happy if automation is decreasing the number of people suffering…

I think the latter view is usually held by people who know they won't experience productivity gains from automation.

Say someone who is has driven a taxi all their life or driven a forklift. They can appreciate how adding air-conditioning to their vehicle allows them to drive in hotter days, therefore they can do more work. But automating their whole job away with autonomous vehicles doesn't benefit them, so they don't want it.

Personally, I think those people can't be picky about their jobs. If you do something that is automatable, you will be out of a job sooner or later. When that happens, don't get mad and go find another soon-to-be automated job.

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