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Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

(spectrum.ieee.org)
209 points Luc | 1 comments | 09 May 25 11:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | 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. pixl97 ◴[09 May 25 19:54 UTC] No.43940374[source]▶
Of course the robots don't trip and fall breaking their back and sue the company, nor do they want vacations or raises. In fact the robot performance is probably rather consistent versus human performance.