6 ms·

There's nothing like giving away something for tens of thousands of dollars that they could have sold for tens of billions.

IanCal 11y ago
Does amazon now own the IP? If not, then this sounds like a great idea, giving away highly useful ideas for everyone to use.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  I don't think parent was referring to Amazon as having given anything away. Still, if you're not in a position to use this sort of tech, "tens of billions" is probably an exaggeration.
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    Amazon bought Kiva for $775M, so it may be close.
  - saosebastiao 11y ago
    If you had a robot that could stow, pick, and pack any item in a warehouse, I have zero doubt you could negotiate $10B, simply for the fact that you could get Amazon, Staples, WalMart, Google, JD.com, Tesco, and AliBaba into a bidding war...and if none of them decided to pay you $10B, you could just offer your own FBA-like service for a fraction of what Amazon charges and make your own $10B. Amazon is acting like a Pawn Shop owner taking advantage of the guy with the original Picasso by telling him that it was a common forgery. Nobody in their right mind should sign up for these contests, and it pains me to see intelligent people duped into it for "the exposure".
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      If you had a robot that could stow, pick, and pack any item in a warehouse... TFA was pretty clear that none of the teams at the competition had anything close to this. The winner, which was far ahead of competitors, was able to move ten of a group of twelve specially-selected objects in twenty minutes. It's quite possible that some of the competitors will eventually create what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem that they've given away their grandchildren's inheritance just yet.
    - genericuser 11y ago
      This presumes aquiring large quantities of money is a required motivation for developing new technology for one to be qualified as 'in their right mind'. To me this comes off like saying 'No one in their right mind should be a teacher and give knoweledge to others that they could use to get rich'. Believe it or not some people enjoy the competition, the challenge of solving an interesting problem you had not previously considered, and over all advancing the technology of the world they live in far more than gaining absurd amounts of monetary wealth.
    - IanCal 11y ago
      > Nobody in their right mind should sign up for these contests, and it pains me to see intelligent people duped into it for "the exposure". This attitude disappoints me greatly. The team that won was the robotics research unit at the Technical University of Berlin: https://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de https://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de, second place was MIT. I hardly think they were "duped" into competing. These people do research. Having a specified task that multiple teams "compete" on is there just to give a good comparison of the different approaches, otherwise everyone is picking their own tasks and it's hard to see what benefits / cons each system has. What next, complaining that researchers publish open access papers for "the exposure" rather than selling the ideas? Edit - Here's a list of the teams: http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml
      - saosebastiao 11y ago
        I have no problem with competition nor open research, which is probably how the researchers viewed this competition. My problem was how strikingly small the reward was for custom tailoring months of their efforts and research towards helping a single company eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and save billions of dollars. The top prize wasn't even enough budget for a lab assistant for a year! It sounds more like an evil plot from a sinister villain than it does an interesting research opportunity. If you want to do interesting research, don't let multinational companies with obvious agendas tell you what is interesting unless they are also willing to share the reward that they get from your hard work.
  - IanCal 11y ago
    I know, I assumed they meant the researchers. I meant if the competition didn't require that the researchers give the IP to Amazon, then what has happened is just that Amazon have funded some research / a competition which has resulted in some things being released for all to use.
melling 11y ago
Can you skip the snarky comment and explain why this kind of contest is bad? To me it seems like a great idea for everyone. The contestants: 1. Can win money 2. Gain exposure 3. Network with other contestants 4. Potentially get more funding
- mfringel 11y ago
  The general problem with doing gigs "for exposure" is that it typically only gets you other gigs "for exposure".
  - robotresearcher 11y ago
    These are talented grad students doing a gig "for exposure" on Amazon's dime with Amazon recruiters in the room hungry for talent. Many other recruiters were there (including Uber - first time I've seen them at an academic robot conference). edit: should add that not only recruiters were there. Amazon engineers including their head of robot R&D were involved and available on the floor. Nice people. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon and I don't do picking research)
  - IanCal 11y ago
    The teams were almost all Universities. This is research, not business. Pretty much the only one I spotted in the team list that wasn't, was mitsubishi. Unless they're really struggling these days, I don't think that exposure is an issue. http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml
- saosebastiao 11y ago
  If you could teleport packages to my front porch, would you be willing to give that to Amazon in exchange for $25k and "exposure"? Amazon becomes the first trillion dollar company in history and you get your name on a press release and some snack money. I would never want any sort of exposure that told people that I'm easily duped about the value of my brain.
  - melling 11y ago
lumberjack 11y ago
I generally agree with this sentiment but it's important to note that they don't know beforehand whether their technology is worth anything or not. In a way, entering such contests is a way of lower risk in exchange for more modest rewards. If they wanted to setup a startup instead it would have taken them ages to get the same kind of recognition this contest immediately gives them.

IanCal 11y ago

Does amazon now own the IP? If not, then this sounds like a great idea, giving away highly useful ideas for everyone to use.

jessaustin 11y ago
I don't think parent was referring to Amazon as having given anything away. Still, if you're not in a position to use this sort of tech, "tens of billions" is probably an exaggeration.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Amazon bought Kiva for $775M, so it may be close.
- saosebastiao 11y ago
  If you had a robot that could stow, pick, and pack any item in a warehouse, I have zero doubt you could negotiate $10B, simply for the fact that you could get Amazon, Staples, WalMart, Google, JD.com, Tesco, and AliBaba into a bidding war...and if none of them decided to pay you $10B, you could just offer your own FBA-like service for a fraction of what Amazon charges and make your own $10B. Amazon is acting like a Pawn Shop owner taking advantage of the guy with the original Picasso by telling him that it was a common forgery. Nobody in their right mind should sign up for these contests, and it pains me to see intelligent people duped into it for "the exposure".
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    If you had a robot that could stow, pick, and pack any item in a warehouse... TFA was pretty clear that none of the teams at the competition had anything close to this. The winner, which was far ahead of competitors, was able to move ten of a group of twelve specially-selected objects in twenty minutes. It's quite possible that some of the competitors will eventually create what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem that they've given away their grandchildren's inheritance just yet.
  - genericuser 11y ago
    This presumes aquiring large quantities of money is a required motivation for developing new technology for one to be qualified as 'in their right mind'. To me this comes off like saying 'No one in their right mind should be a teacher and give knoweledge to others that they could use to get rich'. Believe it or not some people enjoy the competition, the challenge of solving an interesting problem you had not previously considered, and over all advancing the technology of the world they live in far more than gaining absurd amounts of monetary wealth.
  - IanCal 11y ago
    > Nobody in their right mind should sign up for these contests, and it pains me to see intelligent people duped into it for "the exposure". This attitude disappoints me greatly. The team that won was the robotics research unit at the Technical University of Berlin: https://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de https://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de, second place was MIT. I hardly think they were "duped" into competing. These people do research. Having a specified task that multiple teams "compete" on is there just to give a good comparison of the different approaches, otherwise everyone is picking their own tasks and it's hard to see what benefits / cons each system has. What next, complaining that researchers publish open access papers for "the exposure" rather than selling the ideas? Edit - Here's a list of the teams: http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml
    - saosebastiao 11y ago
      I have no problem with competition nor open research, which is probably how the researchers viewed this competition. My problem was how strikingly small the reward was for custom tailoring months of their efforts and research towards helping a single company eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and save billions of dollars. The top prize wasn't even enough budget for a lab assistant for a year! It sounds more like an evil plot from a sinister villain than it does an interesting research opportunity. If you want to do interesting research, don't let multinational companies with obvious agendas tell you what is interesting unless they are also willing to share the reward that they get from your hard work.
- IanCal 11y ago
  I know, I assumed they meant the researchers. I meant if the competition didn't require that the researchers give the IP to Amazon, then what has happened is just that Amazon have funded some research / a competition which has resulted in some things being released for all to use.

melling 11y ago

Can you skip the snarky comment and explain why this kind of contest is bad? To me it seems like a great idea for everyone. The contestants: 1. Can win money 2. Gain exposure 3. Network with other contestants 4. Potentially get more funding

mfringel 11y ago
The general problem with doing gigs "for exposure" is that it typically only gets you other gigs "for exposure".
- robotresearcher 11y ago
  These are talented grad students doing a gig "for exposure" on Amazon's dime with Amazon recruiters in the room hungry for talent. Many other recruiters were there (including Uber - first time I've seen them at an academic robot conference). edit: should add that not only recruiters were there. Amazon engineers including their head of robot R&D were involved and available on the floor. Nice people. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon and I don't do picking research)
- IanCal 11y ago
  The teams were almost all Universities. This is research, not business. Pretty much the only one I spotted in the team list that wasn't, was mitsubishi. Unless they're really struggling these days, I don't think that exposure is an issue. http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/teams.shtml
saosebastiao 11y ago
If you could teleport packages to my front porch, would you be willing to give that to Amazon in exchange for $25k and "exposure"? Amazon becomes the first trillion dollar company in history and you get your name on a press release and some snack money. I would never want any sort of exposure that told people that I'm easily duped about the value of my brain.
- melling 11y ago

lumberjack 11y ago

I generally agree with this sentiment but it's important to note that they don't know beforehand whether their technology is worth anything or not. In a way, entering such contests is a way of lower risk in exchange for more modest rewards. If they wanted to setup a startup instead it would have taken them ages to get the same kind of recognition this contest immediately gives them.