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I am quite skeptical of how viable this is. For these devices to be useful at all so many things would have to go right. The emergency must be reported, the va

I am quite skeptical of how viable this is. For these devices to be useful at all so many things would have to go right. The emergency must be reported, the van driver informed, he then has to drive (presumably without breaking any traffic laws, which EMS would do) to the affected person and correctly connect the device. The driver needs to be somewhat trained (although the devices are largely automated), but he also has to be prepared for some serious emotional distress. Having a person die right in front of you while you are fiddling with the medical device that could save his life is a terrible task. This is hard on EMS personell, but they are trained for this, have experience and self selected into that role. A van driver has none of that. All in all this seems of dubious value. From the article: "Amazon confirmed that more than 100 contract drivers took part in the experiment, with several receiving alerts from citizen responder apps and arriving on site, where rescue services were already treating the victims." Meaning there was exactly zero value in the program.

lazystar 2y ago
> Meaning there was exactly zero value in the program. if your customers die, they stop being customers. definitely some long term value there, but youre right, the psychological damage to the drivers could offset those gains.
- saghm 2y ago
  I think the point that the parent commenter is making is that if the drivers are always arriving after the actual emergency workers, they're not providing any value. It sounds like they've yet to save a customer with this experiment, so the value you're talking about is still hypothetical.
  - lazystar 2y ago
    i give to thee the small sample size song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9qqvm-LT8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9qqvm-LT8
    - saghm 2y ago
      Amazon is the one performing the experiment; if the sample size isn't big enough to be useful, that's a mark against their experimental method, not the feedback of the people on this forum. The claim that this is actually valuable in some way should be the one with the burden of proof, and it's unreasonable to argue that flaws in an experiment showing one result somehow imply that the opposite is more likely because of it.
delichon 2y ago
Also "Amazon driver" is being phased out as a human occupation. While their replacements are humanoid perhaps those can be of some emergency assistance. At least as a flotation device.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  >While their replacements are humanoid perhaps those can be of some assistance. Their replacement is automated transfer between van and package station. Robot labor is far too valuable to waste on going door to door with boxes, humans will always be cheaper.
  - delichon 2y ago
    Initial targets for humanoid bots are in the $20k range to purchase. Human Amazon drivers currently are around $40k per year to rent. At even half the performance and the same (40h/168h) 24% duty cycle, the humanoids will have to have very high maintenance and power costs to be more expensive than humans. And they don't unionize.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      Hilarious. You really think a humanoid robots time is so valueless that it would be wasted on going door to door with packages? Why? You would obviously use them where their economic activity is the most valuable. This is peak human narcissism. It won't be robots doing the jobs humans do not want to. It will be humans doing the jobs, that are so valueless that robots won't bother with them. >Human Amazon drivers currently are around $40k per year to rent. Now. Yes, NOW. Consider what will happen to the unskilled labor market when there are humanoid robots competing for these jobs. Going from place A to place B with a package is of so incredibly low economic value that it will always be cheaper for a human to do than for a robot. Consider this. A robot at its lowest will cost around 10k with 2k to 5k yearly maintenance. Human labor at its lowest is around 3 dollars a day. Robot labor will never be cheaper than human labor. In other words. A human consumes 2k kilo calories a day. How many calories does it take to produce, charge and maintain a robot? Without a doubt many orders of magnitude more. To think that robots will ever be cheaper than humans is such a warped western perspective. You are just neglecting how cheap labor is around the world.

lazystar 2y ago

> Meaning there was exactly zero value in the program. if your customers die, they stop being customers. definitely some long term value there, but youre right, the psychological damage to the drivers could offset those gains.

saghm 2y ago
I think the point that the parent commenter is making is that if the drivers are always arriving after the actual emergency workers, they're not providing any value. It sounds like they've yet to save a customer with this experiment, so the value you're talking about is still hypothetical.
- lazystar 2y ago
  i give to thee the small sample size song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9qqvm-LT8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9qqvm-LT8
  - saghm 2y ago
    Amazon is the one performing the experiment; if the sample size isn't big enough to be useful, that's a mark against their experimental method, not the feedback of the people on this forum. The claim that this is actually valuable in some way should be the one with the burden of proof, and it's unreasonable to argue that flaws in an experiment showing one result somehow imply that the opposite is more likely because of it.

delichon 2y ago

Also "Amazon driver" is being phased out as a human occupation. While their replacements are humanoid perhaps those can be of some emergency assistance. At least as a flotation device.

constantcrying 2y ago
>While their replacements are humanoid perhaps those can be of some assistance. Their replacement is automated transfer between van and package station. Robot labor is far too valuable to waste on going door to door with boxes, humans will always be cheaper.
- delichon 2y ago
  Initial targets for humanoid bots are in the $20k range to purchase. Human Amazon drivers currently are around $40k per year to rent. At even half the performance and the same (40h/168h) 24% duty cycle, the humanoids will have to have very high maintenance and power costs to be more expensive than humans. And they don't unionize.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    Hilarious. You really think a humanoid robots time is so valueless that it would be wasted on going door to door with packages? Why? You would obviously use them where their economic activity is the most valuable. This is peak human narcissism. It won't be robots doing the jobs humans do not want to. It will be humans doing the jobs, that are so valueless that robots won't bother with them. >Human Amazon drivers currently are around $40k per year to rent. Now. Yes, NOW. Consider what will happen to the unskilled labor market when there are humanoid robots competing for these jobs. Going from place A to place B with a package is of so incredibly low economic value that it will always be cheaper for a human to do than for a robot. Consider this. A robot at its lowest will cost around 10k with 2k to 5k yearly maintenance. Human labor at its lowest is around 3 dollars a day. Robot labor will never be cheaper than human labor. In other words. A human consumes 2k kilo calories a day. How many calories does it take to produce, charge and maintain a robot? Without a doubt many orders of magnitude more. To think that robots will ever be cheaper than humans is such a warped western perspective. You are just neglecting how cheap labor is around the world.