;)
Posted on 01/26/2015 7:22:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The world’s first robotized sales assistants were rolled out last month in California. They are nifty, cute — and terrifying.
Nicknamed OSHbots, the two machines cost $50,000 apiece, are five feet of plastic on wheels and carry built-in natural language processors, computers, product scanners and navigation tools.
Named after the Orchard Supply Hardware store where they work in San Jose, they greet customers, ask if they need help, identify items, then offer to guide them to the appropriate aisle without bumping into anyone or anything.
At night, they do inventory by cruising the store to identify missing products and update their store map. The OSHbots will never ask for a raise or call in sick. They also have the recall of a National Merit Scholar, but, on the other hand, they can’t open a box or climb a ladder to reach a hammer. And if you went up to one and shouted “fire,” it would respond that “fire extinguishers are on aisle 4 and I can take you there” . . . in English or Spanish.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yes, it is a somewhat scary proposition, but if I can be free from the incessant repetitive annoying retail mantra, “Hi How are you”...I will consider it a net positive.
Article hits the nail on the head.
They cost $50,000 apiece. When you add the cost of maintenance, software upgrades, repairs, etc. I think it will be quite some time before the minimum-wage workforce has much to worry about.
I stand corrected.
The wife of the robot designer..she Rules, and says, "No babe robots!"
/s
Also, in a hardware store, the Feminazis are liable to make an "Occupy" protest, grab hammers and crowbars and smash all the cutie robots!
I think so.
After all, someone has to work as slaves for the robots.
The future looks bright for whomever builds the best combination living room recliner/toilet.
This is not going to end well. We have gone from a manufacture based economy to a service based one. Now service jobs are becoming automated. What do you do with a population that has an even smaller prospect for work?
So did the Luddites.
“The future will be a 80% of the population will have zero marginal value in a robot/AI economy. They will spend their days in Virtual Reality play getting a welfare check from the gov’t every month.”
The future will look like Detroit in the first “RoboCop” movie before the RoboCop was invented.
“The future looks bright for whomever builds the best combination living room recliner/toilet.”
Didn’t Al Bundy already have one of those?
The future will look like Detroit in the first “RoboCop” movie before the RoboCop was invented.
Cool, I always wanted to play Nukem!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZAGZvwHLz8
Who knew that wanting to talk to humans would make me a Luddite. Seems like a badge of honor....
Yes. And so did Homer Simpson.
“When you add the cost of maintenance, software upgrades, repairs, etc. I think it will be quite some time before the minimum-wage workforce has much to worry about.”
However, universal minimum wage of $15.00/hr (and higher) will accelerate replacement of service jobs. Ordering and paying for fast food and coffee are ripe for the picking, and in particular, there’s not even a need for a “barista” anymore, since the fully automated espresso machines only need to be slightly redesigned to be turned around on the counter so the customers pull their own shots. Next will be the fast food restaurant kitchens themselves. Only a matter of time until a miniaturized food factory is installed in the back of each one, and you need only two employees: one to load the ingredients and another to clean tables and take out the trash. A couple of roving repairmen can take care of maintenance and repair for a whole district.
“Wouldn’t that be a kick on the head? You invest in a robot company only to find the robots in the scrap heaps, having been disintermediated by online commerce. “
Probably the robot companies could easily adapt to providing “picker” robots for the warehouse end of online commerce. Those places are nearly fully automated now, with human pickers essentially being parts plugged into the picker machine anyway, since they wear headsets where a computer tells them what to pick and what delivery box to put it in. Everything else is automated. Right now the only reason the pickers themselves aren’t being replaced with robots is that humans have better manual dexterity.
Amortized over 5 to 10 years? No sick leave, no health insurance? Smart retailers will JUMP on robot floor staff. And I can’t blame them one bit.
So I guess you still go to the library to do research, never use an ATM, never place an order on-line, never download music, never use a toll pass, never go to the self-checkout lane, never check your accounts on-line, or place a stock order on-line, take the stairs instead of pushing a button on elevators, never use GPS or ask SIRI for help while driving ...
Sometimes change is tough. But that said, choice is good. You will just have to pay more for the personal touch.
;)
In a rational free modern division of labor society, mass unemployment is always caused by lousy government policies.General prosperity is caused by economic progress which is the result of the combination of technological progress and capital accumulation. The adoption of labor saving devices and machinery may cause temporary unemployment for some,but in general and in the long run, it leads to not mass unemployment but higher standard of living for the average worker.Because it becomes possible for the same number of workers to produce a vastly increased quantity of goods and obtain the benefit of these goods in their capacity as consumers.
Improvements in machinery of the labor saving variety are an essential prerequisite of labor becoming available for increasing the production of goods previously considered luxuries and for working with improvements in machinery of the kind that make possible altogether new products.
The effect of labor saving machinery is always to increase the supply of goods relative to the supply of labor and thus to reduce prices relative to wage rates. This increases the buying power of wages and in this way the standard of living of the average wage earner.
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