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Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

(spectrum.ieee.org)
209 points Luc | 7 comments | 09 May 25 11:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.336s | source | bottom
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thisisnotauser ◴[09 May 25 16:14 UTC] No.43938444[source]▶
Henry Ford famously wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars. When Bezos replaces everyone with robots, who will be left to buy his junk?
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dan-robertson ◴[09 May 25 17:45 UTC] No.43939348[source]▶
Plenty of people who don’t work for Amazon already buy stuff from there. I guess I mostly see the jobs as exchanging labour for something that society values and so by automating, there is more labour available to do things society values and so society gets more of what it values. And if you think working for Amazon is bad for people then you should be happy if automation is decreasing the number of people suffering that bad thing (though automation won’t always decrease this, eg see rise in number of bank tellers/branches in the US). But that isn’t really the way that lots of people talk about jobs and so if what you want is for people to have somewhere local where they can exchange their time for money to spend on goods and services then I guess automation and efficiency don’t really matter because the point of the job is to ensure the worker has money coming in rather than to ensure that something useful comes out of it. That latter point of view is pretty popular and I think I’m describing it pretty terribly – I’m sure there is a much more reasonable argument for it.
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1. guhidalg ◴[09 May 25 18:11 UTC] No.43939604[source]▶
I think the latter view is usually held by people who know they won't experience productivity gains from automation.

Say someone who is has driven a taxi all their life or driven a forklift. They can appreciate how adding air-conditioning to their vehicle allows them to drive in hotter days, therefore they can do more work. But automating their whole job away with autonomous vehicles doesn't benefit them, so they don't want it.

Personally, I think those people can't be picky about their jobs. If you do something that is automatable, you will be out of a job sooner or later. When that happens, don't get mad and go find another soon-to-be automated job.

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2. 8note ◴[09 May 25 18:31 UTC] No.43939749[source]▶
meanwhile, i wont mind if they trash your robot taxi so that its inoperable. shoulda put that money and automation into something that doesnt break so easily
3. myself248 ◴[09 May 25 19:15 UTC] No.43940090[source]▶
Pray tell, what jobs can't be automated soon?
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4. guhidalg ◴[09 May 25 19:42 UTC] No.43940297[source]▶
The ones where human interaction is the point. Education, bar tenders, nursing, tourism, for example.
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5. mschuster91 ◴[09 May 25 19:51 UTC] No.43940351{3}[source]▶
Japan is moving fast on a few of these, particularly as their population is rapidly aging.
6. bmitc ◴[09 May 25 21:17 UTC] No.43940951{3}[source]▶
The unfortunate reality is that humans seem to have this innate desire to get rid of ourselves. I see us trying to automated everything. To what end, I do not know.
7. singleshot_ ◴[10 May 25 00:04 UTC] No.43942087[source]▶
Destroying rogue AI