Futurology

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Amazon's humanoid warehouse robots will eventually cost only $3 per hour to operate. That won't calm workers' fears of being replaced. - Digit is a humanoid bipedal robot from Agility Robotics. (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Usually what's happened in the past is that new jobs become economical. If every possible job is replaced then that's the new territory.

I'm highly, highly skeptical this robot doesn't suck, though. They say it won't fully replace their workers, and I suspect that's because it's going to get stuck around a tricky corner or tangled in a loose pieces of packing tape constantly.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Then instead of a warehouse full of people, Amazon will end up with a warehouse full of robots, and a few robot babysitters.

[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Best case, yes exactly. But again, that's happened before many times though (once upon a time, there was no conveyor belts or cranes in a warehouse either, there was guys doing that work) so I'm not too worried. Worst case it just fails.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The difference is that conveyor belts weren't poised to impact 80% of all jobs on the planet, AI is.

[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 11 months ago

Okay, modern agriculture then. Before industrialisation, 98% of people worked in agriculture as basically peasants. Now it's pretty much exactly the opposite, with 2% working in something related.

I agree AI could be a major problem if it gets even a little bit better. This specific story isn't an example though.