Amazon’s humanoid warehouse robots will eventually cost only $3 per hour to operate. That won’t calm workers’ fears of being replaced.::The robot’s human-like shape is bound to reignite workers’ fears of being replaced, but Amazon says they’re designed to “work collaboratively.”
Governments need to be proactive in getting taxes and strategies in place ready for corps that do this to offset the increases to recipients on welfare.
They won’t of course.
That won’t calm workers’ fears of being replaced.
no shit
“Our robots will cost less than half of minimum wage per hour to run! But don’t worry, we definitely won’t continue optimizing our profits.”
They’ll cost way more than that.
But they’ll produce the same work continuously for 24 hours a day, with x hours per month maintenance, and much closer to zero mistakes.
The automotive manufacture industry is a perfect case study. One of the first industries where such robots really made sense and were worth the cost. Especially becuase they removed people from the more dangerous tasks. Another angle I hear people arguing for robots (and makes sense).
They’re heavily automated today.
I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, but robots still suck at doing stuff like this. Maybe when they marry robots up with AI, we’ll have robots that can figure out what to do when there’s the slightest deviation to the operating conditions, like a piece of trash shows up on the line, or they get twisted 30 degrees off from their station, or a part of the line gets moved 2 inches. For now though, robots are only great at following pre-programmed instructions EXACTLY the same way every time. Even then, they still manage to fuck that up some of the time. I worked with welding robots for years that only had one task and one task only, to apply welds to car seat parts, and they fucked up on us all the time, on a daily basis. The technology will get there one day, but I doubt we’re there.
Considering how each generation of Boston Dynamics robots becomes more and more graceful, I don’t see how the problems you suggested won’t be non-issues incredibly fast.
Also, unrelated to your comment, people are delusional if they don’t think this is the ultimate goal, right? Amazon’s reassurances are bunk - if they could eliminate people they would, they just can’t do without them yet.
I work with a system of distribution robots and can attest to everything you’ve just said. The only caveat I’d add is that “some day” may be sooner than you think. Moore’s law is a helluva force.
Maybe when they marry robots up with AI,
Do you want skynet?! Cause that’s how you get skynet!
Workers were always going to be replaced and automated pretending otherwise is disingenuous and caters to the absolute most inept among us.
People need to start bitching about taxing these organizations and supporting UBI.
More than UBI we need to empower democratic ownership through things like worker and community lead cooperatives. As well as better systems of education and training for a quickly changing world.
If the only reason people get UBI is to placated them then when we can be ignored or surpressed instead we will be.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In June 2021, the company introduced a fleet of four robots named after characters from “Sesame Street” and “The Muppets,” — Bert, Ernie, Scooter, and Kermit.
In November 2022, Amazon introduced Sparrow, a picking robot arm with a suction cup hand that’s meant for handling individual items in the warehouse inventory.
“Digit can move, grasp, and handle items in spaces and corners of warehouses in novel ways.”
“We are passionate about technology that makes the work experience of our employees safer, easier, and less repetitive,” Amazon says on its website.
“Doing so gives our employees the time and opportunity to take a step back, look at how orders are moving though our sites, and find new ways to delight and serve our customers.”
Amazon has pushed back on these concerns, saying that its robots will only create new categories of jobs within the company.
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