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> It's an utterly mindless job I worked as a picker/packer one summer. This is an understatement, even before the robots did the walking for you. It's interes
by qppo 6y ago
> It's an utterly mindless job
I worked as a picker/packer one summer. This is an understatement, even before the robots did the walking for you.
It's interesting that the only thing left is to make a robot that can handle the objects to be placed, currently they cost more than minimum wage human labor unless the thing being picked is designed to be handled by a machine.
Ultimately that's what I think will happen, the packaging will be designed for picking by machine and the job can be fully automated.
- 8note 6y agoThat's essentially what's happened with shipping containers
- gowld 6y agoJeff Bezos has a speech he gives, a about how shipping containers are interfaces and Amazon's primary value proposition is to metaphorically apply the shipping container "interface" concept to the retail industry.
- amelius 6y agoThe question is whether the solution will be heavily patented, or that it will be a generic machine-learning application (like classifying images). So either Amazon will own it, or we all own it and distribution centers can become like public utilities.
- Animats 6y agoAlibaba already has warehouses using robots that work just like the Kiva robots.[1] [1] https://youtu.be/FBl4Y55V2Z4 https://youtu.be/FBl4Y55V2Z4
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hinkley 6y agoAmazon is getting big enough that it's only a matter of time before they start trying to dictate packaging on products, to make it easier for robots to pick them up. Walmart has been flirting in the same space to automate inventory management.
- numpad0 6y agoThat only thing left is also one of ultimate problems in robotics. What’s brilliant(and inhuman) about Amazon is they don’t push it but just wait for the technology to mature while humans cheaply do it.
- Animats 6y agoThey tried. But on the cheap. There was the Amazon Robot Picking Challenge.[1] That ended in 2016, with the best systems far worse than a human. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36702758 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36702758
- amelius 6y agoHow is it different from Uber using real drivers and meanwhile developing driverless car technology?
- sasaf5 6y agoWhile I worked with robotic manipulators back in 2006 this was called the grasping problem (apparently still unsolved).
- HeWhoLurksLate 6y agoI'm not sure I understand; can you explain that to me?
- sasaf5 6y agoSorry if I sounded obvious. For me at that time it was very curious that, after solving complex control problems to move those robotic arms, something so mundane such as grasping an object would still be unsolved. Turns out that it's a really difficult problem.