Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes hundreds of millions to build a warehouse. Amazon has tons of them. Retrofitting things is capital intensive.
Humans are cheaper than robots too...
Only if you don't need to pay them a living wage.
Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
71–80 of 298 posts
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#72Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#73And yet some people think AI will take over jobs. I am amazed this robot was not in place 20 years ago. Really ?
I can tell you that since last month a company now does all their training translations via AI, no more need for the whole translations team.
Additionally, this is now a common feature in CMS space, automated translation of content and assets.
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it's pretty expensive in the long run. They want raises, are finicky about their health, have pesky habits like going home, having life partners and something silly called work/life balance. Also, they sometimes organize and become collective bodies under something called a union. In reality, I'm a strong supporter of everything above. Maybe we can really provide people better jobs by delegating repetitive a…
>are finicky about their health Machines are anything but reliable. They need constant servicing and maintenance and still break entirely
Humans are not reliable either. Humans are much more likely to be out sick unexpectedly.
If you keep up the maintenance plan for machines they rarely break before their predicted retirement date when you replace them. And since the maintenance and retirement dates are predicted in advance you can plan for them and thus ensure they happen when you want them to.
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human labor is shockingly cheap.
Amazon warehouse base pay is ~$21-22/hr due to labor supply shortages. https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+raise+wages+warehouse
Where I live your basic fast food job is starting at $16/hour. When I was a kid $20/hr was a nice wage for an adult, these days it is very low.
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#76Is there a future where we stop buying so much garbage?
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
For now. Wait until LLMs get better and destroy the ability for junior developers to get their foot in the door.
How do you get senior developers if you replace the junior developers?
Sounds like a problem for some future CEO, long after current CEO has gotten a fat bonus from improving quarterly profits now.
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's still far slower than a human being, and those bins are far too neat.
Neat is very important for consistent performance. A restaurant can improve performance during the "lunch rush" by letting neat slip, but that carelessness is already costing them performance at the end of the lunch rush - this works because just as this catches up they get several hours in the afternoon to clean things up. Then supper crowd where they do it again - then they have the rest of the night to clean up fr…
Slow is fast is a saying for a reason. It is just as true for a human as it is for a robot.
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#79And yet some people think AI will take over jobs. I am amazed this robot was not in place 20 years ago. Really ?
I don't understand why people still express doubt about this - AI already is and has been taking over jobs.
It's really about the hype that is the problem and that people often mean LLMs when they say AI.
LLM isn't going to drive a forklift; it needs more agency than a textbox in order to do that.
But it's really going to be products (ex. Microsoft Word) rather than a technology (ex. Electricity) that'll replace jobs (ex. Typists).
Re: Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
For now. Wait until LLMs get better and destroy the ability for junior developers to get their foot in the door.
How do you get senior developers if you replace the junior developers?
You don't, you slowly cannibalize your business and industry. By the time consequences show up, you've already jumped ship with your golden parachute