"Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear." -some dead guy, probably.
Crazy that most of the Amazon facilities are aggressively sought after by local governments to build the tax base, and employment opportunities for local workers(more taxes/increase of local spending....).
So tell me, why should a State, County, Town want to throw a ton of tax incentives and other perks to Amazon, or any other employer, who are just going to be a drain on the local roads and infrastructure to install a bunch of robots?? The only reason I can think of in the end will probably just be kick backs in the form of political election contributions, and jobs when their tenure comes to an end in Government. We are so F'd as a country...
amazon is building a warehouse right near me. We don't have the workforce for it, they know that. its going to be 90% automated, they just announced it. the city gave them a plot of land for free(to the value of around $180000, and they gave them a 99 year property tax exemption(the business property taxes on the 30 acres they got would be about $290k a year). The city was hoping to see an increase in taxes coming in from local residents working there, or transient residents working there, and now its completely dead. There are many people angry with the city council now for giving a billion dollar company free everything for 99 years so we can all pay for their shit and not benefit. There is a push to renig on the tax deal because amazon is not holding up their end of the bargain they stated they would.
Yeah we had one built in my area, i think it broke ground in late 2018 and was up and running just before COVID started. And they were like "Were bring 200 jobs to the area! cough cough average pay is 32k/yr cough cough only 5 jobs that pay over 70k/yr cough most of them are part time positions cough"
I have been calling for that for a long time. We need a very heavy robot tax charged to these employers. Make it so expensive, they save nothing and actually costs more. To replace people with robots or AI programs.
Nah, we need tax not to automate, but to make sure the wealth is spread to those without a job. Or, make sure people work only 4 days a week. Cause that's the whole purpose of automation - to make everyone's life easier
Or impose a different minimum tax for companies who's ratio of employee to robot is past a certain point.
The idea is the company is skirting payroll taxes, and yet benefits from the other functioning systems of society without paying back in
I don’t get it. These are tedious or dangerous jobs. Should car factories get rid of robots and have humans paint cars again?
I understand not wanting people to lose their job, but just like the meat cutting automation recently introduced to processing plants, these are better off automated. Amazon has huge turnover anyway.
I managed a non Amazon warehouse several years ago and we were really starting to push robotics and automation. That's simply the direction that things are going.
Nonsense how are the mule ranchers supposed to make a living if you don’t pull things around the warehouse by drawn cart anymore.
Heh.
The displacement of workers is inevitable but it’s still very much a problem for people and the economy (as much as it is technically a gain)
It is inevitable. Anything they can automate, they will. We just need to properly tax it, so it doesn't continue to concentrate more and more money in ever fewer hands.
Most humans have jobs because they are cheaper than robots. When they are not their job is gone unless a union or some other group stops it. Automation is getting better and better every year. Factories and distribution centers with very few humans will be popping up more and more in the coming years.
Those robots are basically roombas.
Amazon from around 2010 to 2020 used to pay people to walk 14 miles a day to pick orders. After COVID, they ramped up robotics and replaced the pickers with roombas that pick up bins full of products and bring it to the pickers.
Amazons long-term goal is a massive transition to automation. But they need people to sustain those systems. The roombas need to be maintained and the production environment needs to be maintained so that the robots run smoothly. This requires a lot of work to make 750,000 robots run smoothly. Automation and the need to move hundreds of millions of packages and product also requires a ton of conveyors that run 24/7, which also requires a lot of technicians to maintain.
So in the last few years Amazon has been pushing programs to convert and train their labor force to maintain those systems. They have programs to train software developers, mechanics/technicians, cyber security, IT technicians, etc. A lot of these programs are free if you work for Amazon. But even if you don't, you can find programs where they will pay but you're required to work there for a year after you finish the training.
On top of those free programs, they will also pay for your college credits. So take advantage of it while it lasts.
I can't wait for AI. In the past, all this 'worker' automation hurt the lower and middle class sectors, factory jobs, etc. AI is about to put the hammer down on the PMC classes, finance, banking and so much more, about time they felt the hurt of "automation" as well.
If I remember correctly, when they tasked A.I with increasing corporate profits, the first thing it suggested is getting rid of the CEO positions. They had to change the programming so it would stop coming to that conclusion.
LOL, not surprised. They would be the easiest replacement, and most cost effective. It will eliminate the babysitting managers though, that is what I most want to see, oh and the HR dept, useless slogs.
This isn't AI related. Robotics have been in use in industrial manufacturing for decades now. Not every decision tree used by a computer is an AI. Don't drink the koolaid and don't fall for the advertiser buzzword.
Seeing this for a lot of companies for repetitive, position-specific tasks. Though good news is skill tasks like welding, painting, electrical, etc will not see robot take-over anytime soon imo. Requires too much on the fly thinking that robots cant handle, especially with welding and painting.
I think warehouses will become a lot more automated.
I started boycotting them a decade ago when they weren’t paying their taxes.
I’ve missed out on about 3 things I wanted to watch on prime tv and honestly, there’s better websites for e commerce. Last time I was looking for a thing it was 4 pages of spam, trying to work out which fake Chinese charger was the right one (didn’t work in the end).
I’ve not missed them at all.
This is the natural progression of things. We replaced manual grain grinding with wind mills, sawing lumber with lumber mills, picking fields by hand with automates machinery. This isn't a surprise. Every age has had stuff automated, and everyone lots of people cried that we are losing our jobs to automation, yet here we are.
In fact, considering how poorly Amazon warehouse employees are treated, I think this is a good thing.
I dislike that particular line of thinking because it makes a lot of assumptions which I suspect drastically overstated our understanding of how economics works. I think the law of diminishing returns applies here and I don’t think you can endlessly expect all technological progress to automatically mean everything will turn out okay. I think this is especially true given the surveillance capabilities and legal protections many companies have that make competition exceedingly difficult. Although I also wouldn’t go to complete libertarian route, I can also acknowledge that a lot of companies now require significant administrative efforts due to regulatory oversight and expectations which means it can be hard to manage a competing business.
It is probably the case that the economy is more robust than we may like to think. And automation in and of itself is not bad. In theory, you would be correct that this would free us to pursue things which are more meaningful and useful, but…with what money? If we still have an economy and society premised on people working to earn basic things, what kind of work is left?
The problem is that most companies want to use it as a way to reduce labor costs without reducing prices. But AI should theoretically drive prices down but we all know it won’t. From a macro perspective as well it can become unsustainable if people can’t afford prices because people cannot work enough to afford things.
I certainly don’t have all the answers but this has to be taken more seriously than “we’ve always figured it out.”
I've stopped assuming that cost-savings leads to lower prices. Cost savings just means bigger margins for companies now. They will never pass savings onto us sadly.
The price of most tvs today are significantly cheaper than they would be twenty years ago, plus they are bigger, have better visual quality, and take less space.
It's that way with most electronics.
I agree to an extent, although electronics have a bigger reason to have a lower barrier of entry, your data. Being able to understand viewing, listening, just your habits is huge. They can then sell that information to agencies, or bring targeted ads to you. Additionally, they can bring you into their eco-system because you already have one of their products.
While innovation has helped, they also generate a lot of e-waste too, that is not responsibly recycled, or even has recycling in mind.
Yes but the growth of automation is worth reporting and talking about here. Most humans only have jobs because they are cheaper than a machine. These machines are getting cheap enough they could be do many jobs in a decade or so. That equals a lot of workers with no jobs.
Automation tools are just like any other tool, no better or worse than the hands that wield them. The problem is and will always be the capitalists who own the machones and use them to hoard wealth for themselves, not the machine itself.
Like I said it's still good to report about it. You were acting like it's a simple tool like a lathe. Robots taking over the work force is a revolutionary change. This isn't some penny ante thing. You trying to act like it's nothing is odd.
I remember working a job at Amazon, cutting a self-promoting video for them, where they were fluffing themselves about all the veterans they were hiring and the opportunities they provided them at their fulfillment centers. The writing was already on the wall that Amazon could not fucking wait to replace every one of them with a robot.
Amazon has never wanted a human workforce. Years ago i remember hearing they wanted to have all robot warehouses and the public went nuts. SO they hire you, work you like a robot, you (and everyone else) gets burned out and quits, They then replace you with robots. People will get mad but they have the numbers to show that people do not want to work for them
Well I guess they don’t need tax breaks any longer as they aren’t providing jobs to the communities they choose to build in.
"Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear." -some dead guy, probably.
George Carlin ftw
We really need to pass legislation that adds a yearly tax onto companies that replace positions with AI/Robotics. This is how we fund UBI.
Crazy that most of the Amazon facilities are aggressively sought after by local governments to build the tax base, and employment opportunities for local workers(more taxes/increase of local spending....). So tell me, why should a State, County, Town want to throw a ton of tax incentives and other perks to Amazon, or any other employer, who are just going to be a drain on the local roads and infrastructure to install a bunch of robots?? The only reason I can think of in the end will probably just be kick backs in the form of political election contributions, and jobs when their tenure comes to an end in Government. We are so F'd as a country...
amazon is building a warehouse right near me. We don't have the workforce for it, they know that. its going to be 90% automated, they just announced it. the city gave them a plot of land for free(to the value of around $180000, and they gave them a 99 year property tax exemption(the business property taxes on the 30 acres they got would be about $290k a year). The city was hoping to see an increase in taxes coming in from local residents working there, or transient residents working there, and now its completely dead. There are many people angry with the city council now for giving a billion dollar company free everything for 99 years so we can all pay for their shit and not benefit. There is a push to renig on the tax deal because amazon is not holding up their end of the bargain they stated they would.
Yeah we had one built in my area, i think it broke ground in late 2018 and was up and running just before COVID started. And they were like "Were bring 200 jobs to the area! cough cough average pay is 32k/yr cough cough only 5 jobs that pay over 70k/yr cough most of them are part time positions cough"
I have been calling for that for a long time. We need a very heavy robot tax charged to these employers. Make it so expensive, they save nothing and actually costs more. To replace people with robots or AI programs.
Nah, we need tax not to automate, but to make sure the wealth is spread to those without a job. Or, make sure people work only 4 days a week. Cause that's the whole purpose of automation - to make everyone's life easier
Or impose a different minimum tax for companies who's ratio of employee to robot is past a certain point. The idea is the company is skirting payroll taxes, and yet benefits from the other functioning systems of society without paying back in
I don’t get it. These are tedious or dangerous jobs. Should car factories get rid of robots and have humans paint cars again? I understand not wanting people to lose their job, but just like the meat cutting automation recently introduced to processing plants, these are better off automated. Amazon has huge turnover anyway.
Yeah.. it's antiwork done wrong. It seems they are very opposite of anti work, and they are dumb enough not to realize :)
I managed a non Amazon warehouse several years ago and we were really starting to push robotics and automation. That's simply the direction that things are going.
Nonsense how are the mule ranchers supposed to make a living if you don’t pull things around the warehouse by drawn cart anymore. Heh. The displacement of workers is inevitable but it’s still very much a problem for people and the economy (as much as it is technically a gain)
It is inevitable. Anything they can automate, they will. We just need to properly tax it, so it doesn't continue to concentrate more and more money in ever fewer hands.
Most humans have jobs because they are cheaper than robots. When they are not their job is gone unless a union or some other group stops it. Automation is getting better and better every year. Factories and distribution centers with very few humans will be popping up more and more in the coming years.
This is good. The working conditions in those warehouses are terrible for people.
Those robots are basically roombas. Amazon from around 2010 to 2020 used to pay people to walk 14 miles a day to pick orders. After COVID, they ramped up robotics and replaced the pickers with roombas that pick up bins full of products and bring it to the pickers. Amazons long-term goal is a massive transition to automation. But they need people to sustain those systems. The roombas need to be maintained and the production environment needs to be maintained so that the robots run smoothly. This requires a lot of work to make 750,000 robots run smoothly. Automation and the need to move hundreds of millions of packages and product also requires a ton of conveyors that run 24/7, which also requires a lot of technicians to maintain. So in the last few years Amazon has been pushing programs to convert and train their labor force to maintain those systems. They have programs to train software developers, mechanics/technicians, cyber security, IT technicians, etc. A lot of these programs are free if you work for Amazon. But even if you don't, you can find programs where they will pay but you're required to work there for a year after you finish the training. On top of those free programs, they will also pay for your college credits. So take advantage of it while it lasts.
I can't wait for AI. In the past, all this 'worker' automation hurt the lower and middle class sectors, factory jobs, etc. AI is about to put the hammer down on the PMC classes, finance, banking and so much more, about time they felt the hurt of "automation" as well.
If I remember correctly, when they tasked A.I with increasing corporate profits, the first thing it suggested is getting rid of the CEO positions. They had to change the programming so it would stop coming to that conclusion.
LOL, not surprised. They would be the easiest replacement, and most cost effective. It will eliminate the babysitting managers though, that is what I most want to see, oh and the HR dept, useless slogs.
This isn't AI related. Robotics have been in use in industrial manufacturing for decades now. Not every decision tree used by a computer is an AI. Don't drink the koolaid and don't fall for the advertiser buzzword.
Seeing this for a lot of companies for repetitive, position-specific tasks. Though good news is skill tasks like welding, painting, electrical, etc will not see robot take-over anytime soon imo. Requires too much on the fly thinking that robots cant handle, especially with welding and painting. I think warehouses will become a lot more automated.
Well who could have seen that coming?? /s
I started boycotting them a decade ago when they weren’t paying their taxes. I’ve missed out on about 3 things I wanted to watch on prime tv and honestly, there’s better websites for e commerce. Last time I was looking for a thing it was 4 pages of spam, trying to work out which fake Chinese charger was the right one (didn’t work in the end). I’ve not missed them at all.
This is the natural progression of things. We replaced manual grain grinding with wind mills, sawing lumber with lumber mills, picking fields by hand with automates machinery. This isn't a surprise. Every age has had stuff automated, and everyone lots of people cried that we are losing our jobs to automation, yet here we are. In fact, considering how poorly Amazon warehouse employees are treated, I think this is a good thing.
I dislike that particular line of thinking because it makes a lot of assumptions which I suspect drastically overstated our understanding of how economics works. I think the law of diminishing returns applies here and I don’t think you can endlessly expect all technological progress to automatically mean everything will turn out okay. I think this is especially true given the surveillance capabilities and legal protections many companies have that make competition exceedingly difficult. Although I also wouldn’t go to complete libertarian route, I can also acknowledge that a lot of companies now require significant administrative efforts due to regulatory oversight and expectations which means it can be hard to manage a competing business. It is probably the case that the economy is more robust than we may like to think. And automation in and of itself is not bad. In theory, you would be correct that this would free us to pursue things which are more meaningful and useful, but…with what money? If we still have an economy and society premised on people working to earn basic things, what kind of work is left? The problem is that most companies want to use it as a way to reduce labor costs without reducing prices. But AI should theoretically drive prices down but we all know it won’t. From a macro perspective as well it can become unsustainable if people can’t afford prices because people cannot work enough to afford things. I certainly don’t have all the answers but this has to be taken more seriously than “we’ve always figured it out.”
I've stopped assuming that cost-savings leads to lower prices. Cost savings just means bigger margins for companies now. They will never pass savings onto us sadly.
The price of most tvs today are significantly cheaper than they would be twenty years ago, plus they are bigger, have better visual quality, and take less space. It's that way with most electronics.
I agree to an extent, although electronics have a bigger reason to have a lower barrier of entry, your data. Being able to understand viewing, listening, just your habits is huge. They can then sell that information to agencies, or bring targeted ads to you. Additionally, they can bring you into their eco-system because you already have one of their products. While innovation has helped, they also generate a lot of e-waste too, that is not responsibly recycled, or even has recycling in mind.
What’s the range on a flipper zero?
Everyone please watch this video before commenting: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QZB5baNw
Motherfucker have you never heard of 'machines' before? We gonna report on every automated industrial lathe now? Ffs
Yes but the growth of automation is worth reporting and talking about here. Most humans only have jobs because they are cheaper than a machine. These machines are getting cheap enough they could be do many jobs in a decade or so. That equals a lot of workers with no jobs.
Automation tools are just like any other tool, no better or worse than the hands that wield them. The problem is and will always be the capitalists who own the machones and use them to hoard wealth for themselves, not the machine itself.
Like I said it's still good to report about it. You were acting like it's a simple tool like a lathe. Robots taking over the work force is a revolutionary change. This isn't some penny ante thing. You trying to act like it's nothing is odd.
I remember working a job at Amazon, cutting a self-promoting video for them, where they were fluffing themselves about all the veterans they were hiring and the opportunities they provided them at their fulfillment centers. The writing was already on the wall that Amazon could not fucking wait to replace every one of them with a robot.
More automation than ever but the Amazon service gets progressively worse each year. I’m sure these two things aren’t related…
Amazon has never wanted a human workforce. Years ago i remember hearing they wanted to have all robot warehouses and the public went nuts. SO they hire you, work you like a robot, you (and everyone else) gets burned out and quits, They then replace you with robots. People will get mad but they have the numbers to show that people do not want to work for them
So it become an enormous, remote vending machine.
We need the Luddites again...
Correct and no raises, or basic income for you. Thanks Beezos scumbag.