Posted on 07/09/2021 12:15:46 AM PDT by Jonty30
I count one person in the warehouse.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords . . .
You got that right.
I’ve seen Star Trek, The Changeling, to know what could happen.
The hive can handle it!
I see that Kroger is using their tech, and read a year or so ago that HEB, Texas’ largest grocery chain was acquiring Kindred robots for automating grocery orders.
Kindred, a US Company based in San Francisco, has been acquired by Tharsus. Tharsus is the robot manufacturer for Ocado, the grocery company in the video.
Are we humans entering obsolescence?
The elites think so. They want the same amount of productivity, just not the number of humans required to maintain that productivity.
Do robots pay taxes, work, or make new robots? No humans left. No robots left. No cows left to milk. No more need for government officials. Everything stops.
I still don’t know who refills the stock the robots pick from.
Who breaks down the trucks?
Yeah, robots might be fine for picking packaged goods, but when it comes to meat or produce, not so much. Will the robot choose apples that aren’t bruised, or lettuce that isn’t wilted, or meat that isn’t starting to rot?
The last time I was in Kroger’s, last week, they had no checkers on duty at 10:30 pm. That means I had to use the self checkout to scan and bag over $300 in food. Their stupid machine keeps telling you to “put the item in the bagging area,” whenever you move the bag to make room for new items. It sounds like they’re accusing you of stealing which annoys the hell out of me. The lady behind me dropped her 2-liter bottle of coke and it exploded all over my stuff and hers. It was a nightmare! It took me half an hour to check out, which is ridiculous. If robots are the future for Kroger’s, they’d better start paying the customers when they’re forced to bag their own items because I doubt robots would be capable of doing so.
The reaction emojis are interesting. Pretty much evenly spread aceoss the spectrum from happy to angry.
Who would get angry? People pushing for $15/hr? Because this is what this will buy.
My Walmart has gone full self checkout. There are now onky 4 traditional cashier stations and 50+ self-check.
One of the supermarkets I use take this a step further. With an app on your phone, you scan the items as you are shopping. I like this as it gives me a running tally of what I have spent so far and when I'm done, I just zip on out of there as everybody else is lined up at the checkouts like cattle.
I have never seen anybody else use that feature but me.
Only once did a store worker stop me on the way out to validate my purchases. But even that was a cursory look and a nod of the head and I was on my way.
Walmart here tried the “scan and go” app but dropped it. I really wanted to like it, but was too slow.
Great! Time to stick it to all those democrat voters and have them replaced by robots.
Guess who the Democrats will be fighting for voter rights?
That’s right. The robots.
Guess who the Democrats will be fighting for voter rights?
That’s right. The robots.
They already have a bunch of robots.
The argument against robot automation is the same argument against machine automation. Historically machine automation did cause pockets of unemployment, but the economy eventually adjusted and standard of living was raised for all.
The question is: "Will the convergence of AI and robotics result in labor dislocations so great that it breaks civilization?
Peter Drucker decades ago foresaw a "dream economy" where labor was focused on entertainment and imagination and less on physical labor.
Do robots pay taxes, work, or make new robots?
Entirely possible, yes, and yes.
Robots can certainly be taxed in a number of ways. They could be a assigned a tax classification where the owner has to pay some amount to operate the robot. Not much difference than the property taxes that businesses have to pay now on equipment. Taxes can be and are already applied to equipment sales and leases.
Robots certainly work. But they do not receive a wage or salary. Instead their creator/owner either rents them out or sells them. In that sense they are slaves. It's the slave owners that pay taxes. Either robots are taxed as part of production similar to income tax or sales taxes fund government. If they are producing more product, then maybe taxes go down.
There is an argument that income taxes are far more stable than sales taxes that are subject to waves of consumer sentiment.
And absolutely robots can become self replicating and AI can even be employed to evaluate and improve the robot design over time.
AI could have a number of different objectives. Design robots that are very effective for certain tasks. Design other robots that are very general purpose. Design some that can emulate humans, using tools designed for humans. Design some that are extremely safe to work in proximity of humans. Design some that are light weight for air travel. Etc.
"No humans left. No robots left. No cows left to milk. No more need for government officials. Everything stops.
Not necessarily. The rise of robotic tech doesn't necessarily eliminate humans any more than machines did.
There is one scenario where the economy adjusts and people find new employment in areas that aren't automated. Arts, sciences, and finding new ways to employ robots.
There is another where the majority of Earth's inhabitants are thrown out of work, governments are too slow or ineffective in their response, and wars and rebellions consume the planet.
There is another where robots either become sentient and decide human's are in their way. Or they implement a poorly design goal, such as eliminating human infections of malaria by eliminating all humans. A strategy of keeping human's safe and aiding humans must be part of the AI goals. Or humans have to find ways of remaining in control.
As long as humans exist, there will be cows and government officials. Everything continues.
First they made us unload our carts.
Then they made us scan the products and bag them.
The smiling teen who pushed the cart to your car and put the groceries into your trunk disappeared decades ago.
Now our Safeway is a two story building where you park on the first floor and either use the stairs, escalator or elevator to get to the food on the second floor.
Grocery shopping sucks. They make me do their work and don’t pay me for,doing their work.
To top it off, I don’t even get Green Stamps anymore.
There’s going to be a thriving business in robot repair, maintenance, and programming. They’ll have to be cleaned daily and parts will break and have to be replaced.
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