Amazon is reportedly training humanoid robots to deliver packages
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the robot got stolen
Like Marty in the grocery store, a waste of space. Get out of my way, Marty!
Amazon announced using drones in 2014. In pop culture, drone delivery is like an assumed common practice. Yet fucking nobody gets their packages delivered by drone. It's been over a decade.
These robots are vaporware. Amazon will get a stock bump and that's the whole point.
Yeah, humans regularly deliver stuff wrong on our street. There is no way robots will manage. I get packages for both by neighbours and they get mine more often than correct deliveries and one of my neighbours is a business.
At my old workplace we ended up getting like a thousand toilet seats delivered to us. We were a web publishing firm.
Perhaps it wasn't an accident... 😂
What makes you think you can't have individualized instructions for harder to reach addresses? After the first failure it's pretty trivial to go out and fix it. Google does far more work maintaining maps and directions services.
Vs having a new delivery guy get confused every other week?
What you just described is humans causing the issue, drone delivery would absolutely solve your problem.
The drone's only as good as its software, the map it's using, and the address data it's given. All of which were created by fallible humans.
Ain't it fun having turtles all the way down?
Down voted for the obvious observation. A drone just needs to get explicit instructions ones a report is filled and it won't be an issue. Google does more work on Google maps IMO.
You are wise
Amazon just rolled out their first production drone delivery SSD site in Phoenix. It's sorta shit though.
Zipline is way more interesting and I cant wait for them to go live in my area.
That's a great point. Where are all those delivery drones? Lol
Airspace rules are a huge factor there. I see delivery robots on the sidewalk often enough though.
I suspect most companies are still waiting out the testing and waiting for costs to be reduced.
Companies like Amazon would do anything. Except paying living wages
Yep.
Remember that hitch hiking robot that made it across Canada but only made it to New Jersey (started in NYC) in America? These will 100% get the same treatment everywhere on earth.
Not only Canada, but also Japan and Europe.
The main difference is that these robots kind of deserve it. Not "personally" but for what they represent.
Wanna bet its 7000 Indian workers again?
I imagine they will scale back robot design and just throw from the truck.
...okay, I really want to know the story behind that picture!
Amazon 1 year after launch: Unfortunately, the space needed for robots in the van means that the van has to return to base 5 times more often to reload with the actual packages and the extra weight of robots more than doubles the weight of the van being lugged around in the form of heavy robots. So that's why we are having to charge more for delivery and why it is taking longer for you to get your packages. But at least we can pay fewer salaries.
Also we don’t pay taxes but will fuck up the roads with the extra weight. Good luck driving over potholes suckers!
That is still better for both the environment and safety than everyone going to the store seperately in their own car. (Transit or walking of course are still better yet).
Why is that the comparison, though? Sears developed mail-order catalogues in the 1800s. That's what Amazon replaced.
Be funny if hackers hacked them to kill CEOs.
Bro that is so gonna get HitchBot'ed
Also, like... if you wanna replace human workers, fine, just give us the UBI.
Otherwise, riots would be justified.
as someone who has spent time living in Philly what were they THINKING lmfao
wageslave.exe has encountered an internal exception and must close
Wonder how much copper is wired up in those things
I'm pretty sure it will be a valuable amount of copper.
Edit: Except of course I guess it won't, because they're just bullshitting to dum up invetor interest, and only three of these will ever exist.
I'd be terrified if that thing showed up at my door.
Better keep a big furnace full of molten steel ready just in case.
brb popping out to get that right now
👍
Gallium would do
Anything to avoid one of the richest people in the world paying his employees a livable wage.
I can't wait to throw a Faraday blanket over one of these and jtag some open source firmware on it. What do you mean steal? I didn't steal anything, I just repurposed some garbage left on my front step!
They can depreciate these assets over their useful life, because unlike your soggy flesh sack, these are capital expenses, not operating expenses.
... For now. I'm sure there are libertarians that think you should be able to sell yourself as the depreciable asset you are.
They'll be vandalised almost immediately.
I prefer the term "beautified".
Amazons “genius” packing bots will throw a tiny fragile thing with a medium size heavy thing in a box 16x too big along with a shred of packing material.
Can’t wait to have that same “genius” applied to the actual delivery itself.
Seriously, I make maybe 5 or 6 Amazon purchases per year. I would say at least 50% of those disappoint in some way: the item was misleadingly listed, or it was damaged in shipping, or it doesn’t arrive when the promised. I really don’t find it convenient at all.
Not in Philly they won't lol
If i see a humanoid robot delivering a package i will throw bricks at it and then pee on it, in the way a 3 year old would during a tantrum.
I see you're channeling the spirits of Social Media
I, for one, will certainly not loot it for parts, unless it has an unfortunate accident, in which case I'm just recycling trash that someone left out.
They already treat their workers like humanoid robots, so this tracks.
I just stop buying from Amazon
what? they gave up on the drones?
I guess they felt like drones flying over civilian populations was a bit too unsettling in this day and age, so they are shifting to humanoids that will jump suddenly from moving vehicles and dash towards a destination.
At first glance it looked like the robot has a tail. That would be cool and seems like it might help somehow. Add a tail!!
Pass the blunt
I hate that!
Amazon still can't even figure out how to reliably get human drivers door passcodes into an apartment building, and then into its mail/package locker room.
The map system it uses for telling drivers how to get around a city to make deliveries is also garbage, can't account for traffic, punishes people for using faster side routes to get to the same place, tells you to park in areas that either have no parking at all, or where parking there would majorly disrupt traffic, or assumes available street parking will always exist in places and times it almost never does.
I once did an Amazon delivery gig where they booked me in for the time slot, I get to the FC, after waiting an hour they tell half of us: 'oops we booked too many drivers, so today you all get $200 for showing up and doing nothing, go home now'
???
Update: It is day 126 and Amazon still can't figure out where my camera is.
I know where it is. Their delivery driver stole it. (Yes, I just charged back my credit card. Their response was to send me an incredibly smarmy and condescending form email asking why, as if they don't already know. And they lost the chargeback dispute, obviously.)
So maybe their robots won't steal your package. They'll just yeet it into a bush 65536 yards from your house in a random direction instead. On the bright side, you might occasionally get a package that belongs to someone else from the other side of town dropped on your lawn.
To both this and that I say no thanks; I don't use Amazon anymore.
Amazon sent my next door neighbour a photograph of my back garden indicating they delivered the package. In the photo you can see my door with the obviously wrong house number.
Happens, I'd bet money it was a multi-location stop and they were intending to deliver that neighbor's package and accidentally grabbed yours. It's easy to make a mistake here and there when you're delivering to thousands of houses in a given week.
I just love the fact that he had to open three gates in order to get to my garden. But couldn't be bothered to check the address.
Reminds me of these cheeseparade skits:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Ov6RzGdrJig
https://youtube.com/shorts/Ah1JG1P6W4Y
That handrail makes it look like Mecha Mew
They are trying to solve last-mile delivery problem
They are wasting tax payer dollars
Tax payer dollars? Also, why waste? It might pay off with more efficient and cost effective delivery. R&D is never a waste. You can't tell if something will work if you haven't tried.
Why is everyone here so negative about this? This is pretty cool!
Would be cool, if it wasn't so hard to find a job already. Now androids are going to take the rest. If I would be able to buy an android for doing house chores then yes it would be cool
The problem isnt "robots replacing humans"
The problem is: WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR UBI?
There is always going to be jobs. Else, there is nobody who's buying products from Amazon. It's a self-regulating system. New jobs will be created when old ones die out. Just think of the millions of workers doing manual sewing that got replaced by mechanical sewing machines. Or all the farmers and oxes that got replaced by tractors.
There will always be some jobs. That's no guarantee that there will be enough jobs for everyone to live modest lives on.
What jobs will delivery robots create? Mechanics? What about summer time jobs? One has to begin somewhere. No one is born an engineer with experience
Because I've seen this movie before, and it did not turn out well for the humans.
Technological unemployment is only going to get worse without a plan to support the people being replaced by automation. They can't just 'get another job'. As long as the benefits of this stuff only goes to shareholders, it can fuck off.
The solution is UBI
And the sooner the better.
It's called structural change. And I don't see why it's a bad thing. We would still be plowing our fields with ox and cart if we had denied every technological unemployment in the past.
Delivery jobs are the most ungrateful and exhausting low-paying jobs. And you want humans to keep doing them for the rest of mankind's future? Pretty grim future in my opinion.
No. I don't want them to starve when they get replaced by robots, which is the current plan, apparently.
It's not that we don't want robots doing it - honestly that'd be pretty cool. It's that we want to be sure the people that are being replaced are being taken care of.
I imagine a post-scarcity world where all basic needs are met for everyone on the planet without question, and with minimal need for human labour, and that more as technical overseers. People would be free to work as much or as little as they want at whatever they want for their own betterment, or the betterment of the world, or do nothing at all if they want, or whatever. Is that too much to ask?
Presumably because it's Amazon doing it. It is quite reasonable to have a general level of distaste and suspicion for tha company