Fears of employee displacement as Amazon brings robots into warehouses(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Fears of employee displacement as Amazon brings robots into warehouses
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/18/amazon-robot-warehouses-digit-workers
6 comments
We have a shrinking fertility rate, but it is still above replacement, meaning the global population is still increasing but just not as fast as it used to.
Almost every western country (including the USA) has sub replacement fertility rates, you're probably thinking of population growth rate which is still above replacement due to immigration.
They're probably thinking global rate because that's exactly what they posted. Western countries, even the US, are not the entirety of humanity.
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We live longer lives due to medicine not technology
Also technology that alleviates us (mid-upper class in the rich western world) from toxic or back breaking work.
Medicine is technology.
In japan, elevator ladys was still a thing in shopping centres, when I visited japan 2005.
It's still a thing in India
I like my speedy Amazon deliveries and don't like the grueling conditions, often reported on by the Guardian, that Amazon warehouse workers have to deal with to support that pace. I look forward to the day when automation puts an end to that.
(edited for typo)
(edited for typo)
This is not materially different from the robots that Amazon already has in the warehouses. But instead of storing things in pods that have to be moved by Kiva-derived robots to humans who then do the picking and put things into totes, now it's the totes themselves that are being stored on shelves. You're still going to have the picking process, and everything downstream of that.
Seems to me like this is much lower density of storage than using the pods, and that will mean fulfillment centers will have to be much larger in order to store enough totes to equal what they could have stored with pods.
Seems to me like this is much lower density of storage than using the pods, and that will mean fulfillment centers will have to be much larger in order to store enough totes to equal what they could have stored with pods.
I don't think Digit actually has hands/fingers. So it may not be an immediate threat.
But Amazon does have prototypes for the main packing job, doesn't it? Or at least research robots that can do part of it.
I feel like it only be another year or two and then all the Amazon warehouse jobs will be automated.
One interesting thing is if you look at Amazon's recent press release about automation, they keep stressing how much all of it is just helping the workers, etc. They won't be able to keep saying that for too much longer.
But Amazon does have prototypes for the main packing job, doesn't it? Or at least research robots that can do part of it.
I feel like it only be another year or two and then all the Amazon warehouse jobs will be automated.
One interesting thing is if you look at Amazon's recent press release about automation, they keep stressing how much all of it is just helping the workers, etc. They won't be able to keep saying that for too much longer.
"employee displacement" what a term.
Jobs which can be taken by automation, should be.
One day we will look at warehouses where robots pack boxes and think "how strange that people used to do that job, how mind-numbing and boring it must have been".
I am not going to pretend to know what employment current warehouse workers will transition to in the future, but I'm hopeful because
1) we have a shrinking world population, so there will be less people to fill certain jobs
2) we've always had improved quality of life for most people as a result of technological change - this could probably be debated, but we have longer lives, excess food, etc etc. We live in a world of excess - that doesn't mean we can't/shouldn't improve our world, but we don't need to create "more", we need to live better.
When did I become a ranting lunatic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_operator