There is an Amazon fulfillment center in my town. They are on a hiring spree and they can’t find enough people. the place is a sweatshop and they are quickly burning through the entire population of employable people.
Animation is their only hope in the long run.
I’m through with Amazon because they stopped selling the Confederate flag. When the primary distributor of what we read, watch and listen to decided to be a censor, I realized I can no longer trust them as to what’s offered.
While businesses should have the freedom to automate, this does point towards serious structural problems with labor laws, regulations, healthcare laws, tax laws, and minimum wage laws. Seems to me that governement makes it so expensive for businesses to employ people that automation becomes feasible.
No strikes.
No $15/hour minimum wage.
The future of McDonalds.
Of course the merchandise is made in China and Mexico and eventually people won’t be able to afford it when they don’t have work.
I worked in manufacturing and automation for 22 years. Now I teach in high school; this is perfect for students to get motivated: LEARN engineering, programming, high skill maintenance.
Robots need to be designed, built, programmed and maintained - all good jobs.
With all of that automation, they still sent me the wrong book this week. At least I get a refund even though I have to drive to the UPS store today to send the wrong one back.
I was amazed at how effortlessly that robot arm (1:35) lifted that pallet of boxes, that must have weighed hundreds of pounds, like it was full of feathers.