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More "The world's largest supermarket chain said it had ended its partnership with Bossa Nova Robotics, who made the roving robots." Vs going away from the ide

More "The world's largest supermarket chain said it had ended its partnership with Bossa Nova Robotics, who made the roving robots." Vs going away from the idea entirely. WalMart labs is heavily interested on automation to reduce human labor needed.

dalbasal 6y ago
>>WalMart labs is heavily interested on automation to reduce human labor needed. Well... There really is no question of interest. They'd obviously like to automate more and reduce labour. The interesting questions relate to the trials, tribulations, successes and failures. It would be a more informative article with some indication of how much they're investing in such initiatives. Why did this initiative fail, etc.
wil421 6y ago
Of course they want to reduce labor. They are the largest (non-govt.) employer in the US and largest employer in most states. They have over 1.5 million employees and over 2 million with contractors.
- tsjq 6y ago
  That's almost 1% of US population employed by a single employer !
  - leetrout 6y ago
    > The federal government employs nearly 9.1 million workers, comprising nearly 6 percent of total employment in the United States. Both are shockingly large.
    - wongarsu 6y ago
      For a random comparison: The entire German government (federal+state+local) employs 3.7 million people, about 8.8% of total employment. Another 0.77 million (1.8% of total employment) are indirectly employed in public services. The German federal government alone are just 0.47 million, or 1.1% of total employment.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - dalbasal 6y ago
      ...different kinds of shocking. The federal government is a sector, comparable to "mining" or whatnot. Big is still big in the one-prick-many-ouchies sense, but sector size is not the same thing. The "resolution" of private markets is a major characteristic.
      - BurningFrog 6y ago
        That's a reasonable point, but also no other sector has one person (DJT) as CEO.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        kube-system 6y ago
        Eh, the federal government doesn't fall entirely under the President's power. The position doesn't even have authority over the entire executive branch. Also, as far as the "government sector" of the economy goes -- 87% of government employees work for state or local governments.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      I don't see why 1% of the workforce being employed by the same employer is supposed to be shocking? Suppose you have a village of 400 people. What are the odds that somebody there employs 4 other guys in some capacity? That's more than 1% of the workforce.
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        ...it's not one percent of a village. Many things won't make sense to you if you go around being deliberately obtuse like this.
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Why would we expect the employment structure of an empire to be more fragmented than the employment structure of a village? The whole idea of an empire is large-scale cooperation.
        bigbubba 6y ago
        Acting as though scale is irrelevant is being deliberately obtuse, and doubling down on that is inane.
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        I'm not saying scale is irrelevant. I'm saying the influence of scale should push in the opposite direction to what you are implicitly arguing for. I notice you've never bothered to make any arguments other than "stop being stupid". Could you?
      - SpaceRaccoon 6y ago
        Suppose you have a village of 4 people. What are the odds that one guy employs one other guy in some capacity? That's 50% of the workforce. Thus 50% is not a shockingly high number. Right?
        6y ago
linuxftw 6y ago
Walmart labs is just the group of people running the .com in Sunnyvale. They don't have any actual labs or innovation. Their ideas of "Robots!" and sending hourly employees to your home with merchandise instead of paying actual delivery drivers were two ideas that came from them recently. Everything they touch is broken.

dalbasal 6y ago

>>WalMart labs is heavily interested on automation to reduce human labor needed. Well... There really is no question of interest. They'd obviously like to automate more and reduce labour. The interesting questions relate to the trials, tribulations, successes and failures. It would be a more informative article with some indication of how much they're investing in such initiatives. Why did this initiative fail, etc.

wil421 6y ago

Of course they want to reduce labor. They are the largest (non-govt.) employer in the US and largest employer in most states. They have over 1.5 million employees and over 2 million with contractors.

tsjq 6y ago
That's almost 1% of US population employed by a single employer !
- leetrout 6y ago
  > The federal government employs nearly 9.1 million workers, comprising nearly 6 percent of total employment in the United States. Both are shockingly large.
  - wongarsu 6y ago
    For a random comparison: The entire German government (federal+state+local) employs 3.7 million people, about 8.8% of total employment. Another 0.77 million (1.8% of total employment) are indirectly employed in public services. The German federal government alone are just 0.47 million, or 1.1% of total employment.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    ...different kinds of shocking. The federal government is a sector, comparable to "mining" or whatnot. Big is still big in the one-prick-many-ouchies sense, but sector size is not the same thing. The "resolution" of private markets is a major characteristic.
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      That's a reasonable point, but also no other sector has one person (DJT) as CEO.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - kube-system 6y ago
        Eh, the federal government doesn't fall entirely under the President's power. The position doesn't even have authority over the entire executive branch. Also, as far as the "government sector" of the economy goes -- 87% of government employees work for state or local governments.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    I don't see why 1% of the workforce being employed by the same employer is supposed to be shocking? Suppose you have a village of 400 people. What are the odds that somebody there employs 4 other guys in some capacity? That's more than 1% of the workforce.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      ...it's not one percent of a village. Many things won't make sense to you if you go around being deliberately obtuse like this.
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Why would we expect the employment structure of an empire to be more fragmented than the employment structure of a village? The whole idea of an empire is large-scale cooperation.
        bigbubba 6y ago
        Acting as though scale is irrelevant is being deliberately obtuse, and doubling down on that is inane.
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        I'm not saying scale is irrelevant. I'm saying the influence of scale should push in the opposite direction to what you are implicitly arguing for. I notice you've never bothered to make any arguments other than "stop being stupid". Could you?
    - SpaceRaccoon 6y ago
      Suppose you have a village of 4 people. What are the odds that one guy employs one other guy in some capacity? That's 50% of the workforce. Thus 50% is not a shockingly high number. Right?
      - 6y ago

linuxftw 6y ago

Walmart labs is just the group of people running the .com in Sunnyvale. They don't have any actual labs or innovation. Their ideas of "Robots!" and sending hourly employees to your home with merchandise instead of paying actual delivery drivers were two ideas that came from them recently. Everything they touch is broken.