Re:How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race
by noonespecial on Thursday June 30, 2016 @12:42AM
(#12006607)
That people "need" awful picking jobs they hate doing but can be done better by robots is basically the existential problem humanity needs to solve this century or we are very likely to get Filtered, Robin Hanson style.
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It's only existential in sci-fi books. Textiles were one of the first industries to be automated with the punched cards\power loom 150 years ago. We still have millions of human weavers all around the world.
The problem with automation is you cant ask the robot why X, Y or Z is going wrong and how to fix it. A master weaver on the other hand will do it over a 15 minute conversation.
> The problem with automation is you cant ask the robot why X, Y or Z is going wrong and how to fix it. A master weaver on the other hand will do it over a 15 minute conversation.
That's a very romantic view of weaving which hides the real reason there are still many weavers, mostly in low-cost countries: They are cheaper than machines. There is no guarantee that this will still be true in face of increasing computing capabilities and machines which learn better than before.
Re:How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race
by antisthenes on Thursday June 30, 2016 @01:04PM
(#12009969)
> We still have millions of human weavers all around the world.
Yes, mostly in Asia, living in hellish conditions, often struggling to get enough food. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with that comment.
Re:How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race
by robotresearcher on Friday July 01, 2016 @10:43AM
(#12016385)
The only reason those jobs exist right now is that humans are still much better than robots. Amazon is working on pick/pack robots in the hope of changing that.