robots - amazon - robots
June 29, 2016 7:41 PM   Subscribe

"I said once to my board—casually, almost as a joke, 'Boy, we’d really be screwed if Amazon bought this company,'" said Welty.

Kiva robots, once the marvel of warehouses everywhere. Amazon whipped out its wallet and threw down $775 million to purchase these robot legions in 2012. The acquisition effectively gave Jeff Bezos, its 52-year-old chief executive, command of an entire industry.

It's taken four years, but a handful of startups are finally ready to replace Kiva and equip the world's warehouses with new robotics. Amazon's Kiva bots proved this kind of automation is more efficient than an all-human workforce.
posted by sammyo (24 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
Anyone remember that uneasy feeling you got when Jeff Bezos laughed that psychotic laugh? Now your fears are confirmed. I don't shop at Amazon because they have always been anti-human. I envision the not very distant future Trump-type candidates who pin all their constituent's woes on robots instead of Mexicans. It's coming folks and there is nothing we can do about it because it's not cool to be anti-"progress".
posted by any major dude at 8:04 PM on June 29, 2016


Representatives from Intel Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., roboticists from all sorts of firms, and academics from nearby University of California-Berkeley and far away Zurich showed up. *So did Bezos, who sipped single-malt whiskey, chatted with guests, and hit the conference stage wearing a robotic suit.* Ron Howard, the film director (whose portfolio includes the 1995 docudrama Apollo 13), made an appearance. Robo-arms dueled with Star Wars lightsabers. Amazon served grapes and drinks on tables mounted atop bright orange Kivas.

So... We're going to see a Bezos vs. Musk supervillain-off, basically. This is the future we are walking into. And here I've been holding out (slim) hope that the fruits of automation might end up broader-distributed rather than extracted and concentrated. I don't particularly mind robot overlords, they'd probably be better at it than humans (No robot-Trump, at least), but combining the amorality of the modern corporation with the efficiency of modern robotics seems like a worst-of-both-worlds scenario. That old saw about "competent evil/amorality vs. incompetent evil/amorality", and all.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:28 PM on June 29, 2016 [8 favorites]


It's coming folks and there is nothing we can do about it because it's not cool to be anti-"progress".

I think you're right that the shift toward automation of labor is probably inevitable. But it's not like the only possible outcome is an anti-human dystopia where all suffer but for the few holders of capital, aka the robot masters. More and more now people are seeing this shift and where it might lead, and they're identifying actions, policies, and systemic changes that can bring us to a robot-heavy future that is better for us than where we are now.

Universal basic income looks like the most popular idea so far, and it's been encouraging to see it slowly but surely gaining traction over the past several years. As far as I can tell, we first started talking about it here in 2012, and it has come up a lot since then.

So if we do think this shift is inevitable, then I think we're better off pushing for social/political/economic changes that work with it to benefit everyone rather than railing against it.

(Plus, if anyone tries to go all axe-smashy-rarr on robots, the robot masters will just make them all look like super-cute puppies and stuff. Checkmate.)
posted by whatnotever at 9:00 PM on June 29, 2016 [10 favorites]


So... We're going to see a Bezos vs. Musk supervillain-off, basically. This is the future we are walking into.

It's not like he's really trying fight that stereotype, rather he seems to be glorying in it.
posted by 445supermag at 9:15 PM on June 29, 2016


This is probably the most important bit from the article: There were 856,000 warehouse workers in May, according to seasonally-adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now current workers make $12/hour average, but that is going up thanks to new minimum wage laws.

So, I roughly calculate that a FTE in a warehouse will make $25,056 per year and cost an additional $5k in taxes and benefits - so $30,000. That means that $25,680,000,000/year of human wages and taxes are replaceable by robots in the very near future.

That seems like a really big deal...
posted by blahblahblah at 9:33 PM on June 29, 2016 [8 favorites]


If Bezos is a supervillain, then is his current archnemesis, The Donald, a superhero? Or are we just seeing a Marvel vs. DC, Doctor Doom vs. Lex Luthor battle of the bads?
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:12 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm pretty sure Bernie is his nemesis.
posted by zippy at 11:24 PM on June 29, 2016


We're going to see a Bezos vs. Musk supervillain-off, basically.

Just a reminder that neither of them own their own island volcano lair.
posted by pwnguin at 12:03 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


. I envision the not very distant future Trump-type candidates who pin all their constituent's woes on robots instead of Mexicans

Good news, this is a fantasy you have, not a probability calculation.
posted by listen, lady at 1:15 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


That's what they all said.
posted by delfin at 5:06 AM on June 30, 2016


Good news, this is a fantasy you have, not a probability calculation.

I also envision a not too distant future when robots will be programmed to infiltrate human discussion forums masquerading as humans, or has that already happened?

You do understand that the Trump voter's real enemy is robotic automation don't you?
posted by any major dude at 5:32 AM on June 30, 2016


I also envision a not too distant future when robots will be programmed to infiltrate human discussion forums masquerading as humans, or has that already happened?


Will that be worse than the astroturfing done by humans, ruining any 'free' public forum?
posted by DigDoug at 5:54 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


Will that be worse than the astroturfing done by humans, ruining any 'free' public forum?

yes because the AI will be programmed to constantly update the buzzwords that bypass the prefrontal-cortex and go straight to the amygdala. In short, instead of one Frank Luntz there will be millions.
posted by any major dude at 6:18 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


Bezos is already building his supervillain lair.
posted by matildaben at 7:21 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


antitrust antitrust antitrust

this is the problem with "trusts" (the original concept of a "trust" has been superceded by "holding company" and a host of legal innovations). These allow you to overcapitalize a business and use that advantage in capital to control the market(s) it operates in. Efficient and commodified warehouse robotics is a direct threat to Amazon's e-commerce monopoly and so they can just raise almost a billion dollars to buy out the industry.

But this is all SOP for the "internet" economy which is only tangentially related to technology. It's built on financial schemes and scams which allow financial interests to dominate sectors of the economy using the ability to raise obscene amounts of money.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:03 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


I highly recommend this episode of planet money about the Luddites. One particular insight that I find myself repeating again and again lately is that they weren't being irrational...weavers replaced by weaving machines ended up deep in poverty. It took generations for their families to recover. Just because automation was good for the aggregate does not mean that it helped everyone.
posted by R a c h e l at 8:05 AM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


Bezos - Musk showdown:

1. As supervillainy goes, Musk obviously wins.
2. But as true villainy goes, Bezos rules. Musk makes white-collar employees work hard and fails to laugh at Silicon Valley, while Bezos advocates against any kind of taxation, treats warehouse workers like slaves to the maximum level he is legally allowed to, and crushes small publishers.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:05 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't particularly mind robot overlords, they'd probably be better at it than humans

Election 2024: Ultron vs SkyNet
posted by entropicamericana at 10:14 AM on June 30, 2016


Bezos's declaration of war (via the Washington Post) on Republicans is fiendishly clever. Take out the Republicans and and we'll see the cost of unskilled labor go to the neighborhood of $25/hour ($15/hr minimum wage indexed to inflation, $4-$5 hour of benefits including paid time off, $2-3/hour in taxes, plus administrative overhead).

A robot or swarm of robots able to do one person's work with 90% uptime and a five year useful life provides 40,000 hours of service. If its operating and maintenance costs are $5/hour ($200,000) then you can pay $500,000 to acquire a SINGLE robot/swarm and still be $300,000 ahead of the $1 million cost of 40,000 man hours at $25 an hour.

And of course the high cost of unskilled labor acts as a massive subsidy to robotics R&D and enables the costs per hour and costs of acquisition to decline such that even if the policies are reversed to lower the cost of unskilled labor, it can never realistically catch up (i.e., by the time unskilled labor is back to $10/hour in cost, the robot equivalent will be $5/hour).
posted by MattD at 12:32 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


Just to play devil's advocate, with the Republican party removed something like universal basic income becomes a lot more possible too so something that's good for Amazon because of a reliance on automation to compete isn't necessarily bad for everyone else.

It's a bit of what it must have felt like for the people who were against marriage equality (with obvious differences about the actual impact). The writing is on the wall, it's coming and there isn't anything we can do to prevent it. All we can do now is figure out how we're going to deal with it.
posted by VTX at 1:28 PM on June 30, 2016


I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

As a person with disabilities receiving SSDI, I've had to outsource most of my executive function to Google anyway. Why not outsource a job I'm not physically capable of doing to robots?

Let's create a liveable world for everyone. Capitalism's downfall only brings us closer to reality, and hastening the era of basic minimum income gets a big YES from me.
posted by saveyoursanity at 3:13 PM on June 30, 2016


2. But as true villainy goes, Bezos rules. Musk makes white-collar employees work hard and fails to laugh at Silicon Valley, while Bezos advocates against any kind of taxation, treats warehouse workers like slaves to the maximum level he is legally allowed to, and crushes small publishers.

Don't forget he also works white collar employees basically to death, and then set up a system where they're all managed out after like 17 months and have to pay back their hiring bonus/moving expenses and everything, and the awful management structure/encouragement to act like a total sociopath.
posted by emptythought at 4:27 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


Election 2024: Ultron vs SkyNet

I think it's more like: Election 2024: Ultron/SkyNet...because what's the point of having robot overlords if you still have to make choices?
posted by sexyrobot at 5:01 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think you're right that the shift toward automation of labor is probably inevitable. But it's not like the only possible outcome is an anti-human dystopia where all suffer but for the few holders of capital, aka the robot masters. More and more now people are seeing this shift and where it might lead, and they're identifying actions, policies, and systemic changes that can bring us to a robot-heavy future that is better for us than where we are now.

This is what I hope for, because work in fulfillment centers is grim work. I haven't worked there, but I visited one. I greatly appreciate the work of those people in keeping Just In Time deliveries a reality, but I don't envy them. It's repetitive work in a grim environment.

To me, this feels akin to garbage and recycling trucks getting outfitted with robotic arms - now collection can be faster and safer for people, but it cut the usual two-person team (the driver and the hauler) down to just the driver. Except unlike working in a fulfillment center, garbage collection can be a lucrative job in some areas, in part because of a shortage of qualified drivers (often requires a commercial drivers license, but you can't have points on your license). In one example, a city bought new trucks and were able to cut three positions - that were unfilled, though that article doesn't specify for how long the positions were open. There are over 400,000 people employed in Waste Management and Remediation Services, though not all are involved with the collection of waste.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:40 PM on June 30, 2016


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