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Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

(spectrum.ieee.org)
209 points Luc | 3 comments | 09 May 25 11:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.437s | source
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omneity ◴[09 May 25 11:53 UTC] No.43935797[source]▶
Warehouses is definitely not where I expected robots with retractable blades to first appear.

The demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWXco05eK28

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krapp ◴[09 May 25 11:56 UTC] No.43935812[source]▶
That's still far slower than a human being, and those bins are far too neat.
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usrusr ◴[09 May 25 12:46 UTC] No.43936128[source]▶
It's not about throughput per unit, it's about throughput per unit of cost.

If five cheap robots outperform a single skilled worker, robots win. But depending on jurisdiction, those five robots might still lose to a dozen or so slaves kept near starvation. For the skilled worker it's bad news one way or the other.

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bluGill ◴[09 May 25 12:51 UTC] No.43936171[source]▶
What skilled worker? This is a low skill worker they are replacing.
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LoganDark ◴[09 May 25 12:57 UTC] No.43936211[source]▶
Have you read the article?

    "The fastest humans at this task are like Olympic athletes. They’re far faster than the robots, and they’re able to store items in pods at much higher densities."
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1. bluGill ◴[09 May 25 13:12 UTC] No.43936347[source]▶
Compare to a doctor who needs nearly a decade of special training. Or an engineer who needs a complex university training program.

Yes some are better than others. However there is still a vast gulf in skill between those people than engineers (much less doctors), while the gap between them and someone off the street is much less. (the article doesn't say how long it takes someone to get to that high skilled state or even if it is possible to train to that level - if someone can show me data on this I might change my mind on skill)

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2. dullcrisp ◴[09 May 25 13:52 UTC] No.43936758[source]▶
What data? Just try it yourself and see.
3. LoganDark ◴[09 May 25 15:16 UTC] No.43937740[source]▶
If your point is that experience is not necessarily skill, I suppose that's fair, but in that case skill does not always tell the full story.