Ask HN: What happened to robots taking all our jobs?
Before the pandemic, I recall reading many articles on how burger flipping robots would put all the fast food workers out of the job. I imagined that they weren't widely deployed because of the cost compared to the cost of an average fast food worker. Now that hourly wages have gone up and I can assume the cost of the robots have gone down, why haven't we heard more robots deployed? Was it really just a scare tactic to depress wages or are they being used by not widely reported? When can I expect robots to take our jobs?
74 comments
Touchscreens have replaced lots of human jobs. Self checkouts have replaced lots of human jobs. I worked in one of the very first grocery stores to have a self checkout added. They told us it wouldnt affect our jobs. If you go into any grocery store in the country you will see ~25% staffing compared to the late 90s/early 2000s. If you are askibg this question you are just too young to have noticed, or perhaps of a social standing that you just don't notice the people who are being swept aside by automation.
But they're not robots - they've just outsourced the checkout job to the customer and made it so they require minimal training. Technology has made this easier, but it's not robotics.
It depends on how you define “robotics”. It’s physical technology that has displaced workers, even if it doesn’t have mechanical arms.
That being said, I think the robots that have taken peoples jobs are generally in warehouses and manufacturing and hidden away from the public eye. Think Amazon fulfilment centres, or auto manufacturers. There are a lot of robotics at play there replacing a lot of people.
That being said, I think the robots that have taken peoples jobs are generally in warehouses and manufacturing and hidden away from the public eye. Think Amazon fulfilment centres, or auto manufacturers. There are a lot of robotics at play there replacing a lot of people.
Yes, I agree. All these kiosks and self checkout machines aren't what I think of when I think robots/automation. More like automating the job to the customer. Its equivalent of saying the software writing has been automated but in reality, its been outsourced to folks to India.
There are too kinds of automatic: logic automation to replace worker training, and physical automation to replace worker movement.
Self checkout is logic automation, making the checkout job easy enough that customer can be trusted to do it.
Checkout used to have two jobs: a checker and a customer standing around waiting. Self-checkout merged those two jobs into one.
Self checkout is logic automation, making the checkout job easy enough that customer can be trusted to do it.
Checkout used to have two jobs: a checker and a customer standing around waiting. Self-checkout merged those two jobs into one.
That's just turning the screen around and making the customer do the same thing as the employee based off the fact that CCTV systems will work with people's decency so as to not steal. It's not automation, the same actions still occur.
are ... we going to be replaced by robots?!
That only works because of the previous success in semi automating checkout, and scaling up the efficiency of security via CCTV.
Checkouts weren't previously automated, they were digitised. The reporting of data was no longer a manual process so you could argue the backoffice tasks were automated.
I went to the grocery store a few weeks ago for the first time in like 3 years (been using delivery) and I was surprised that everyone in line was an instacart shopper.
It was pretty surreal. I used to enjoy going to the grocery store with my parents as a child.
It was pretty surreal. I used to enjoy going to the grocery store with my parents as a child.
They just made their customers do the work for them
Conversely there are people who pick the shelves, and drive vans to deliver groceries.
I think online shopping has also taken a bite of that traffic.
I think it's happening, just more slowly than predicted. Mostly jobs in manufacturing have been lost: about a quarter of a million since 2000. A couple orders of magnitude more jobs are expected to be lost, but the future is obviously uncertain.
When reading statistics like this, though, it's important to ask two things:
1. If the report lists how many jobs were lost due to automation, does it also talk about how many were created due to automation? If 20k are lost one year, and 19k are created, the article may not mention the latter, though it is relevant. In one sense, only the delta is important.
2. But, in another sense, the delta isn't what we care about. New jobs created by automation is misleading too. Because, are the jobs created by automation better than the ones that were lost? Is it the same people who lost their manufacturing jobs who got the new jobs? Are those people happy about the trade?
My point is that it's a complicated situation that has been (and likely will be) commonly oversimplified.
When reading statistics like this, though, it's important to ask two things:
1. If the report lists how many jobs were lost due to automation, does it also talk about how many were created due to automation? If 20k are lost one year, and 19k are created, the article may not mention the latter, though it is relevant. In one sense, only the delta is important.
2. But, in another sense, the delta isn't what we care about. New jobs created by automation is misleading too. Because, are the jobs created by automation better than the ones that were lost? Is it the same people who lost their manufacturing jobs who got the new jobs? Are those people happy about the trade?
My point is that it's a complicated situation that has been (and likely will be) commonly oversimplified.
Those jobs were not lost to automation bur to outsourcing due to cheap labor from china/east. The future is very simple. Without efficient supply chains, those jobs will return back to the US/Mexico.
Maybe the jobs are worse? Maybe they used to be able to work 8hr and go home leaving work behind and now they stress about their knowledge based job and can't help but think about the problems all day long.
1. Most, and I am willing to even state 99% of tech ( where tech nowadays means Software ) people working in Silicon Valley doesn't have a clue how the outside world works. Along with Tech VCs which is why you get those fundings to Cloud Kitchens Robots taking over Restaurants. They clearly have never worked in a restaurants before.
2. The cost of developing Chips, Robotics is still ridiculously high. If Robotics ( which really is nothing more than Automation 2.0 ) did make cost savings, I can assure you, you will see it first being tested and deployed in the likes of McDonalds where they get an economy of scale. And it is happening, but no way near ready yet.
3. Tech people, or mostly Silicon Valley Tech people have vastly underestimated human being. How flexible we are and how quickly we could adopt to different task and needs, while giving comparatively little wages.
4. This is the same with Foxconn.
5. You should take a look at Car manufacturing and Amazon Warehouse on Automation or Robotics.
>>When can I expect robots to take our jobs?
Cost will still need to come down. And it is going to be a long and gradual path. Steve Jobs wanted a Giant Machine that makes the machines. That was in the 90s.
2. The cost of developing Chips, Robotics is still ridiculously high. If Robotics ( which really is nothing more than Automation 2.0 ) did make cost savings, I can assure you, you will see it first being tested and deployed in the likes of McDonalds where they get an economy of scale. And it is happening, but no way near ready yet.
3. Tech people, or mostly Silicon Valley Tech people have vastly underestimated human being. How flexible we are and how quickly we could adopt to different task and needs, while giving comparatively little wages.
4. This is the same with Foxconn.
5. You should take a look at Car manufacturing and Amazon Warehouse on Automation or Robotics.
>>When can I expect robots to take our jobs?
Cost will still need to come down. And it is going to be a long and gradual path. Steve Jobs wanted a Giant Machine that makes the machines. That was in the 90s.
Agree.
Robots are complex machines and thus the R&D to get them to work well is huge. And they need (re-)programming for every change in the tasks. It all adds up to a very large capital outlay, considerable ongoing operating costs and thus financially is not competitive with minimum wage labor.
Robots are complex machines and thus the R&D to get them to work well is huge. And they need (re-)programming for every change in the tasks. It all adds up to a very large capital outlay, considerable ongoing operating costs and thus financially is not competitive with minimum wage labor.
Automation has been eliminating jobs since the 1960s, which is why Richard Nixon was ready to propose a form of universal income in 1969. He backed out because of racism.
Look at real wages of the working class since then, vs productivity. Workers keep generating more profits, and don't get more pay.
Look at real wages of the working class since then, vs productivity. Workers keep generating more profits, and don't get more pay.
I thought at that time the main reason the nation backed out of the universal income was not racism, but a statistical error:
> Even former Nixon advisor Daniel Moynihan stopped believing in basic income, following a fatal discovery upon publication of the final results of the Seattle experiment. One finding in particular grabbed everybody’s attention: The number of divorces had jumped more than 50%. Interest in this statistic quickly overshadowed all the other outcomes, such as better school performance and improvements in health.
> Ten years later, a reanalysis of the data revealed that a statistical error had been made; in reality, there had been no change in the divorce rate at all.
From https://thecorrespondent.com/4503/the-bizarre-tale-of-presid...
> Even former Nixon advisor Daniel Moynihan stopped believing in basic income, following a fatal discovery upon publication of the final results of the Seattle experiment. One finding in particular grabbed everybody’s attention: The number of divorces had jumped more than 50%. Interest in this statistic quickly overshadowed all the other outcomes, such as better school performance and improvements in health.
> Ten years later, a reanalysis of the data revealed that a statistical error had been made; in reality, there had been no change in the divorce rate at all.
From https://thecorrespondent.com/4503/the-bizarre-tale-of-presid...
If we can automate away further jobs, we will need a UBI in some form.
We pretend to be able to keep up with technological progress and most people do. Unfortunately not everyone has access to good schooling or the mental / physical capability.
If enough low to mid level jobs are automated away without securing people from getting lost in society, we could be facing anti-technological groups rising.
It seems like science fiction now, but will it?
Politics need to grow with our capabilities.
We pretend to be able to keep up with technological progress and most people do. Unfortunately not everyone has access to good schooling or the mental / physical capability.
If enough low to mid level jobs are automated away without securing people from getting lost in society, we could be facing anti-technological groups rising.
It seems like science fiction now, but will it?
Politics need to grow with our capabilities.
I imagine it has something to do with the fact that it's a lot harder to build a robot that can respond to every possible thing that can go wrong in the same way that a human can.
If a job is 100% predictable then it can probably be automated relatively easily.
Just my $0.02.
Just my $0.02.
Silicon valley is full of crap is what happened. Some jobs have been reduced - bank teller, cashier etc. There are also lots of jobs that could be replaced but aren't beause of weird regulations and such - lawyer etc.
But most jobs - making hamburgers, cooking, laying brick, pouring cement, packing stuff in warehouses or assembly lines - stuff that matters, automation looks as far off as ever. Sure machines do a lot to help in these fields but it's going to be a very long time if ever when machines can replace people completely. Even self driving cars appear to be much further away than people think.
We cannot and should not plan the economy around Silicon valley hype
But most jobs - making hamburgers, cooking, laying brick, pouring cement, packing stuff in warehouses or assembly lines - stuff that matters, automation looks as far off as ever. Sure machines do a lot to help in these fields but it's going to be a very long time if ever when machines can replace people completely. Even self driving cars appear to be much further away than people think.
We cannot and should not plan the economy around Silicon valley hype
> lawyer etc
funny you mention that, because discovery automation (the job that a lot of starting lawyers do) is huge. It used to take weeks or even months, to just sort through the mountains of papers and emails. Now it's indexable and searchable, and probably even have machine classifications to identify the valuable pieces of info.
The reason lawyers haven't been fired (and that you think lawyers aren't automate-able) is that they move up the value chain - provide client focused advice, etc, where the client prefer not to see a robot.
funny you mention that, because discovery automation (the job that a lot of starting lawyers do) is huge. It used to take weeks or even months, to just sort through the mountains of papers and emails. Now it's indexable and searchable, and probably even have machine classifications to identify the valuable pieces of info.
The reason lawyers haven't been fired (and that you think lawyers aren't automate-able) is that they move up the value chain - provide client focused advice, etc, where the client prefer not to see a robot.
In terms of warehouses there's a fair bit of automation which replaces quite a few jobs - at my former employer's warehouses the pickers had robots drive all the stuff to them, and they were trying out robot pickers (they were able to handle ~30% of orders due to limitations in agility, SKUs had to be specifically whitelisted). You still need people to handle e.g. dangerous goods and handle the various fuckups in the system (e.g. due to poor master data), but when I was leaving they were not planning on any new "classic" warehouses.
I don't want to disclose where I worked, but you can take a look at Ocado, they are in a similar space (although focused on a different target market) and expanding from being online grocer to making those FCs for other companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKrcpa8Z_E
I don't want to disclose where I worked, but you can take a look at Ocado, they are in a similar space (although focused on a different target market) and expanding from being online grocer to making those FCs for other companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKrcpa8Z_E
You think lawyers haven't been replaced solely because of regulation?
Largely yes. In any field there are a few top performers or people with special connections that cant be replaced. But legal forms can be automated and AI today, even relatively unsophisticated AI seems to me to be capable of finding the correct legal argument better than many lawyers
Robots have taken loads of accounting jobs. API integration, better software, et al have removed loads of mid-career/mid-level jobs.
I currently work at a small eocm business, the number of systems and integrations availble have gutted the typical career progression.
I am concerned at how to navigate from data entry clerk to CFO. This path was available historically, however, it is becomkng less-so.
Audit jobs are going too. Previously, a firm would need a big staff to check numbers. Now it's a lot easier to audit a process becuase the company uses SAP, Netsuite, or some other big name ERP.
I currently work at a small eocm business, the number of systems and integrations availble have gutted the typical career progression.
I am concerned at how to navigate from data entry clerk to CFO. This path was available historically, however, it is becomkng less-so.
Audit jobs are going too. Previously, a firm would need a big staff to check numbers. Now it's a lot easier to audit a process becuase the company uses SAP, Netsuite, or some other big name ERP.
Robots and automation take over one discrete task at a time, not whole jobs in one fell swoop.
It allows a smaller workforce to handle the same or greater volume. A port that had 1000 longshoremen can be staffed with 100 people. That’s as much due to workflows adapting to new technology, the use of standardized containers, and scale as it is a robot that slots in 1:1 for a crane operator. Bank of America opened a virtual branch in my town. There’s two ATMs that let you video chat with a teller if needed.
Or the end product itself has been obsoleted by something more mechanized, computerized, or standardized. Computer files means no more file clerks. Email reduces demand for First Class letters and mailroom staff. Dedicated staff passing around external mail and interdepartmental envelopes with the prior recipient and sender crossed out is an anachronism. Direct deposit/ACH and debit cards reduce demand for payroll staff, bookkeepers, tellers, armored car services, and checkbook manufacturing. Even low end legal labor like document review has been automated.
Demand is elastic. When goods are factory made they become cheaper and people individually buy more and more people can afford to buy one.
It allows a smaller workforce to handle the same or greater volume. A port that had 1000 longshoremen can be staffed with 100 people. That’s as much due to workflows adapting to new technology, the use of standardized containers, and scale as it is a robot that slots in 1:1 for a crane operator. Bank of America opened a virtual branch in my town. There’s two ATMs that let you video chat with a teller if needed.
Or the end product itself has been obsoleted by something more mechanized, computerized, or standardized. Computer files means no more file clerks. Email reduces demand for First Class letters and mailroom staff. Dedicated staff passing around external mail and interdepartmental envelopes with the prior recipient and sender crossed out is an anachronism. Direct deposit/ACH and debit cards reduce demand for payroll staff, bookkeepers, tellers, armored car services, and checkbook manufacturing. Even low end legal labor like document review has been automated.
Demand is elastic. When goods are factory made they become cheaper and people individually buy more and more people can afford to buy one.
It turned out it was harder than everyone thought? I keep waiting for the house building robot https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/hadrian-the-constru... but still waiting. I think it was musk who said (or words to this effect), it turns out people are very good at handling the odd things that happen that robots can't. This was after he said he could automate all the Tesla build.
I wonder if it's really about being hard, or just a matter of budget.
Tesla had a crazy budget, but they still couldn't automate everything
I mean more about ROI. We can't automate everything obviously. We can replace some janitors with floor sweeping robots and toilet cleaning robots, but who's going to clean under the sink?
We've had car assembly robots for decades because the ROI is incredible. Burger flipping robots less so. McDonald's does flip lots of burgers worldwide and apparently the bots are saving some money. But they flip a lot of burgers, so it's likely they haven't replaced all humans yet.
We've had car assembly robots for decades because the ROI is incredible. Burger flipping robots less so. McDonald's does flip lots of burgers worldwide and apparently the bots are saving some money. But they flip a lot of burgers, so it's likely they haven't replaced all humans yet.
There is a Whole Foods store one block away from my house. Next to it I can see a number of bicycles with some type of trailers. They are used for deliveries. With such a bicycle a person can deliver easily 3 times more than a person who just pushes the groceries on a cart.
One way to look at this is to say the bicycle increased someone's productivity by a factor of 3.
But another way to look at it is to say that one man and one bicycle can do the work of 3 men now. So 2 men will lose their jobs. A bicycle just replaced 2 men.
The bicycle does not look like a robot at all, but is just as good, if not better, at replacing human workers.
The same with other jobs. You don't need to replace 100% of the workers. You just need to bring machines that increase someone's productivity by a factor of 5, and boom, you are able do let go of 80% of your human workforce.
At the same Whole Foods store there are lots of self service lines now. My guess is the number of cashiers went down by at least of factor of 3.
Amazon has shops where you don't even need a self-service line. You just go in, pick whatever you want from the shelves, and leave. The cameras keep track of what you pick and charge you appropriately. They started using this technology in Whole Foods stores (one in Washington DC is already functioning, one in LA is coming this Fall).
I went on a road trip last week. I noticed there are no more manned tollbooths. Everything is fully automated. That's probably some thousands of human jobs lost. Big win in my opinion, the passage through the tollbooths is much, much faster now.
One way to look at this is to say the bicycle increased someone's productivity by a factor of 3.
But another way to look at it is to say that one man and one bicycle can do the work of 3 men now. So 2 men will lose their jobs. A bicycle just replaced 2 men.
The bicycle does not look like a robot at all, but is just as good, if not better, at replacing human workers.
The same with other jobs. You don't need to replace 100% of the workers. You just need to bring machines that increase someone's productivity by a factor of 5, and boom, you are able do let go of 80% of your human workforce.
At the same Whole Foods store there are lots of self service lines now. My guess is the number of cashiers went down by at least of factor of 3.
Amazon has shops where you don't even need a self-service line. You just go in, pick whatever you want from the shelves, and leave. The cameras keep track of what you pick and charge you appropriately. They started using this technology in Whole Foods stores (one in Washington DC is already functioning, one in LA is coming this Fall).
I went on a road trip last week. I noticed there are no more manned tollbooths. Everything is fully automated. That's probably some thousands of human jobs lost. Big win in my opinion, the passage through the tollbooths is much, much faster now.
> I noticed there are no more manned tollbooths.
There are still some, mostly getting rid of the people was pandemic related I do believe. But if you really want to you can still make them get out in the rain by handing them a $100 bill and they have to get out of the little booth to record your license plate number — for posterity,
There are still some, mostly getting rid of the people was pandemic related I do believe. But if you really want to you can still make them get out in the rain by handing them a $100 bill and they have to get out of the little booth to record your license plate number — for posterity,
3 things to note
1) I think it really depends on how you define "robots". If you defined robots to include servers, many jobs have already been taken.
2) Transitions are slow. Jobs our parents knew don't exist any longer. But it won't happen faster than that.
3) People move on and learn new things. It's great to get rid of receptive tasks that a computer/robots can do. It is liberating. No one wants to wash their dishes or clothes by hand these days.
1) I think it really depends on how you define "robots". If you defined robots to include servers, many jobs have already been taken.
2) Transitions are slow. Jobs our parents knew don't exist any longer. But it won't happen faster than that.
3) People move on and learn new things. It's great to get rid of receptive tasks that a computer/robots can do. It is liberating. No one wants to wash their dishes or clothes by hand these days.
I know software is eating a lot of jobs, I see those type of jobs as more low hanging fruit. Software seems much easier to tackle than hardware. The robots I referring to are physical robots. Burger flipping robots, fruit picking robots, dishwashing robots, etc. Are the articles about these robots hype or are they actually in the field used by companies to improve their process/efficiency.
Do you consider a dish washer to be a physical robot? A self-driving car?
If the dish washer can put the dishes away after they are washed, then yes. If the self driving car can drive without any driver/handler ready to take over, then yes.
Ok got it. To your question: I think most of the news are hype. One core reason is not the tech I believe but the economics. You're competing against humans that do physical jobs pretty well for not much money per hour. Hard to beat.
But: There are cases where humans are just missing. For example many restaurants can't find waiters after the pandemic. That's where you see innovation happening. There are actually more and more restaurants using service robots like this one: https://www.pudurobotics.com/product/detail/swiftbot
But: There are cases where humans are just missing. For example many restaurants can't find waiters after the pandemic. That's where you see innovation happening. There are actually more and more restaurants using service robots like this one: https://www.pudurobotics.com/product/detail/swiftbot
It's not at all clear that automation destroys jobs overall at the economy level. It seems like there are two main effects behind this. One is that it increases the productivity of the economy and drives down the cost of goods, which increases overall wealth in society, which drives consumption and growth. The other effect is that somebody needs to build, install, maintain and operate the automated systems. It's fewer people in that particular sector, but it's higher value technical jobs. There's also a possible effect where automation reduces the costs in a sector which increases demand for those goods and services. There's good evidence that companies that automate more employ more people in the long run than their less automated competitors, but across the sector it's not as clear. Between these effects, the result seems to be either a wash or possibly a net positive. The problem is it's hard to tease out all these effects in an economy, and different forms of automation have different effects.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/09/02/does-auto...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/09/02/does-auto...
At the global level we've been automating away jobs for 200 years now, and while predictions of the end of employment have been a constant, if you look around now it really doesn't seem to have worked out that way. I grew up on 200AD comics in which the Judge Dredd and Halo Jones strips depicted a world of 95%+ unemployment because the robots had taken all the jobs, but back then in the 80s we did have mass unemployments in the UK as the economy went through a painful transition, so such a future seemed more credible.
Having said all that, any shift in industrial and employment patterns creates winners and losers. I'm all for social support to ease and manage such transitions, but trying to slow down and block change of this kind as a strategy has a really poor track record. It's incredibly expensive and inevitably fails anyway.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/09/02/does-auto...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/09/02/does-auto...
At the global level we've been automating away jobs for 200 years now, and while predictions of the end of employment have been a constant, if you look around now it really doesn't seem to have worked out that way. I grew up on 200AD comics in which the Judge Dredd and Halo Jones strips depicted a world of 95%+ unemployment because the robots had taken all the jobs, but back then in the 80s we did have mass unemployments in the UK as the economy went through a painful transition, so such a future seemed more credible.
Having said all that, any shift in industrial and employment patterns creates winners and losers. I'm all for social support to ease and manage such transitions, but trying to slow down and block change of this kind as a strategy has a really poor track record. It's incredibly expensive and inevitably fails anyway.
As long as people are cheaper than robots, not much will happen anyway. I think a lot of jobs can be replaced by robots with enough money, but for that money (and the maintenance costs etc), you can get so many cheap (and more flexible) human employees that it is not worth it. If that goes up a lot, maybe it will be tempting; think the pressure is not high enough (yet)?
We have automated an insane amount of jobs with software already. Data collection and processing is largely done by software now. Customer service is shrinking in size. Automation is slowly reducing the workload of many other departments.
You might only see self-service in stores, but there's so much more going on in the back office.
Hardware automation takes time, but software automation is eating the world.
You might only see self-service in stores, but there's so much more going on in the back office.
Hardware automation takes time, but software automation is eating the world.
It’s happening, just too slow for the short attention spans..
It's a gradual process which started at least 50 years ago. It was only recently hyped by various media and academia pundits, because it (hyping things) is how they make a living. See also: self-driving cars.
It's still coming, the biggest impact will be in self driving trucks and commercial vehicles, next to that it will be in heavy equipment operation, farming, etc. And then in healthcare, etc.
But I keep hearing its coming, only a few years away. Like self driving cars, apple picking robots, etc. I remember reading in the 90's in Popular Science apple picking robots were going to replace all the farm hands in California's Central Valley.
It’s a different type of “coming”.
In the 90s, people imagined it was a few years away. But it was conceptual, like how we think about asteroid mining or Mars settlements.
Today, these concepts are proven. Waymo has been doing self driving in Phoenix. People here in SF are starting to take Cruise self driving cars. There have been successful self driving trucks that have made cross country deliveries. The proof of concept is already here. But the definition of “coming” has changed. It might not be economical or advanced enough for general availability. But the technology to do it is no longer a dream — simply a function of execution now.
Truck drivers and Uber drivers aren’t going to lose their jobs in the coming years. But these jobs are genuinely in danger in the coming decade.
In the 90s, people imagined it was a few years away. But it was conceptual, like how we think about asteroid mining or Mars settlements.
Today, these concepts are proven. Waymo has been doing self driving in Phoenix. People here in SF are starting to take Cruise self driving cars. There have been successful self driving trucks that have made cross country deliveries. The proof of concept is already here. But the definition of “coming” has changed. It might not be economical or advanced enough for general availability. But the technology to do it is no longer a dream — simply a function of execution now.
Truck drivers and Uber drivers aren’t going to lose their jobs in the coming years. But these jobs are genuinely in danger in the coming decade.
Self driving cars are a common sight on many roads now, John deere just released a fully autonomous tractor https://www.deere.com/en/news/all-news/autonomous-tractor-re..., we have tricorders in our pocket that allow us to communicate with any human on earth, instantly, ...
But are "self driving cars" really that common? I don't mean a car with a handler to take over when the car gives up, but a truly self driving without a driver/handler.
Not common yet, that'll take years. But they exist, that's a big step forward. Exists is way further along than doesn't exist.
It turned out Luddites are still wrong after 200 years.
Automation destroy jobs, but others are created.
The belief in job stealing robots is mostly tech bro lore and not based in science nor empirical observation.
Automation destroy jobs, but others are created.
The belief in job stealing robots is mostly tech bro lore and not based in science nor empirical observation.
> It turned out Luddites are still wrong after 200 years.
it's not that they're wrong - they're just arguing that automation is destroying _their_ livelihood.
The argument isn't that automation is bad - it's great...for the rest of society, at least in the medium-to-long term. It's poor for those being displaced.
it's not that they're wrong - they're just arguing that automation is destroying _their_ livelihood.
The argument isn't that automation is bad - it's great...for the rest of society, at least in the medium-to-long term. It's poor for those being displaced.
Luddites were unemployed people and their protests were struck down by police and military forces. The story that luddites were some Amish/religiously motivated people against machinery is just a myth.
It’s the same reason that Uber’s autonomous driving robotaxi projects are so misguided. Exploiting people is a heck of a lot cheaper than inventing robots.
Robots taking our jobs = a headline. Automation leading to deskilling and removal of certain job functions = reality. Many jobs that are amenable to complete automation are not being backfilled.
Robotics is only one way to achieve automation -- I wouldn't be obsessed with "robots" per se and insist it's not taking over.
Robotics is only one way to achieve automation -- I wouldn't be obsessed with "robots" per se and insist it's not taking over.
We are converging.
We have people working on ML for understanding multilevel tasks, recognizing the souroundings, understanding items, generic ai etc.
Digital twins become normal.
The race for the robot has already started and with companies like Tesla now talking about it much more than before, we might see it happening in the next 10 years.
Buy a robot,.show it what it should do, replace low skill workers.
We have people working on ML for understanding multilevel tasks, recognizing the souroundings, understanding items, generic ai etc.
Digital twins become normal.
The race for the robot has already started and with companies like Tesla now talking about it much more than before, we might see it happening in the next 10 years.
Buy a robot,.show it what it should do, replace low skill workers.
They took the jobs people would have had, they didn't take the jobs people currently have.
Amazons factories would have employed every human on Earth if they had to use humans. That's what happened to the robots taking our jobs. They took them from the future, decades ago, and you didn't even notice.
Amazons factories would have employed every human on Earth if they had to use humans. That's what happened to the robots taking our jobs. They took them from the future, decades ago, and you didn't even notice.
The robots are too busy working in the Cloud, using ML and AI to analyse Big Data, to flip burgers.
Have you been to McDonald's lately?
Yes, only robot is a LCD touch screen that replaced the cashier. But what about the robot burger flipping machines. I have yet to see or hear any. Something like these:
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-27...
Regarding food and cooking: considering that the ice-cream machine at McDonald's breaks down so easily, and is so difficult/costly to repair, one shudders to think of the operational cost and hazard of a robot cook in the kitchen.
I have my doubts about how often those machines really break down.
If you ever want a fun adventure try to get a milkshake in Phoenix at 3AM in the middle of summer. All the machines are conveniently “broken”.
If you ever want a fun adventure try to get a milkshake in Phoenix at 3AM in the middle of summer. All the machines are conveniently “broken”.
According to hackernews terminology the government "printed" more jobs.
Ask your ATM. It replaced a real bank employee.
My bank still has tellers. Also, I'm not sure that making your customer do the work instead of an employee is quite the same as automation. Would you consider the self checkout line at the grocery as automation? A human is still doing all the work, the difference is the store doesn't have to pay for the labor.
I agree. Like a washing machine when it was first introduced is true automation as it washed clothes for you instead of you hand washing it. Taking the washing machine as an example, I would not consider it automation if I had my maid hand wash my clothes instead of me hand washing them. Washing machines, the stove (I don't need to maintain a fire, etc), a water heater are past robots/automation. But what about all new automations/robots of this generation?
The same that happened to self driving car. Fogezy Fogazy.
The robot have not been deployed because they are not ready and do not exist.
Articles over sensationalize for clicks not truth, you passed their test congrats.