Amazon hid its safety crisis

Post by tpmx » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

programd wrote: post #58

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…

THe Kiva video is not state-of-the-art I think. Check out this automated grocery warehouse, something right out of Factorio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKrcpa8Z_E Humans would just get in the way and get mangled.

Post by palijer » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

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…

Post by amelius » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

qppo wrote: post #39

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…

> It's an utterly mindless job I worked as a picker/packer one summer. This is an understatement, even before the robots did the walking for you. It's interesting that the only thing left is to make a robot that can handle the objects to be placed, currently they cost more than minimum wage human labor unless the thing being picked is designed to be handled by a machine. Ultimately that's what I think will happen, th…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 10:00 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 cmxch » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #49

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The response to this is usually, "Well, then people should be retrained." It's kind of an elitist, SV bubble trope at this point. There are millions of people who simply cannot be retrained. Yes, pick-and-pack is mind-numbingly boring for many people. But for others, it's good. Or even challenging. I've worked on an assembly line three times in my life. I found it tedious and pointless, and to keep my mind busy, I mo…