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Amazon 8th Generation Warehouse

I'm actually surprised that they're not a lot more automated by now. If you really look at what they've implemented, you can see that it's all fairly low-tech (albeit on a massive scale) and still requires a lot of human labor. The biggest complexity is in the programming ... getting the little robots to retrieve the carts and deliver them to the right place without running into each other or causing log jams, or bumping packages off the big conveyors so they're routed to the right truck.

I recently saw another video, looked like the same warehouse, where they showed humans packing trucks with the outgoing packages. That should be something that robots with fairly simple vision systems are fully capable of doing.
 
See, you thought that the future would be Terminators and Matrix drones killing your entire family and leading to the end of the human race.

Little did you know...you were going to be run over to death by Kirby's.

RIP Humanity.
 
Carson Dyle said:
I'm actually surprised that they're not a lot more automated by now.
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I am too. I was really surprised by what looked like a worker (the woman) looking at a screen and then searching a stack of merchandise for the correct product. Granted the stack was brought to her but I would have at least thought there would be some sort of method to indicate which bin to look at like an LED light on the bin the item needs to be pulled from. You could pulse it if multiple of the same items were needed
 
Ns1 said:
The future of $15 minimum wage
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Yup!
2012-04-19-Bender_Rodriguez.png
 
Robots taking jobs from people so the company can have the lowest margins in the business, eventually putting all competitors out of business, resulting in even more job loss.

"Too cool"

I may be the only one, but I don't like Amazon's business model.
 
Nashemon said:
I may be the only one, but I don't like Amazon's business model.
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Robots are not part of their business model. Robots are a tool to help them minimize labor costs, which virtually every company on this planet attempts to do.

Your problem is that you see robots running around a warehouse and you say "Oh, they move like people, so they're kinda like people-replacements. Those evil bastards!" I'll bet you don't say that when you look at a conveyor belt or a box sealer or a fork lift or a computer terminal .... or any of a million other labor-saving inventions that have benefited manufacturing and distribution over the past 200 years.
 
I'm looking forward to the day when the robot picks up the package and fly straight to my house in 15 min instead of just passing it to some human to put in a package.
 
Nashemon said:
Robots taking jobs from people so the company can have the lowest margins in the business, eventually putting all competitors out of business, resulting in even more job loss.

"Too cool"

I may be the only one, but I don't like Amazon's business model.
Click to expand...

Oh, so you prefer that the company not adopt more efficient ways of doing things? Do you also ride in a horse and buggy with a driver to make sure horse and buggy drivers don't lose their jobs because of these new fangled horseless carriages? 😉

If a company can do something better and more efficiently than their competitors, then the competitors will go out of business. That competition drives improvement among everyone in the marketplace, leading to the best outcome for consumers. That's the way it works, that's the way it's supposed to work.
 
TXHokie said:
I'm looking forward to the day when the robot picks up the package and fly straight to my house in 15 min instead of just passing it to some human to put in a package.
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I look forward to the day when UPS and Fedex have driverless delivery trucks and robots that deliver a package to your doorstep. Eliminating those morons is the single best thing that anyone could do to ensure an item gets to its destination in one piece.
 
Nashemon said:
Robots taking jobs from people so the company can have the lowest margins in the business, eventually putting all competitors out of business, resulting in even more job loss.

"Too cool"

I may be the only one, but I don't like Amazon's business model.
Click to expand...

I just like robots, but yeah, what Carson said.

I also find these robots interesting in how fitted they are for the task. It's a pretty smart idea to make them very low, with a low cg, and then have them slide under a rack and lift it just enough to clear the floor.
 
Markbnj said:
I just like robots, but yeah, what Carson said.

I also find these robots interesting in how fitted they are for the task. It's a pretty smart idea to make them very low, with a low cg, and then have them slide under a rack and lift it just enough to clear the floor.
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Of course they could also just motorize the racks themselves. But that would be extremely expensive, as I'm sure the ratio of racks to robots is very high. If they did motorize the racks, nobody would call them robots. 🙂
 
Nashemon said:
Robots taking jobs from people so the company can have the lowest margins in the business, eventually putting all competitors out of business, resulting in even more job loss.

"Too cool"

I may be the only one, but I don't like Amazon's business model.
Click to expand...

If everyone had that attitude we'd still be in the dark ages. Just about every major advancement causes short term harm to some people as industry shifts away from whatever it was that they were doing to something else. There will always be people who are left in the dust in the wake of change. When the first factory that featured manned assembly lines came online, it put someone else who was doing it in a slower, more painstaking way out of business. Now it's the manned assembly line's turn. Nothing ever stays the same, nor should it.
 
On one hand it's cool, on the other hand it's also scary just how few humans they need - the rest will be out of work with no way of finding a replacement job.
 
Conclusive proof of just how important having a nice ass will be to our future robot overlords.
 
fleshconsumed said:
On one hand it's cool, on the other hand it's also scary just how few humans they need - the rest will be out of work with no way of finding a replacement job.
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I had this argument with my brother over the holidays (he's top management for an oil company, one percent-er). He and all his peers can't find skilled labor, so they aren't sympathetic to unskilled labor being replaced by machines.

I, on the other hand, maintain that there has to be a way for everyone to make a good living, not just the ones lucky enough to be born smart, or with certain aptitudes. The jobs that the middle and lower end of the bell curve used to get are absolutely going/gone away.
 
Carson Dyle said:
Robots are not part of their business model. Robots are a tool to help them minimize labor costs, which virtually every company on this planet attempts to do.

Your problem is that you see robots running around a warehouse and you say "Oh, they move like people, so they're kinda like people-replacements. Those evil bastards!" I'll bet you don't say that when you look at a conveyor belt or a box sealer or a fork lift or a computer terminal .... or any of a million other labor-saving inventions that have benefited manufacturing and distribution over the past 200 years.
Click to expand...
Actually I didn't watch the video (blocked at work). I'm only assuming what it is based on previous "60 minutes" stories about it.

My problem isn't the robots, though. It's the fact that Amazon is ok with losing money every year developing ways to reduce cost. "Investment mode" they call it. They undercut to the point of taking a loss, because they know all customers really want is the lowest (tax-free) cost. The only way to turn a profit is to lower operational costs. Eventually they have to start turning a profit, and in their best interests it would be right after they've eliminated all of their competition.

I've just got grim hopes for the future with a company that can do this, losing half a billion dollars every quarter. I would not be surprised if they continue until ALL competition is elimiated, they become a conglomerate, eating up B&Ms, UPS, Netflix/HULU, etc and then raise rates for their subscriptions, all the while we continue to praise them for the super deals and free shipping*.

*with subscription
 
Markbnj said:
I had this argument with my brother over the holidays (he's top management for an oil company, one percent-er). He and all his peers can't find skilled labor, so they aren't sympathetic to unskilled labor being replaced by machines.

I, on the other hand, maintain that there has to be a way for everyone to make a good living, not just the ones lucky enough to be born smart, or with certain aptitudes. The jobs that the middle and lower end of the bell curve used to get are absolutely going/gone away.
Click to expand...

Agreed. These jobs aren't being replaced so what are these people supposed to do to survive? Steal, break into your house, car jackings. Americans are not used to living in 3rd world country conditions and won't stand for it once the shit really do hit the fan when it comes to economic conditions.

Having a healthy economy is good for the country. Being able to employ the same people who is going to purchase the products the company sells is a win win for everyone. But the rich are too greedy to make sure they get 100% of the pie than to share with the rest of the people at the dinner table.
 
You guys know who else I really feel bad for? The workers at the buggy whip factory. Those goddamn devil automobile bastards put them right out of business!
 
Sonikku said:
I wonder what happens once all the unskilled jobs in America are eliminated over the next 20 years.
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They made a movie about that. I think it was called 'The Purge'

Check it out.

Do you think the company that makes the robots also had robots that assemble the robots? Do humans assemble the constructor robots?
 
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