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344 sats \ 5 replies \ @nullcount 26 Jan freebie \ on: Robots: What Do They Do Best? What Do They Do Worst? tech
Robotic warehouses.
Amazon is STILL one of the only companies to utilize fully-automated warehouses. And it has made them BILLIONS.
Expect this model to be replicated and exported to basically every warehouse in the world over the next 10-20 years.
Additionally, warehouses used to be where shelves held products until they were sold. But thanks to 3d printing, soon shelves will be making (growing) the products the instant they are ordered.
Humanoid robots are best for operation in human environments. Alongside humans, or in spaces where humans used to occupy. If humans need not apply, then the space can be adapted to be more efficient for a bespoke robot, at the cost of becoming a hostile environment for humans.
I doubt we'll see humanoids roaming the streets unattended anytime soon. Humans became the dominant species by murdering every other ape-like creature we encountered. Imagine drunk people throwing their electric scooter rental off a bridge but its a erie-uncanny-valley robot that you can bully around instead.
Robot designers will probably optimize for cute robots or boring R2-D2-looking trashcans rather than "human-like" robots as a defense mechanism for deployments that roam the streets.
lots of good points here
Amazon is STILL one of the only companies to utilize fully-automated warehouses. And it has made them BILLIONS.
if Amazon is making so much money from their warehouses, why aren’t competitors building their own fully-automated warehouses?
thanks to 3d printing, soon shelves will be making (growing) the products the instant they are ordered.
which happens first? 3d printing at scale or warehouse robots at scale?
Humanoid robots are best for operation in human environments. Alongside humans, or in spaces where humans used to occupy. If humans need not apply, then the space can be adapted to be more efficient for a bespoke robot
good point, maybe the human form isn’t an optimal design here
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Amazon lost money for decades investing/researching/iterating on automation and it's not like they're publishing the blueprints for their competition to read. Walmart has only just started investing more in automation after it became clear that Amazon's bet was starting to pay off.
Many industries are looking at automation to supplement a part of their processes, but few are looking seriously at how to re-structure their process to be fully automated.
The buildout of an automated plant takes many years and requires many engineers. America is experiencing an engineering shortage. Additionally, most chips, electronics, and robot parts come from Asia which adds even more to the cost of building these kinds of deployments in USA.
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Amazon lost money for decades investing/researching/iterating on automation and it's not like they're publishing the blueprints for their competition to read. Walmart has only just started investing more in automation after it became clear that Amazon's bet was starting to pay off.
do you think these kinds of fully automated warehouses have the same economies of scale that Amazon and Walmart’s human powered warehouses had?
or is there an outcome where robot-powered warehouses level the playing field between large and small merchants/suppliers?
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In USA, employees are extra expensive. Employers have to pay minimum wage, income tax, health insurance/benefits, safety accommodations, deal with the potential to be sued for injuries or discrimination.
Even non US employees will get sick, show up late, screw up at their job, steal things, have to be trained, they cause drama which impacts morale and they only work 8-12 hour shifts. Shopping for a employee is a process often requiring background checks, interviews, drug tests, contracts, and on-boarding rituals.
There will be a point at which automated labor out competes manual labor at everything and having human workers will be as barbaric and inefficient as having rows of women using typewriters to publish a report instead of using a inkjet printer.
At the same time, every household or community will probably have access to a local micro-factory (3d printer farm/factory) of its own so they won't need the services of the large mega-corp warehouses as much. Kinda like how the adoption of the microwave likely reduced the demand for restaurants.
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