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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

#261

Post by [deleted] »

rendang wrote: post #234
mattigames wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment being at all time lows means nothing if those employed with the minimum wage cannot afford the same quality of life than people did in the past earning the minimum wage of their time, because it means you aren't really comparing the same thing.

The minimum wage is not relevant as very few people make it. Wage earners at the top, bottom, and middle can afford a better (materially speaking) quality of life in the USA than at any time in the past: https://data.epi.org/wages/hourly_wage_percentiles/line/year...

[deleted]

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

#262

Post by stemlord »

m3kw9 wrote: post #116

This is good news actually, while you have less jobs, hopefully new ones are created, people in the future don't have the option to work slave like jobs.

i think at least one unemployable generation of low skill workers will be sacrificed before this kind of thing becomes good news

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

#263

Post by elzbardico »

ryan93 wrote: post #108
elzbardico wrote: post #52

Why do we think this is a good thing without socialism? I am not a fan of socialism, but with the level of automation we are reaching, do we really want to be ruled by our incel tech-bro overlords, living out of UBI, in a permanently bi-strated society without even the illusion of social mobility and democracy we have nowadays?

Almost no one running these companies is even childless. Much more likely the people complaining are

Well. Money talks man.

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

#264

Post by econ »

econ wrote: post #214
heavyset_go wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be plenty of money to be made serving the needs and interests of the wealthy, while the rest of us are serviced by an informal economy that doesn't see institutional investment. Look at street markets in countries with high wealth disparity. The well-off wouldn't shop or eat there, and they certainly wouldn't invest in a street vendor, the vendors are meant to serve the needs of people in poverty. See Citi…

Same as it always was except from the last few decades.

That is to say we have much to lose.

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

#265

Post by singleshot_ »

myself248 wrote: post #218
guhidalg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pray tell, what jobs can't be automated soon?

Destroying rogue AI

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

#266

Post by paradox242 »

marcellus23 wrote: post #169
gruntbuggly wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this thinking thrown around often, but I don't see how net new jobs would be created by efficiencies. Amazon wouldn't adopt robots if it created more employment overhead downstream. Sure, there will be robot maintainers, but not at a replacement level of the roles replaced. Companies adopt technologies because they reduce the net amount of human input (cost) required, right?

Well, the industrial revolution has been a story of continuous efficiency gains and increasing automation, but somehow there's still enough jobs.

I'm sure the cows say the same to one another all the way up to the gates of the slaughterhouse.

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

#267

Post by banku_brougham »

damion6 wrote: post #209

Great they can stop killing people. Only place I ever worked where the ambulances came 1-5 times a day to save the old people they abuse

I dont understand why there is so little about this on social media -- my own bubble walls cant be that thick.

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

#268

Post by tw04 »

SR2Z wrote: post #257
tw04 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate endgame is either a significant reduction in global population, or UBI. You can’t just keep automating every non-knowledge job away and just hope people find something else to do. All those jobs in Detroit that went away were replaced by…? As best I can tell they were replaced by poverty and crime.

> You can’t just keep automating every non-knowledge job away and just hope people find something else to do. [citation needed] We've been at it for more than a century now and it seems to be working pretty well for nearly everyone! Our goal is not to preserve jobs. Our goal is to be more productive for fewer resources. Jobs in Detroit went away - but so did the people, who found new jobs in other cities. There has b…

> Jobs in Detroit went away - but so did the people, who found new jobs in other cities. There has been no lasting unemployment from automation, ever.

Do you have some citations? There’s absolutely no indication they “found new jobs in other cities” but there is plenty of proof they just never found another well paying job and moved into welfare or became homeless.

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

#269

Post by toomuchtodo »

Gracana wrote: post #97
toomuchtodo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robot lasts 6-7 years under typical duty cycles (per FANUC). Think how an EV is cheaper over its lifetime to operate vs a combustion vehicle, capex vs opex. Price of labor will continue to increase in the future due to structural demographics. And lets be real, Amazon warehouse jobs are not good jobs and terribly hard on the human body. No one yearns for the Amazon mines. These are jobs that should absolutely be auto…

Oh yeah I agree with what you're saying, and of course they're working on this because they think it makes sense to do so, I just figure it's still a tricky sell even to replace $20/h humans. FWIW I design industrial equipment for meat processing plants, where you'd be lucky to get 6-7 months out of a robot arm. I wish it was affordable to use robotics there, because there's a lot that could be done to eliminate some…

What are the key contributors to reduced robotic longevity, both environmental and duty cycle? How can the robot last longer in harsh environments and aggressive duty cycles?

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

#270

Post by dehugger »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #61
omneity wrote: post #2

Warehouses is definitely not where I expected robots with retractable blades to first appear. The demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWXco05eK28

It appears this bot could be about 100 times simpler if they just had storage racks with smaller cubbies at the modest expense of usable storage volume. 1 item per cubbie.

Generally speaking space is the most valuable commodity in a warehouse (up to a certain height).

A robot that costs 5x as much but yields 30% more usable space is a better value proposition.

Also you wouldn't be able to accommodate anything besides items that fit in that specific pick bin (what a cubbie is called in the industry), meaning you would always need a near perfect match of # of bins of a specific size to the # of products matching them. It would be a continual battle to change racking as products move in and out of the warehouse.

A more complicated robot is a better robot, in this case.

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