DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool" • Hacker News Board

Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"

#51

Post by bradknowles » Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 2:27 AM UTC

alexwhb wrote: post #38

bradknowles wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wheelhouse robots? Could you be more specific? Amazon has been using robots in their fulfillment centers for years now, and there are plenty of public videos out there on those processes. But I don't see how this would replace the use of humans in other critical aspects of fulfillment center operations.

Sorry autocorrect. i meant warehouse. Have you seen these? https://youtu.be/ZWonAz7Kczs?si=a0yF-YRRmXYsYj-Q They are not the robots I assume you’re referring to that move the crates of orders around that roll on the ground.

I had not seen those, no. I had seen the robots shown at https://youtu.be/0MCMB53jlIk?si=QwWegssGG_d6utJL and https://youtu.be/G-WdDeQ4TKw?si=b3IJF2OMcFYKEIRt which I think are likely to be much more useful and practical in a warehouse setting.

IMO, human-style robots are not a good solution for automating a warehouse. They're too limited in terms of how much they can pick up and move, and they're too small. They can't do the highly dexterous operations that currently require real humans, and they can't replace what the big robots can do.

IMO, anyone who is pitching human type robots today is just spinning a bunch of of smoke and mirrors. The real success will come from completely redesigning the whole system around the new robots that will be much more effective and efficient.

Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"

#52

Post by bradknowles » Tue, Jan 23, 2024, 2:30 AM UTC

alexwhb wrote: post #37

bradknowles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we know of the current Amazon technology is bad enough that Amazon keeps closing stores. It's just not profitable enough to keep them open. Now, maybe what they're thinking is that these stores were just a training exercise and known to be unprofitable from Day One, and now those training exercises are over so they can start shutting them down. Dunno -- I have no inside information on this. But I wouldn't be loo…

Fair point, but then again… self checkout sucks!! And it’s everywhere. point being maybe it doesn’t have to be very good if it saves companies money. I hope that I’m wrong, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised

Self checkout as we know it today sucks. Imagine if you could do it based on RFID tags and just walk past with everything still in your cart. Of course, you'd have to make sure that you don't get double billed for anything, and you don't get billed for anything that someone else has nearby.

But if you got properly billed for only the things in your own cart, and that RFID scanning process was quick and easy, then I'm not sure it would suck so bad.

Re: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"

#53

Post by alexwhb » Sat, Jan 27, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #52

alexwhb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but then again… self checkout sucks!! And it’s everywhere. point being maybe it doesn’t have to be very good if it saves companies money. I hope that I’m wrong, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised

Self checkout as we know it today sucks. Imagine if you could do it based on RFID tags and just walk past with everything still in your cart. Of course, you'd have to make sure that you don't get double billed for anything, and you don't get billed for anything that someone else has nearby. But if you got properly billed for only the things in your own cart, and that RFID scanning process was quick and easy, then I'm…

Totally agree. I’d actually prefer this type of system if it’s in fact faster than checkout with a cashier. Especially now that it seems many markets have dramatically cut down on staff and it can take shocking amounts of time to checkout.