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Amazon Go

(amazon.com)
1247 points mangoman | 2 comments | 05 Dec 16 14:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.456s | source
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CodeSheikh ◴[05 Dec 16 16:16 UTC] No.13106428[source]▶
Guys this is not good. As much as I love the convenience of pick-and-go, this eventually will prove out to be drastic for a variety of bad socioeconomic reasons, that most of us are already aware of. Small businesses were already suffering at the hands of Amazon Prime. Now Amazon Go wants to not only kick out those businesses out of the block but it also wants to take away jobs of small retail salesperson. Unacceptable. This can perhaps work at Amazon headquarters but I hope, I really hope it does not make its way to major metro cities like NYC and if it does then Amazon should promise to create certain number of jobs and revenue that it intends to displace. Just because an average reader of HN does not do such jobs or had held such jobs for only a brief period in his/her life, this does not mean that lot of people don't rely on such small time jobs for their livelihood.

Places I can see this working are with low footprints such as cafes at hospitals etc.

Amazon Go, please Go away.

Updated: Grammar correction.

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1. steego ◴[05 Dec 16 16:59 UTC] No.13106871[source]▶
It's disappointing to see people downvote this post rather than respond to it.

I'm not going to argue that this sort of technology isn't going to have a decimating effect on employment, small business etc. It will. It will very likely have a huge socioeconomic impact for one simple reason: Most of us aren't planning for the next industrial revolution.

That fact that you're freaking out now tells me you really haven't been thinking deeply about the impact that automation is going to have on our society, nor have you been considering realistic solutions to these potential problems.

Automation will decimate jobs as it allows us to create lot more with less. It might give people more leisure time, or it might widen the income gap. We could send people back to school to learn relevant skills, and we might be able to do it cheaply if we maximized MOOCs and vocational training more and relied less on expensive universities with lavish facilities and football coaches with million dollar salaries.

We could also fuck up our opportunity to move forward by focusing our energy on preserving jobs that we know are going away. It's not if, it's when.

Not moving forward is not a realistic option. Even if had all the political power to get your way in this country, other countries will simply take the lead in automation. The countries that focus on their energy on educating their people to take on the next generation of jobs will be the economic leaders of tomorrow.

It's not a small problem and it's not going to magically work itself out like some laissez faire dipshits would like to tell you. This is going to be tough and painful. Now is the time to start planning for our future.

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2. Moshe_Silnorin ◴[05 Dec 16 18:33 UTC] No.13107905[source]▶
>Most of us aren't planning for the next industrial revolution.

The value of labour will continue to decline. While your labour has value, saving up as much money as possible and putting it in index funds seems like a really good idea.