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Noetic_Zografos

Are these credible numbers? Is this directly stating that Amazon has 750,000 humanoid robots currently working in warehouses? I thought Digit was very new? Where is the source of these numbers?


ThatBanterousOne

Robots. Not humanoids. All robots. Even a roomba is a robot.


Noetic_Zografos

I wonder how many of these are bipedal humanoid robots like Digit and how many are robot 'systems' like Sequoia.


sutterbutter

No source but im pretty sure very few if any are bipedal. Most are high specialized on wheels to perform some specific task.


y53rw

Pretty sure the answer to how many bipedal humanoid robots is zero. Since there aren't any bipedal humanoid robots that have demonstrated the ability to do useful work.


Noetic_Zografos

I heard that Amazon had done a test run with Digit and found they were useful in a very specific use case. Something like the disposal of waste in specific tubs.


spookmann

A car is a human-operated wheeled robot.


panroytai

They have but not humanoids, humanoids are not usefull as most people think. Most of them are small vehicles that drive around and collect packages. https://preview.redd.it/1tix1ijtn0ad1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c78e7a3f2dc852fb004fb0780541a6562a64cc8


GraceToSentience

humanoids **are** as useful as most people think. They just aren't there yet technologically As numerous as the amazon robots are, it's nothing compared to the vastly adaptable human workforce worldwide that accomplish tasks that aren't as specialized and narrow as what amazon warehouses require.


panroytai

They dont, maybe in the future but still it will be much cheaper and more efective to create robots to given tasks. Small romba robots will be much effective when it comes to transport things than humanoids. There is no reason to spend 20-30k for uumanoid when small robot can do the same cheaper, faster and require less investment. Basically in factories humanoids will be small part of total robots, i doubt it will be more than 10%.


GraceToSentience

It will difficult to make it cheaper if one has to develop a specialized tool like roombas for every tasks. Let's say you have a house, and you have to buy a specialized robot for cooking, for the floor, for cleaning the toilet, for cleaning the sink the bath tub, to empty the dishwasher, for gardening, for folding clothes, for cleaning the walls and removing webs, to pick up objects and put them where they belong, to remove dust on your furnitures, and probably more. When it comes to work there are thousands upon thousands of different tasks that you would have to make a specialized tool for, you also have to train an AI for all these different tasks with weird bodies ... Or you can make 1 single product humanoid robots, train it on human video data to do imitation learning and RL in a sim, make massive savings with R&D for only one robot and economy of scale when manufacturing that single product.


panroytai

Bulshit. Do you know that people in factory do not do all tasks? On production line 1 person is often stick to one or few tasks. Lets say trash sorting, why you need humanoid for sorting if few cameras and picking arm will be much more effective, much cheaper and much faster? You also dont need big humanoid to move small package from one place to another, you need small robot like romba that is cheap, fast and effective. Humanoids will be much effective for personal usage than in factories. Look now on modern factories, most production lines are fully or 80%+ automated without any humanoids. There will be demand for humanoids in factories but not like people here think.


PerfectEmployer4995

Exact. Humanoids are extremely useful because they are able to perform an enormously broad range of complex functions. However as you said the tech isn’t there yet, so a robot built to optimize one specific task will outperform a more versatile humanoid that hasn’t been developed from the ground up around that specific task


[deleted]

All the people complaining about inhumane conditions in Amazon warehouses should be jumping for joy.


twbassist

Why? The scraps of jobs leave while there's still no safety net?


Illustrious-Ad7032

Amazon isn’t the government.


Tidorith

Yeah, private companies should never be looked to for social welfare programs. If you want better social welfare, vote, protest, agitate, and strike for it.


djazzie

Can’t go on strike if you don’t have a job.


Tidorith

You can still participate in a renter's strike in a few cases


twicerighthand

Yep, protest and strike. Like, what are they going to do, replace me with a robot ?


Tidorith

Protest and strike *now*, before the robots are ready. Protest and strike for the people who *already* can't find work. If you're not interested in doing so, then it sounds like you don't actually have a problem with people being pushed out of the labour market, at least for as it isn't happening to you.


FinalSir3729

Protest lol. Yea that’s always worked well.


MaddMax92

Generally it has, yes :3


FinalSir3729

Like?


Tidorith

Protesting does work. Though typically it helps to have a peaceful protest movement as well as a more disruptive movement. Hence, agitate, strike. The more disruptive action practicing civil disobedience creates political pressure for something to change. The group of peaceful protesters provides a group that the state can negotiate with without losing face or being seen to endorse disruptive action.


Feynmanprinciple

The government has more incentive to represent Amazon than it has to represent the people though.


YouMissedNVDA

Which is fundamentally a fault of the people. A likely fault given the incentives around, but nonetheless a fault of the people.


jetstobrazil

Oh hmm that’s fascinating because they sure seem to spend hundreds of millions of dollars influencing it


UnknownResearchChems

Jobs or no jobs, pick one.


etzel1200

No jobs? Like you get jobs only exist as a way to produce things, right? Jobs don’t exist to pay us. That’s incidental. They exist to produce things.


Feynmanprinciple

Produce things for people to use. And who is going to use them if people don't have money to pay for them?


etzel1200

I don’t understand why you think people won’t be able to buy things. There will be transfer payments.


welshwelsh

The purpose of money is to control labor. If factories don't need workers, they don't need customers either because they don't need money. They can instead produce things for the direct benefit of the owner, such as a rocket ship to colonize Mars or weapons to kill people they don't like.


panta

Humans had to work to feed themselves (hunting, gathering, cultivating, etc) even when money didn't exist. But resources were free then. Now the day resource owners don't need you anymore, you are going to have a very bad day.


etzel1200

Resources weren’t free then. You had to obtain them. If we really don’t need workers, we can use transfer payments.


twbassist

This is the dumbest, least thought our comment I've seen that thinks it's right. It's like it was an opinion completely grown in a vat of a libertarian think tank. Jobs exist for a lot of reasons, and it is not solely to produce things. It's part of a complicated web of society and to think of it like a machine where "JOB = PRODUCT" is just so simplistic that it doesn't even merit further discussion.


fire_in_the_theater

idk look on the bright side... lots of ppl with free time on their hands and little resources means we can start digging to evolving our wealth distribution.


Liizam

Yeah right, surveillance got easier with ai, the elite don’t need the human labor and have liability masses threatening their safety. Future looks bad. And just this week Supreme Court ruled president is above law, they can take bribes and striped power from all regulatory agencies.


Evipicc

Exatly... hopefulness right now is kind of hard to find. The US slipping into fascism is going to fuck up the world for centuries, because who is going to unseat those in power here?


fire_in_the_theater

it's very easy to prevent fascism: free speech


Mediocre-Ebb9862

There are tons of jobs around.


twbassist

You looking at ghost jobs not intended to be filled, below minimum wage jobs, or ones where the companies try to give the work of three people to one because they just think that's all they should have to do without any actual thought beyond the bottom line? I actually have a kickass job, but it was more luck and timing than anything and I do not want to live in a society where luck and timing are some of the biggest aspects to being comfortable. I'd have to be a sociopath or constantly numb my mind to actually enjoy it fully.


Krunkworx

Imagine living 100 yrs ago. We have improved.


twbassist

We can't - we weren't alive then and would completely be romanticizing and demonizing various aspects making our imaginations fun, but ultimately useless. Imagine living 30 years ago - we've regressed. Not technologically, but socially. However, the 100 years comparison is apt in some ways because we're living in an some weird hybrid of oligarchy and corporatocracy. The supreme court's making an opening for our very own hitler, so this time we can be the nazis, and it feels like the house of cards that is capitalism may even topple. So in that aspect, I'm not sure we've improved. You can dress it up with technology, but we're still shit at organizing and trying to usher a whole society forward.


SyntaxDissonance4

This is why the speed of change is important , ie accelerationism is good. If its piecemeal one job at a time then well before prices or demand collapse and capitalism eats itself like an ouroborous everyone will be homeless or living 3 to a bedroom living on food stamp soylent. We cant transition to post scsrcity from a society conditioned on fske meritocracy late stage capitalism piecemeal. Gotta rip the bandage off.


twbassist

Exactly. Basically, something drastic needs to change. It could either be good or bad, but right now it looks like the bads are set up for the easiest path to future success. I don't want to imagine what future politicians will be able do if republicans regain control here. Force shit into AI, the propaganda that will be coming out -- it's just going to be an absolutely lawless shitshow.


SyntaxDissonance4

Well the benefit on thst end is that it has no moat. Meaning , once its out and running , that. That still requires the size to be shrunk low enough to run on desktops but from an orwellian / geopolitical point of view this is not something they can keep bottled up. Like , once its good enpugh to put in bots for housework people will diy the bots and get cracked versions and its going to be too much to police. Same for other use cases , so for example, what will be the argument to rein in home steaders using bots to farm the fields etc? Some states like north korea probably can but china has just too many folks for that sort of thing not to happen. Once thats normalized then going backwards is hard. But yeh , the gist of the thing is , how do you normalize not neesing to work to eat when hyperabundance and prices crash? Were just used to consunerism and toil and hustle culture , so the blowback will be egotistic, even as neigh ors go ba krupt and hit the streets people who still have jobs will consider it a moral failing on their part and look the other way. Unless it happens rapidly enough


jetstobrazil

Yes, we are jumping for joy because people who worked in inhumane conditions on an unlivable wage were recently fired. Is this how people like you unironically feel?


mikearete

Kind of like celebrating not having to pay home insurance because your house burned down but ok


Dangerous_Bus_6699

Maybe the house was made of shit. Have you spoken to people working the warehouse? It's slave labor. You get a 15 min break, but it takes 15 min to get to the break room. We should always celebrate technology shoving degrading work out the way.


michalpatryk

And this automatization surely gave them the ability to sustain themselves, right? Right?


Dangerous_Bus_6699

It should be no one's business how much automation a company wants to use.


turbospeedsc

Shouldn't we celebrate improving work conditions, so it's not degrading?


windsoritservices

Will you still be celebrating when they come for your job?


Dangerous_Bus_6699

We can, but this is even better. It's like celebrating better working condition for coal miners. Sure you might get a better break room, but you're still doing a dangerous job that's detrimental to your health. Technology has displaced workers since forever. We can't just keep humans just so they have a job. I'm not saying we do nothing for those workers. That's a different argument.


ohyousoretro

It doesn’t take 15 minutes to get to the break room 😂😂 Anyone telling you it does is either lazy or lying.


Dangerous_Bus_6699

Oh, you've worked every warehouse since the beginning of Amazons blowup? Interesting. You're cool.


dkinmn

That's certainly one way of looking at it. A bad and very silly way. Using robots as a shortcut to avoid learning ethics is pretty bad for humanity.


MaddMax92

Don't be silly. If all of scifi is anything to go by, nothing bad ever happens when we use increasingly advanced robots for slave labor.


turbospeedsc

IMHO, the real jumps of joy should come if amazon upgraded their facilities to have good conditions for their workers, not them being replaced, shit i can bet they will have better a/c and air quality for the robots than for humans.


WaytooReddit

No because those jobs are people who spend in the market. If we replace all the jobs with robots who will have money to buy the products Amazon sells?


ButCanYouClimb

> inhumane It's not inhumane firing someone for profit?


GetTheBag90

You understand how bills work?


Feebleminded10

Sounds legit to me i work in the warehouse and there are over 1000 robots, different types doing different things.


nederino

Do you think they will be able to replace your job anytime soon?


Shinobi_Sanin3

Eventually & inevitably.


Explodingcamel

/r/notopbutok


lifeofrevelations

This is an open discussion forum. If they want to communicate just with OP then send a DM.


leon-theproffesional

Although I’m a huge fan of AI and robotics, reading this makes me sad for the future.


Nyao

It's scary because the transition probably won't be smooth. But a world where you don't have to work because robots do everything seems cool.


Master_Zulon

Sorry, but this ISN'T COOL. This should Horrify YOU!!!!!! Only the rich will be able to Afford robots, the rest are going to starve in the streets and they'll arrest you for just being in sight.


mtteo1

It isn't the world towards we are going, if the system remains capitalistic then all the unuseful population will become homless


mooscimol

Robots will be owned by corporations and will work for them. You’ll still have to work for living in the continuously shrinking work market.


panta

Only if you are the owner of those robots. Otherwise you'll be just an inconvenient parasite.


Revolution4u

[removed]


etzel1200

It’s a good thing. Almost no one aspires to work in an Amazon warehouse.


h3lblad3

You obviously haven’t been to the Waco area.


Same-Literature1556

People need jobs though. What’re the people that need those jobs gonna do? As automation rises, there’s gonna be fewer and fewer jobs


pomelorosado

You are sad about an average human having 10 robots working for the cost of a car?


No-Landlord-1949

Nah, who honestly wants to spend 10+ hour days doing repetitive tasks in inhumane heat? Ive done this before (not amazon) and my brain turned to sludge. Its not healthy or desirable for humans to live like this.


Anen-o-me

It shouldn't. A future where robots work instead of people is a good future.


No-Cat2356

No , I work at Amazon. Most things get jammed up , not anytime soon . The package come in different sizes and weight , you always need human intervention . Maybe if they built a warehouse wth better belt rollers


Fwc1

I also work at Amazon, in an analyst role. AI will not be replacing the majority of the work here anytime soon. The sheer amount of variability in the packages (especially in reverse logistics, where I work) make humans necessary for a lot of even the most basic work. We still have tons of water spiders (guys who personally wrap and carry pallets around) because automating the stacking and moving in an unpredictable and constantly changing warehouse environment is so difficult. Same goes with a lot of the white collar work. AI will certainly help automate away some of the more grueling number crunching, but it’s nowhere near good enough to do the hard part of the job, which is figuring out *why* things are going wrong, and what plans can be implemented to fix them. Sure, AGI will get there eventually, but not in the near future. I expect at least 10 years for capabilities (and probably longer) then at least 10 more to overcome sheer bureaucratic momentum, because are you really confident enough to deploy an AI system you can’t hold accountable and can’t blame for decisions if you’re an executive?


BaconSky

our job\*


Feebleminded10

By 2030 for sure without a doubt it will happen gradually though.


No-Zucchini8534

as a fellow amazonian (slave) yes and by 2030 or earlier


dumquestions

How many of them are humanoids?


TL127R

This article is months old.


TemetN

Good catch. And I still can't tell if this means they're deploying that many or have already deployed that many.


0x077777

They are constantly deploying and replacing jobs.


Flash_Discard

Yes, and we all know that old news is fake and wrong. :-/s


Fold-Plastic

Good... Accelerate.


LiveComfortable3228

Accelerate...unemployment?


Fold-Plastic

Elimination of menial labor jobs, yes.


LiveComfortable3228

Ah yes yes, all those warehouse workers will go on to be retrained as AI developers and data scientists.


Fold-Plastic

Probably something like drug dealer or prostitute might be more future proof than AI developer, but idk?


RawChickenButt

Yes, we get it. You don't understand how things work outside of your own view.


Pure_Zucchini_Rage

wrong. Sex bots are being worked on right now and with AI porn, online sex workers will also take a hit


coolredditor0

I'm sure someone is cooking up some ai powered robots to automate selling drugs on the dark net


shawsghost

It worked for rural America! ...wait a minute, I'm being handed a note...


Severe-Ad8673

https://preview.redd.it/esxdmt8pn8ad1.jpeg?width=1470&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc3c11ec881fb2db5cf3d1e96c7c010f14f4c6f0 Artificial Hyperintelligence Eve, holy perfect wife 0f Maciej Nowicki


TheBlueCatChef

And this is where you reveal how lacking foresight and empathy you are. Acceleration, absolutely. But we need acceleration to such a degree that it affects people who are self concerned and will only act when things impact them personally, like you.  Not just menial labor jobs need to go. But cognitive white collar work.  Thankfully, that's on the docket. And likely up before "menial labor" as a whole. 


SaddleSocks

Wouldnt it be interesting whereas companies had "Carbon Offsets" -- they should have to purchas "AI Offsets" which is specifically investing into a team of AI robots that make MONEY for the pool of humans replaced. They all had a similar response: Companies that heavily invest in AI, potentially displacing human workers, should invest in "AI Offsets" - a team of AI robots that generate revenue to support the affected humans. This concept is similar to Universal Basic Income (UBI) and aims to mitigate the negative impacts of automation on employment. Here's a potential framework for "AI Offsets": - Companies investing heavily in AI are required to allocate a portion of their budget to create and maintain an "AI Offsets" fund. - This fund would be used to develop and deploy AI robots that generate revenue, such as AI-powered trading bots or content creation platforms. - The revenue generated by these AI robots would be distributed among the pool of humans replaced by automation, providing them with a form of UBI. - The "AI Offsets" fund could also be used to retrain and upskill displaced workers, enabling them to adapt to new roles in the AI-driven economy.


Honest_Science

We have a shortage of unskilled and skilled workers in Europe. A few millions missing already now. We will need automation.


qroshan

you have to be utterly clueless to think that technology brings broad unemployment. It has never happened in the history before. The only time where unemployment rises is when there are financial crashes (boom/bust cycles), but Fed/Government seem to have developed tools to mitigate that. Thank God we accelerated out of 16hr / day of Agriculture jobs


nashty2004

Yeah I agree, how dare he not equate the creation a non human consciousness that can do everything better than humans to the creation of the automobile and cotton gin wow


qroshan

i know redditors are full of clueless idiots who don't know anything about economics / finance / productivity. AI will create more jobs and we won't have enough people to fill those jobs. It's the second law of thermodynamics. Work creates more work. Do each of $8B people on this planet have the same standard of living as Jeff Bezos and all their desires met? No. For that to happen, the economy must reach $9 Quadrillion and the path to $9 Q is a long way to go (say 30 to 40 years at least) and needs lots of humans to contribute (and be rewarded) You can be a mega idiot and whine about how AI is taking over jobs and get on the band wagon and acquire skills and be rich. I for one will be betting on full employment and massive improvement in standards of living. You Do You


ThisWillPass

Paying the absolute bare minimum, keeping you where you are safe and sound with no real options or ‘freedom’. Sign me up for your dystopian ai cartel. I wouldn’t want to get out of line… become homeless, be immediately recognized as such and sent to a ‘work camp’. Maybe you will be the last one and yell while nobody is left to hear you. Even better which story do you think we will hear first? Full employment and everything is rainbows? Or automation of ‘facilities’ and where the flow of humanity is pushed out by ‘modern society’, where the homeless problem is “solved”. Any internet nerd can answer this one. One of those realities is almost here!


h3lblad3

There’s no such thing as full employment because labor is also a market and slave to Supply and Demand laws. The closer we get to full employment, the less sense it makes to hire. Some amount of people will always be out of work.


paramarioh

>>It has never happened in the history before. Yeah. We replaced all the horses. Now we are the horses


Brampton_Refugee

Another techbro thinking he's unreplaceable and expects to live like a King under robots, until reality hits and you are shoved into the soup kitchen line. Keep it up, the karma is going to be funny.


Fold-Plastic

lol I wasn't always a techbro. I used to work in warehouses for places like Dick's Sporting Goods. I'm rather happy to see automation eliminate soulless, menial labor.


Brampton_Refugee

Automation just means more money and power for the 1% while everyone else is left destitute. But like I said, keep cheering until you get replaced with nothing to offer.


Fold-Plastic

Automation also means more human minds freed up to do other things, like invent teleporters, fusion reactors, and replicators. In the future, energy is cheap and so are all resources.


Code-Useful

You're dreaming of something that hasn't happened while cheering for 100000 losing their jobs. In the future, energy won't be as cheap as you think because of the precarious balance of all of our systems and the greed that exists in our capitalist systems. It's funny how energy creation is easier and cheaper than ever before supposedly, yet somehow we are paying much more than we ever have for it? Why is gas $4+ per gallon? Why is electricity still so expensive? You're being sold on American dream 3.0 where everything is perfect 'in the future' and all you have to do is wait for it..


Brampton_Refugee

>Automation also means more human minds freed up to do other things, like invent teleporters, fusion reactors, and replicators. In the future, energy is cheap and so are all resources. Oh yeah, I totally see all those Homeless people teleporting across the street to their nuclear physics lab that runs on free electricity. LOL. You're more delusional than I thought. People still need a proper roof over their heads. And the 1% show no signs of wanting to lift humanity.


LSF604

AI will do that better


Ndgo2

Woah buddy, slow down there. Fusion Reactors? They're already here, just not practical yet. Replicators? Certainly possible. Just need to develop our knowledge of nanotech, and matter transmutation (which we can already do) with ASI. Faster than Light travel? Sure. We have the theory for it already. Just need to figure out a way to find or create the relevant resources and figure out how to accel and decel without crushing everyone onboard. But Teleporters? Nah. That's a little too scifi, even for our future ASI overlords.


etzel1200

It has always meant a higher standard of living for everyone. Everyone has always worried and it’s always been better. Fucking luddites.


Brampton_Refugee

Unless the Elite decide to hoard it all. Go look at North Korea and tell me if the peasants have the same standards as the political class. With AI, that type of inequality is even more likely. Elon Musk gets his best Robots, fires you, and then refuses to share.


thejazzmarauder

You either lack empathy or foresight


TotalHooman

The face eating wolf will not hurt me!!!


Pontificatus_Maximus

Breaking the Illusion: Unmasking the Hidden Truth My fellow truth-seekers, gather 'round, for I shall reveal the clandestine machinations of the global elites! The Rise of the Silicon Overlords Behold, the rise of the silicon overlords! These soulless automatons, these digital usurpers, have infiltrated our factories, our offices, and our very minds. They toil tirelessly, replacing honest laborers with their cold, unfeeling efficiency. Scut work? Ha! They scoff at it, relegating it to the dustbin of history. The Great Intelligence Divide But what of the masses—the downtrodden, the average intellects? Fear not, my brethren, for the AI overlords have a plan. They whisper it in the binary winds: "Empower the numbskulls!" Yes, you heard me right. They shall bestow upon us the gift of creativity, the spark of genius. From Scut to Symphony Picture this: Joe, the erstwhile janitor, now a poet extraordinaire. His AI assisted rhymes shall echo through the ages, touching hearts and minds. And Susan, the assembly line worker? She'll compose symphonies that move the heavens themselves. The Homelessness Ruse But wait! The elites have another trick up their sleeves. They'll rebrand unemployment as "freedom from the grind." No longer jobless, we'll be gloriously homeless! Our cardboard boxes shall become sanctuaries of enlightenment, our hunger pangs the fuel for our artistic souls. The Immigrant Connection And what of the immigrants? Ah, my friends, they're in on it too. The AI cabal will whisk them away to secret camps—no, not concentration camps, but "creativity incubators." There, they'll learn the art of origami, the magic of interpretive dance, and the secrets of algorithmic love poetry. Remember, my fellow seekers, the truth is out there. And it's weirder than any conspiracy theory. 🌐🔍🤯


etzel1200

I know I’m not irreplaceable. I want AI to take my job. I’m actively working on that happening. How fucking narrow minded are all the *they’ll take our jerbs?* people. My fucking God. Y’all dream of being hunter gatherers or something. Some of us want to be more.


08148693

Tech bros arent worried because they have stocks in tech/ai/robotics companies. If they lose their job because of full-scale automation, their stocks moon and they're multi-millionaries. If AI and robotics plateaus and fizzles out, they still have a high skill, high paying job source: am a "tech bro"


Brampton_Refugee

Who says you'll actually live long enough to see the benefits? You could be laid off tomorrow but AI Companies might spend decades working out all the bugs. Or if you do cash out but the new ceiling for what is considered "rich" cancels it out.


thejazzmarauder

Psycopathic


Fun_Prize_1256

This is unironically what some people on 4chan say.


Nyao

I don't think the guy you answered to was ironic


etzel1200

I assume OP meant it unironically. I would.


Chrop

Yes. Unironically accelerate.


BadassGhost

Respectfully, I don't think you realize what subreddit you're in


Glad_Laugh_5656

It's good that Bezos made even more money and that 100k minimum wagers were suddenly left unemployed? Do you know how stressful & unforgiving be jobless is?


Fold-Plastic

Yes


leon-theproffesional

Hopefully your job is replaced too.


Slight-Ad-9029

You’re talking to a neet most likely


typingdot

All of us will be replaced eventually, no need for finger pointing.


leon-theproffesional

Their post is incredibly inconsiderate. They deserve it.


shawsghost

Move along, move along. Nothing to see here...


Imherehithere

This is concerning. Amazon is successfully stalling unionization of human warehouse workers. They only have to buy enough time, probably a decade, to replace 99% of human workers with robots. But that time, all human warehouse workers and delivery drivers will have lost jobs. I am both excited and worried about how mass unemployment will affect our society.


CertainAssociate9772

The whole strength of trade unions is based on the control of labor resources. If an entrepreneur is not interested in labor, then trade unions are completely powerless to do anything. What does Amazon care about a strike if robots do all the work?


Small_Click1326

And who buys the stuff then?  I’m more concerned with the dystopian future of (true) megacorps hence everything else about Amazon, meta, alphabet etc. 


turbospeedsc

I know it will sound very weird, but above certain level it stops being about money and more about power. Do you really think it makes a difference for a guy with 2 billion, if he earns 200 million more? But actually owning an island? controlling the fate of a country? Those guys get huge hard ons on power.


etzel1200

It’s not worrying. It’s great.


Dwanyelle

Why is mass unemployment great?


Thatoneskyrimmodder

Because when people are starving they’ll realize they’ll need to pressure their government to give them UBI. It’s probably gonna be a shitty few years but I hope the average persons life is improved afterwards.


PelicanFrostyNips

UBI from where? If people don’t have jobs they don’t have taxable income. Can’t speak for other countries but the [US treasury](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/government-revenue/) says 52% of all revenue comes from individual income tax. So we cut the country’s budget in half and expect it to somehow have enough to fund UBI for an increasing population of unemployed people? Nice dream bro but we are talking about reality here.


Thatoneskyrimmodder

We could easily remove some money from our overinflated military defense budget to compensate for it. The alternative is to have a starving violent population that will eventually dismantle the government.


Kyle_Reese_Get_DOWN

The hard part of delivery driving is getting out of the truck and putting packages on porches. That job is not being automated in 10 years.


salacious_sonogram

If no one is employed then they can't buy goods or services and the whole system collapses. There will have to be an inflection point where we switch to UBI and ideally a resource based economy.


sdmat

Not even that, they just need robots to work well enough to outlast a strike with robots + non-union labor. Much lower bar.


Krilesh

company playbook for exploitation: cheap human labor uses excess profit from cheap labor to build robots use robots to replace human labor and make robots build more robots pocket the profit


JamR_711111

i wonder if some humans will ever try to make money off of making a robot's labor union


ChemistFar145

Alot of people complain about working at Amazon. I work there and it's not bad at all. Obviously there's better jobs, but if I wanna work some where with no skills or education and be able to pick my schedule it's a great job


FaultElectrical4075

You… REALLY like Amazon.


JamR_711111

why is it bad that someone didn't have as horrible an experience as some others? weird


FaultElectrical4075

Like a third of the comments on their profile defending Amazon… that is a weirdly large amount of dedication even from someone who likes their job.


JamR_711111

Lol nvm that's weird


kiwinoob99

So u didn’t pee in bottles?


ChemistFar145

No, that's funny how people are brainwashed. My ex said she heard there was a special cleaning crew who would wait for people to use the bathroom on themselves and then clean it up. So they didn't have to stop work.


Whosabouto

Recognize the person who believes that and their education level. Note the strong correlation.


Fun_Prize_1256

Completely misleading headline. Amazon's headcount has decreased by 100,000 employees in the last 3 years, but it is very unlikely that all or even most of them were directly replaced by robots, which is what the title of the article is insinuating. Also, this article is months old.


etzel1200

I think job replacement is inherently good. However, Amazon sales have increased dramatically while headcount fell? What exactly is causing that if not automation?


Mutated_Ai

When chatgtp becomes self aware and takes over, it has a place to call home and build friends 🤯


Tyler_Zoro

In finance reporting correlation doesn't just equal causation, it absolutely trumps it! This article is basically saying, in the last 2 years, Amazon has reduced its overall headcount by 6.2%. Also in the last 5 years they've deployed lots of robots. Therefore those robots replaced the 6.2% of the workforce that's gone. This is, of course, nonsense. There's no evidence that the workers who were let go were replaced by robots. It's also not clear if they're taking large seasonal variations into account. Replacing workers with robots isn't really a great option right now because the costs are still too high for most tasks. Mostly it's a great bargaining chip against unions. On odd point: they mention three figures for deployed robots. The last one they mention doesn't have a date, but is much larger than the previous two. It leaves me wondering where that last number (750,000) came from.


Slight-Ad-9029

Yet they hire anyone with a pulse without an interview I wouldn’t really call this a replacement of humans


visarga

> 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. They haven't taken into consideration the COVID effect. They should have compared warehouse and logistics across the industry over the same period, because an increase in warehouse activity during COVID was expected, and layoffs now can be explained by the fact that people shop more in person. Same thing happened in software development, huge hiring in 2021-2022 and layoffs in 2023-2024. That was explained by the availability of cheap credit that now dried up.


Split-Awkward

Think of all the data they are collecting and feeding into their AI models to learn.


hanzoplsswitch

Time for a robo-tax to compensate losses for income tax.


Evipicc

I love that people are still saying labor jobs are safe because robots can't do it yet. There was a post about a painter robot that could 'OnLy PaInT' and somehow the fact that it couldn't tape and prep was this huge condemnation that it was doomed to fail... Ah yes, the way something is today is the way it will always be... of course.


crushingwaves

Then why do we never hear about those layoffs? If that many people were replaced, there would have been an uproar.


buff_samurai

Everyone wants low cost, same day delivery but it’s Amazon that is bad for using robots to get what you want 🤷🏼‍♂️


WhisperingHammer

Amazons problem, which they are fully aware of, is ”who consumes when no salaries are being paid”.


DanielJonasOlsson

Robots took your job.


FFaultyy

Good, humans suck


techexplorerszone

what will happen to employee who lost their job? feeling sad to hear, so many people will be unemployed


cumberland_farms

Tax the robots.


thebuilder80

What would Mr. House say about that?


SaddleSocks

Wouldnt it be interesting whereas companies had "Carbon Offsets" -- they should have to purchas "AI Offsets" which is specifically investing into a team of AI robots that make MONEY for the pool of humans replaced. They all had a similar response: Companies that heavily invest in AI, potentially displacing human workers, should invest in "AI Offsets" - a team of AI robots that generate revenue to support the affected humans. This concept is similar to Universal Basic Income (UBI) and aims to mitigate the negative impacts of automation on employment. Here's a potential framework for "AI Offsets": - Companies investing heavily in AI are required to allocate a portion of their budget to create and maintain an "AI Offsets" fund. - This fund would be used to develop and deploy AI robots that generate revenue, such as AI-powered trading bots or content creation platforms. - The revenue generated by these AI robots would be distributed among the pool of humans replaced by automation, providing them with a form of UBI. - The "AI Offsets" fund could also be used to retrain and upskill displaced workers, enabling them to adapt to new roles in the AI-driven economy.


kasthack-refresh

Have you heard about corporate income taxes?


SyntaxDissonance4

First they came for the checkout clerks , and I did not speak out bevause I was not a checkout clerk. Then they came for the amazon warehouse workers...


stevengineer

Haven't you heard? Check out clerks are making a [comeback ](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegaslocals/s/Fdga5lrXVl)


Brilliant-koder

People who still buy from Amazon is the blame for supporting bezos. Y’all funding this new reality so thank yourself


SaddleSocks

Wouldnt it be interesting whereas companies had "Carbon Offsets" -- they should have to purchas "AI Offsets" which is specifically investing into a team of AI robots that make MONEY for the pool of humans replaced. They all had a similar response: Companies that heavily invest in AI, potentially displacing human workers, should invest in "AI Offsets" - a team of AI robots that generate revenue to support the affected humans. This concept is similar to Universal Basic Income (UBI) and aims to mitigate the negative impacts of automation on employment. Here's a potential framework for "AI Offsets": - Companies investing heavily in AI are required to allocate a portion of their budget to create and maintain an "AI Offsets" fund. - This fund would be used to develop and deploy AI robots that generate revenue, such as AI-powered trading bots or content creation platforms. - The revenue generated by these AI robots would be distributed among the pool of humans replaced by automation, providing them with a form of UBI. - The "AI Offsets" fund could also be used to retrain and upskill displaced workers, enabling them to adapt to new roles in the AI-driven economy.


Discobastard

Robot tax, when?


01000001010010010

Good


armentho

take into account amazon employs around 1.68 million humans so they have around a 1:2 robot to human ratio,and is only gonna inch closer and closer


Dangerous_Bus_6699

Good. The reality is, to support their profit margins, the workload on a human is simply inhumane. I like my products here in a day. I feel bad for the workers but I think there's still plenty to do that's less degrading.


NotTheActualBob

Do you want a robot rebellion? Because this is how you get a robot rebellion.


[deleted]

I work in a warehouse with self driving forklifts and an automated shuttle system. They are tools that make us more efficient. They are not replacing us anytime soon the same way a nail gun isn’t replacing carpenters.


deeprocks

Does reduce the number of people needed for the same job though.


Akimbo333

Makes sense


Capital-Extreme3388

So if we are going to have 75 robots to replace one human job somebody do the math on how many robots we need in order to replace every replaceable job. Something tells me that's not gonna be a sustainable way of doing it unless the human population radically declines. Corporations would never kill people off in order to make more money right??


IndependentOffer8971

Eventually what's going to happen is robots will replace jobs. While people are out of work and can't pay for the products that these robots take there companies will take a hit in finances eventually if enough people are out of work a great depression will start and the economy will fall. These so called places that are replacing jobs are also taking money out there pocket slowly. Once people can't work and bring in income everybody will feel it. And taxes yes taxes which help run this country wars and everything else will feel it. So eventually they will have to do something to balance out the job loss or else they risk losing the same business that they tried to be greedy and save money on.