Amazon hid its safety crisis

Post by throwawaysea » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25

Animats wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The robots were too efficient. They could bring items so quickly that the productivity expectations for workers more than doubled Here's an old Kiva Robotics video that shows how picking works.[1] It's an utterly mindless job. An automated laser pointer points to the bin from which to take an object. A lighted button shows which box to put it in. A new bin then moves into position, and this goes on. Training time req…

This is why I see capitalism eventually failing. On one hand, I think it's great that these mind-numbingly boring jobs can be automated away. On the other hand, the end result is that more profits go to Amazon, while many more people have fewer opportunities to participate in the economy. For the old predictable arguments of "Well, these people can do something else, do you expect buggy whip makers to still be around…

Post by coldtea » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

logicslave wrote: post #19

Judgmentality wrote: post #10

> Jeff Bezos’ 14 leadership principles are famous inside and outside Amazon for vividly articulating what is expected of the company’s leaders. The first is customer obsession. “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards,” it reads. And yet Amazon has no real interest in solving its counterfeit problem, the same way it has no real interest in solving its safety problem. I feel like it's all PR and bullshit at…

No interest in solving the problem? I work at Amazon, we are hiring all the top ML people to work on this problem. Legions of ML PhDs. Its not easy and you are just making stuff up

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25

Animats wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The robots were too efficient. They could bring items so quickly that the productivity expectations for workers more than doubled Here's an old Kiva Robotics video that shows how picking works.[1] It's an utterly mindless job. An automated laser pointer points to the bin from which to take an object. A lighted button shows which box to put it in. A new bin then moves into position, and this goes on. Training time req…

This is why I see capitalism eventually failing. On one hand, I think it's great that these mind-numbingly boring jobs can be automated away. On the other hand, the end result is that more profits go to Amazon, while many more people have fewer opportunities to participate in the economy. For the old predictable arguments of "Well, these people can do something else, do you expect buggy whip makers to still be around…

Post by ColanR » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #32

ColanR wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet Amazon has no real interest in solving its counterfeit problem I don't get this Amazon hate. Weren't they the ones who originally came up with the idea for putting purchaser reviews with the product, and the 5-star rating system? It seems like their solution was to 'crowdsource' the problem. Now people have learned to game the system, but I buy plenty of electronics from amazon and from ebay, and I'm carefu…

> Weren't they the ones who originally came up with the idea for putting purchaser reviews with the product, and the 5-star rating system? Were they? I doubt it...

Post by qppo » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #8

Aperocky wrote: post #4

> The robots were too efficient. They could bring items so quickly that the productivity expectations for workers more than doubled, according to a former senior operations manager who saw the transformation. And they kept climbing. At the most common kind of warehouse, workers called pickers – who previously had to grab and scan about 100 items an hour – were expected to hit rates of up to 400 an hour at robotic ful…

The robots were too efficient. They could bring items so quickly that the productivity expectations for workers more than doubled Here's an old Kiva Robotics video that shows how picking works.[1] It's an utterly mindless job. An automated laser pointer points to the bin from which to take an object. A lighted button shows which box to put it in. A new bin then moves into position, and this goes on. Training time req…