Humans Saved Again By Our Opposable Thumbs
From a fascinating article on Amazon and its automation vision:
After a customer places an order, a robot carrying the desired item scoots over to a worker, who reads on a screen what item to pick and what cubby it’s located in, scans a bar code and places the item in a bright-yellow bin that travels by conveyor belt to a packing station. AI suggests an appropriate box size; a worker places the item in the box, which a robot tapes shut and, after applying a shipping label, sends on its way. Humans are needed mostly for grasping and placing, tasks that robots haven’t mastered yet.
Amazon’s robots signal a sea change in how the things we buy will be aggregated, stored and delivered. The company requires one minute of human labor to get a package onto a truck, but that number is headed to zero. Autonomous warehouses will merge with autonomous manufacturing and delivery to form a fully automated supply chain.
I got some cr*p on twitter a while back about writing this, but I think it is pretty much vindicated by the "one minute" factoid above:
Amazon likely is being pressured by the tightening labor market to raise wages anyway. But its call for a general $15 minimum wage is strategically brilliant. The largest employers of labor below $15 are Amazon's retail competitors. If Amazon is successful in getting a $15 minimum wage passed, all retailers will see their costs rise but Amazon's competition will be hit much harder.
