This is self-reported: remember the 1000 Indians that were watching people shop at the Amazon Go stores?<p>Amazon told us it was all "sensors" because it fit their company narrative to do so.<p>I am not saying that Amazon doesn't have 750k robots and hasn't laid off 100k people... but they usually have some seasonality, plus, the quoted number is from 2021, the height of at-home shopping.<p>"The world's second-largest private employer employs 1.5 million people. While that's a lot, it's a decrease of over 100,000 employees from the 1.6 million workers it had in 2021"<p>I think a bit of skepticism is in order, is all.
It's clear that technological development creates a <i>shift</i> in jobs, i.e some jobs are lost, but new ones are created as a result. Whether the total #jobs increases or decreases is debatable.<p>The issue that I see addressed less often is that the new jobs require by definition, a higher skill set. (You wouldn't displace 100 manual labor workers with a machine that requires 105 workers to maintain). So by definition, the average intelligence requirement for jobs increases over time (though never stated directly). This means that as time and technology progress, a growing percentage of people will have no jobs that they are capable of doing. [o]<p>What's the proper social response to that, I don't know.<p>[o] If and when AGI comes along, that will be all of us.
It's difficult to hold the paradox evident in most of the commentary here: both the desire to free people from the unhealthy repetitive tedium they are bound to participate in daily, and the overarching need for "jobs".<p>I'm much happier watching robots take over dangerous, mundane tasks, than seeing them edge into creative, intellectual, and decision-making work. Wasn't that the dream? That robots do all our work and we just chill, enjoy a life of leisure and fulfilling activity?<p>Looking back in history across all the -isms, the surplus created by those labouring has rarely gone to benefit them (unless we look as far back as hunter-gatherers). I don't know that advancing technology is the credible threat here; I think the misalignment is deeper than systemic even, as it persists across lifespans of civilisations.
As Amazon really using that humanoid robot in production? Or is that just a demo?<p>The first big breakthrough was when Amazon bought Kiva, which makes those little mobile platforms that move racks of goods around. Those are mechanically simple and cost-effective, and have been very successful. Amazon is now making about 1000 units a day of the current model.[1] This is about 10% of the human birth rate in the US.<p>Moving standardized totes around automatically is decades old. Picking things out of bins has been difficult, and gets better as computer vision gets better. Amazon is still struggling with that.<p>Amazon Prime Air drone delivery starts soon.[2]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazon-robotics-facility-photo-tour" rel="nofollow">https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazon-robotics-...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/amazon-prime-air-drone-delivery-mk30-photos" rel="nofollow">https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/amazon-prime...</a>
> The significant investment in robotics showcases Amazon’s commitment to innovation in its supply chain and highlights the company’s belief in the synergistic potential of human-robot collaboration. Despite the massive scale of automation, Amazon emphasizes that deploying robots has led to the creation of new skilled job categories at the company, reflecting a broader industry trend toward the integration of advanced technologies with human workforces.<p>An article about robots that's written by a robot. It's robots all the way down.
About 20 years ago I was a programmer at a manufacturing company. I worked on a project to automate part of materials requirements planning. The woman who was in charge of it was spending about 20 hours per week wrangling Excel spreadsheets to figure out what materials they needed. It was all based on data we had: inventory, orders, etc. A few weeks later, and with a fair amount of her help, I'd automated the whole thing. She was happy, it was her least favorite part of her job and she desperately needed time for other things. I was happy, I was showing that I was worth what they were paying me! (Salaried at the equivalent of $12.50 per hour.) BUT: That project took half a job out of the economy. A decent one at that, a nice cushy desk job.<p>Automation is definitely having an impact on labor demand, with software driving out some jobs much the way cars and trucks drove horses out of our economy. I think it points to an increasing bifurcation, with jobs being high skill / high pay or low skill / low pay, without much in the middle.<p>Of course here in the U.S. this is also being driven by our monetary policy, our tax policy, our trade policy, our labor policy, I could go on. I'm in favor of UBI, but that seems about as likely as the use of any of those levers to reduce income inequality and spread the wealth our society generates in a way that supports most of those contributing to it.
Automation can eliminate lots of jobs without replacement jobs.<p>But other times will also created new higher level jobs.<p>Especially when automation impacts a companies total cost for a high-demand independently consumed service or product. So that decrease costs can translate into decreased pricing for an upwardly elastic demand. And the revenue growth results offsets the need for fewer workers per revenue.<p>—<p>But most jobs within a company are only part of a product or service. With other parts not as automatable.<p>In this case, even automation that produces higher level jobs is likely to produce far fewer of them. Since savings in part of a value chain increase profits but impact total costs, and therefore pricing, at a much lower percentage. So increased demand is less likely to offset job reduction.<p>This is also true for any product or service from one company whose demand is anchored to any complimentary services or products from other companies.<p>—<p>Worse still, automation taking over only part of a high employee count, low skill job is very bad for employees. The number of workers is likely reduced, and as the job becomes simpler, their replacability goes up. Their value, and therefore pay and respect, go down.<p>They start to get managed ruthlessly, like just another part of the overall automation.<p>I expect the vast majority of Amazon’s headcount, across each of its logistical divisions, fall into that latter category.
The thing that's missed here is that it's not clear that robot purchase, maintenance cost and depreciation would be cheaper than paying 7.5 people a salary... Not to mention that the robots aren't going to be spending part of their salaries at Amazon as a worker might. Also, robots won't be eligible to vote in elections to support Amazon's political aspirations which give it access to billions of government contracts.<p>It seems we have gone to the opposite extreme since the days of Henry Ford where he wanted to pay his workers enough for them to be able to afford the cars they made.
I wouldn't mind if robots replaced all humans, if humans didn't need to prove they deserve housing, Healthcare and food.<p>See the Supreme Court case coming up for a preview on how we will be treated when our labor is no longer needed.<p><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/04/supreme-court-to-hear-case-on-criminal-penalties-for-homelessness/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/04/supreme-court-to-hear-cas...</a>
I wish I could believe that all this automation would lead to more leisure time for all of humanity, but it certainly won’t happen on its own out of generosity from the robot owners.
I don't know for aging economics this is somewhat good. But for developing countries it's horrible. Where humans has to search work each day to find food for night
It's a good thing actually given that the worker conditions are pretty terrible there.<p>But it is only a good thing if the increased productivity translates into better wages, increased vacations and reduced work days and not helping Jeff getting a bigger yacht.<p>And for that, it must be an active government policy.
Is there an index that ranks companies by their benefit to society? Something like amount of taxes paid, number of employees, benefits, environmental impact, etc?
I assume this is being upvoted because HN thinks this is good? At least that's what I hear in AI threads...<p>AI just allows humans to work more efficiently right? The few fulfilment center workers left are probably now 100x fulfilment workers now that they can manage a fleet of robotic workers instead of human ones. As HN says, these types of innovations historically only create new job opportunities so there's probably loads of new amazing jobs these replaced workers can go do instead.<p>For those who are worried about the future we're creating for their children, don't worry, because when robotics and AI can do everything humans can do (and better) businesses will still want hire humans, because they still hired humans when the combustion engine was invented. I'm sure it will be the same this time. Don't be so anti-progress!