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As Walmart turns to robots, it’s the human workers who feel like machines
- jlollis 7y agoFor those who don't have a subscription to the Washington Post, you can access the article here: https://business.financialpost.com/technology/walmart-has-unleashed-an-army-of-robots-in-its-stores-and-workers-arent-exactly-thrilled-about-it https://business.financialpost.com/technology/walmart-has-un...
- OrwellianChild 7y agoThis is so impressively close to the early stages of automation in the novella Manna by Marshall Brain [1] that it almost seems like Wal-Mart executives used it as a playbook... [1] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
- elvicherrera 7y agoMaybe Walmart can stop its health insurance scheme with this and those people can do work elsewhere. There are plenty of customer service jobs.
- OrwellianChild 7y agoHere are videos of some of the robots at work: Bossa Nova makes the inventory scanning robots shown in the WP article. Here is a video of it working in a Wal-Mart during a 2018 pilot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRJV1SPYpIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRJV1SPYpIE TechCrunch had a brief sit-down with the Bossa Nova CTO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEaCZ4KzL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEaCZ4KzL8 This article follows an earlier one from WP talking more specifically about the floor-cleaning bots mentioned here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/04/walmarts-latest-hire-robotic-janitors-that-clean-floors-collect-data/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/04/walmart... Video about the floor scrubbers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=rcMCFe6XVC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=rcMCFe6XVC0