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

In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

60secondstatistics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 212 posts

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#201

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

sgt101 wrote: post #200
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're ignoring the role of institutions. Eventually, some company will tell a system with access to all human knowledge, control of a vast number of robots, production plants, etc "maximize the wealth of the company". That robot could easily decide a union with a few other such entities and not a lot of scampering meatbags is a great way to do that. And that's not even considering radicals that, say, inject a co…

Hello there, my point($) is that as far as I understand the technology (I did an ML PhD 20 years ago and have worked in "applications of AI" since then) we don't have an issue around autonomy of machines in two ways. Firstly the machines have no autonomy and will probably not ever have autonomy. Secondly there are already 7 billion autonomous agents, perhaps 0.1% of these are genuinely dangerous to other humans, perh…

Two points:

1. There's no reason to believe machines wont gain full autonomy. There's nothing that makes it impossible and some people are working towards it.

2. The AI apocalypse probably already happened, except we call them "insitutions", and they currently run on wetware. However, the corporate version have been extremely damaging to human well-being at times. The real question of modern AI is if the currently rogue AIs can transition off wetware. Once these AI no longer depend on wetware, we're probably not in for a happy time.

That said, nuclear weapons are a bigger threat now. But we've managed not to nuke ourselves too often for a while, whereas, we don't have a handle on the wetware-to-mechanical transition at all.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#202

Post by crdoconnor »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #177
crdoconnor wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first automated fast food sales outlets ("automats") appeared in the 1890s in Germany. They became very popular for a while. In the US the last ones (Horn and Hardart) went into a deep decline in the 60s and had mostly disappeared by the 1970s.

Some of those weren't really automated, but rather worked more like vending machines. Weirdly, I've seen an updated version of these in hospitals. In addition, I've seen vending machines with cafeteria sandwiches and frozen microwave dinners. For clarity, what I more refer to is kitchens without human intervention save for mechanics. The machines make burgers, fries, and whatnot. It seems the first wave is going more…

Why do you think we had a first wave from 1890-1970 and then again from 2017- ?

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#203

Post by _bpgl »

crdoconnor wrote: post #170
_bpgl wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have said that it's only a matter of time...Yet it keeps not having happened just yet. That's incredibly facile. Were there solid state digital electronics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Was there machine learning? Motion control? Systems engineering? A robotics industry? Just aping the "power source of the future" line from the fusion joke and pretending it's the trenchant result of long exp…

Why do you think that the future will similarly not have jobs that you can't conceive of now? As far as I can tell the only special thing about automation in today's world is that the jobs being created are more often being created abroad than they are in the US (e.g. the million or so people employed by Foxconn in China) and predictions of automation destroying jobs are very blatantly being used politically as a way…

The first thing I feel I need to point out is that my horse in this race is not whether or not jobs will go away, but whether or not the original commenter to whom I was replying advanced the discussion at all with their remark. I think that the remark–that people have always been saying that automation will take over but it never has–is facile in that the thing that "people have been saying" is not the same over time. In the late 18th century, it could only really have been a comment about capital concentration and the death of the trades. In the 1950s, it was very probably a naive comment about the power of as-then-understood computer technology's capability to replace manual labor or work. In the 1990s, it was very probably a naive comment about the state of the art of AI at the time.

Now, the remark is about actual inexpensive robotics in the context of what seems to be a genuine AI and computer vision and control renaissance, funded by government and corporations. Those are all just different remarks. To package them all up as one "thing that people have been saying" does a real disservice to the discussion. And it's a pose.

In the current case, I find it difficult to say whether the remark will turn out to be naive. However, any competent discussion of whether or not it is has to rely on an assessment of the current situation of computer vision, AI, control theory, economics, and law.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#204

Post by thr3290 »

thehardsphere wrote: post #163
thr3290 wrote: post #24

> On the other hand, if institutionalized slavery still existed, factories would be looking at around $7,500 in annual costs for housing, food and healthcare per “worker”. There is a wrong assumption that factory has to cover those expenses. In reality this cost is often offloaded to government or another party.

Uhh, when they're property of the company and not actually considered people? I'm pretty sure you have to be considered a person in order to qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing vouchers. I mean, idk because all of those things came about after slavery.

Prison?

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#205

Post by crdoconnor »

_bpgl wrote: post #203
crdoconnor wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that the future will similarly not have jobs that you can't conceive of now? As far as I can tell the only special thing about automation in today's world is that the jobs being created are more often being created abroad than they are in the US (e.g. the million or so people employed by Foxconn in China) and predictions of automation destroying jobs are very blatantly being used politically as a way…

The first thing I feel I need to point out is that my horse in this race is not whether or not jobs will go away, but whether or not the original commenter to whom I was replying advanced the discussion at all with their remark. I think that the remark–that people have always been saying that automation will take over but it never has–is facile in that the thing that "people have been saying" is not the same over tim…

"In the 1990s, it was very probably a naive comment about the state of the art of AI at the time."

And it's exactly the same right now.

Any competent discussion also needs to take into the account the various special interests who want it to be believed that AI is taking over irrespective of whether that is the truth or not... and why they want that.

It also needs to take into account the various crass errors in many of the economics papers on this topic - including basing the probability of automation on how "creative" an economist considers a job (Oxford) or creating economic measures which make no mathematical distinction between a Chinese factory worker and a robot (Ball State University).

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#206

Post by Broken_Hippo »

crdoconnor wrote: post #202
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those weren't really automated, but rather worked more like vending machines. Weirdly, I've seen an updated version of these in hospitals. In addition, I've seen vending machines with cafeteria sandwiches and frozen microwave dinners. For clarity, what I more refer to is kitchens without human intervention save for mechanics. The machines make burgers, fries, and whatnot. It seems the first wave is going more…

Why do you think we had a first wave from 1890-1970 and then again from 2017- ?

Automobiles.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#207

Post by bryondowd »

undersuit wrote: post #192
bryondowd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a great way to drive people away. An ordering system more annoying than a pushy salesperson? I'm going across the street instead, unless literally every option around does the same thing. And if Wawa in my area is any indication, there will be better options.

How much better is a Wawa than a Sheetz? When I lived in Virginia(9 years ago?) I would visit one near my work and I could order food on a screen and a few minutes later an invisible person would push it through the service window.

Never been to a Sheetz, I'm too far north, I suppose. There's no service window at Wawa, though. They prepare everything in plain sight behind a counter, which I'd consider a plus. And their mac n cheese sides are as addictive as cocaine.

For a third party comparison:

http://www.businessinsider.com/wawa-or-sheetz-which-is-bette...

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#208

Post by mantas »

throwanem wrote: post #52
mantas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some anecdata, but personally I hate dealing with self-checkout when buying fruits/veggies/buns/bread and other non-barcoded items. Cashiers are so much faster than me to deal with that. Maybe the shop in question have a lot of non-barcode items and it causes serious delay.

If you're in the US, your fruits and veg almost certainly have little stickers on them. Those stickers contain four- or five-digit numbers which, if entered into a register or a kiosk, identify the produce and save the time of navigating an icon menu to do so. The kiosks at all the grocery stores where I've used them have offered the option of entering item codes, so it's a fair bet yours do too; if so, give it a try…

Late reply, but just in case if someone finds this helpful...

Over there fresh fruits/vegs/bakery don't have any stickers/packaging/etc. You pick them, put in a bag and cashier rings them up along with barcoded items. They got a fatass book with pictures for newbies/self checkout and all experienced staff have muscle memory...

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#209

Post by mantas »

dazc wrote: post #42
mantas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some anecdata, but personally I hate dealing with self-checkout when buying fruits/veggies/buns/bread and other non-barcoded items. Cashiers are so much faster than me to deal with that. Maybe the shop in question have a lot of non-barcode items and it causes serious delay.

In Spain it's common that you have to weigh and label such items as you buy them, so you are just scanning a bar code when it comes to the checkout bit. The only snag is that below a certain price point some stores will intervene to check you really have just bought one croissant, which kind of defeats the whole purpose?

In Lithuania only 1 small supermarket chain do so. In the rest, this is done at checkout.

I still remember when I encountered this workflow for the first time. I didn't speak local language, cashier didn't speak english and I had no clue why cashier is so banana while ringing up my bananas :(

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#210

Post by thehardsphere »

thr3290 wrote: post #204
thehardsphere wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh, when they're property of the company and not actually considered people? I'm pretty sure you have to be considered a person in order to qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing vouchers. I mean, idk because all of those things came about after slavery.

Prison?

Prison labor is mostly out of fashion, isn't it? Not that many chain gangs anymore. The ones I do hear about are usually doing dumb things for the government instead of "manufacturing and retail."
Post reply on HN