Amazon is Looking for the Perfect Warehouse Worker

[Jesus Malverde]

Amazon.com Inc.’s inaugural “Amazon Picking Challenge” inspired mechanical engineering and computer science students from around the world to design robots that can grab boxes of Oreo cookies and pencils from warehouse shelves and place them in bins, tasks ordinarily done by people.

The Seattle retailer hopes to make its challenge a regular event that encourages innovation in robotics and steers academic research toward e-commerce automation.

snip

Amazon has made big investments in automation to make its warehouses more efficient. It purchased warehouse robot-maker Kiva Systems Inc. for $775 million in 2012 and has 15,000 robots deployed in its facilities. Those machines move entire shelving units, but picking individual items is a difficult task for machines and remains better performed by people.

That was the focus of the Amazon challenge. Each team’s robot tried to pick up a shopping list of items of varying shapes and sizes -- Crayola markers, a duck toy, tennis balls -- stored on shelves and place them in a bin.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/robot-with-a-human-grasp-is-amazon-s-challenge-to-students

[HughBeaumont]

1. Robots: Awesome Until You Realize They Can't Purchase Products.

"AN I SEPPOZE YU'D BAN TH INNERNET T' KEEP THE LIBRUREEZ OPN" blah blah blah.

How does capitalism continue when you have a glut of debt-saddled people who can't even start off life because you're either fucking automating, wage depleting or inshoring/offshoring everything that isn't nailed down??

[Recursion]

2. They pay each other to provide services

Doesn't seem to be that difficult of a concept; most of the advanced economies are heading in that direction.

[HughBeaumont]

3. Oh, good. Mocking very valid long term concerns. That's what was missing.

I suppose if I didn't care about the future and my position was flimsy and dismissive to begin with, I'd do the same thing.

Yep, if there's one thing debt-saddled Millenials have lots of, it's disposable income to buy stuff with!

yourself.

[whatthehey]

4. Actually that's perfectly accurate

The wealthier a nation becomes, regardless of political system, the more service-oriented its economy, be it Sweden's 65%, the USA's 77%, or Luxembourg's (the highest GDP/capita in the world with the possible exception of the essentially privately held Qatar) 88%. Clearly an economy even more service-led than ours is not hurting them one little bit That's what advanced economies do; they spend more of their money on health care, entertainment, recreation, health and fitness - services all, rather than subsistence spending entirely on locally manufactured necessities. They invest more driving a financial sector - services again. It's universal other than the oil sheikdoms. Even Germany's much-vaunted manufacturing is a small part of their economy, which is 68% services.