

Amazon Reveals the Robots at the Heart of Its Cyber Monday Operation - prostoalex
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/amazon-reveals-robots-heart-epic-cyber-monday-operation/

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WestCoastJustin
> _pre-Kiva, pickers would walk the aisles to the bins storing the needed
> items. Now the shelves come to the pickers instead._

There's a great video of the things in action @
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs)

~~~
chucknelson
It's like a preview of when our highways will be full of self-driving cars -
very cool.

And I guess the next step is robots actually pulling the merchandise off of
the shelves? Or maybe they'll just skip moving the shelves all together and
just have collection robots roaming around, pulling product, and then packing
it somewhere off to the side?

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rgbrenner
Makes me a little sad.. It's been almost 3 years since Amazon bought Kiva.. no
improvements to the tech, and they seem to have just locked up the tech for
themselves.

Before Amazon, Kiva was growing at 130%/year and had over $100m/year in
revenue.

Hope Amazon eventually starts selling these again.. could really change
fulfillment. But not so optimistic.. considering that would be walmart.com and
other amazon competitors.

~~~
georgeott
How difficult would it be for another robot company to build similar
technology? Patents are also most likely an issue.

~~~
rgbrenner
Not sure how hard it would be to copy Kiva.. but there's one other competitor:
swisslog autostore

[http://www.swisslog.com/en/Products/WDS/Storage-
Systems/Auto...](http://www.swisslog.com/en/Products/WDS/Storage-
Systems/AutoStore)

~~~
rgbrenner
I completely overlooked this.. they have a product that is nearly identical to
Kiva:

[http://www.swisslog.com/Products/WDS/Storage-
Systems/CarryPi...](http://www.swisslog.com/Products/WDS/Storage-
Systems/CarryPick)

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no_gravity

        Won’t Amazon try to find ways to replace as many of those human workers
        as possible? Clark says that won’t happen, because the rise in
        productivity will give Amazon the means to grow. And growth means
        Amazon will need to hire more people.
    

I find this idea pretty interesting. That the amount of jobs stays the same
even though robots do more and more of the stuff humans did in the past. So
far it seems to hold true. We came a long way since the stone age and there
still is useful stuff to do.

Maybe this will not change until robots are better at everything. Strong AI
etc. But then we will probably somehow merge with the robots. Enhance
ourselves with technology. And stay competitive.

Maybe jobs are forever.

~~~
crc32
For me, "The amount of jobs" is not the only factor, the quality of the job
matters as well.

That paragraph suggests that the productivity gain benefits workers (labour)
as well as the owners, (of capital) because it creates jobs. But each of those
jobs could be a low paid, low quality job; as is suggested by the following:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-
mcclelland-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-
free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor)

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-
amazo...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-
insider-feature-treatment-employees-work)

[http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_...](http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/)

Yes there may be more (or the same) number of jobs; as suggested by the
paragraph. But each of those jobs could be lower paid and lower quality in
terms of job satisfaction. So it may still be the case that a greater share of
the productivity gain accrues to capital; instead of labour.

Rather than freeing us; our existing societal structures may mean that
technology instead helps to create a story of inequality - a hollowing out of
today's society with "barristers and baristas and no-one in the middle".
Whether that society is a moral one; or even a functional one, is a separate
question I suppose!

~~~
get
I think the amount one gets paid is equal to the amount of value one creates
for others.

After all it's an auction, right? If somebody offers you to pay $8/h you will
not work for $7/h. And if your work would create an additional $9 for someone,
they would happily offer you $8.

Minimum wage jobs are an exception to this rule. Because the amount paid is
higher then it would be in a free market.

We could look at how we can increase the amount paid for minimum wage jobs.
But I find it more fascinating to think about how we can make people create
more value. So they do not need to compete for minimum wage jobs.

~~~
throwaway_xl5
The employer will want to pay the least they can to get the job done. This
means you will likely get paid an amount less than the value you create for
others. There are a lot of cases where you may choose to work for 7/h even
though 8/h is on offer elsewhere such as a shorter commute, better hours, or
nicer work environment.

~~~
ghshephard
Why would an employee work for less than the value they are creating? Seems
like irrationally altruistic behavior on their part, or, alternatively, a
marketplace in which the employers are not competing for employees (which has
been known to happen in Silicon Valley).

In general, though - employees who are making less than the value they are
creating, will simply be hired by another employer who can profit on that gap.
This process repeats itself until the employee has reached the level at which
they are making roughly what their value contribution is.

e.g. If you have a lawyer who bills out at $500K/year, and is only making
$50K/year at Law Firm #1, they will quickly go to a law firm #2 that will hire
them for $100K a year, and which will then profit $400K/year from their
activity. That lawyer will likely find another job soon at Law Firm #3, where
they will make $150K/year, and so on.

~~~
aaronharnly
Look at the profit per employee at firms such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and
Microsoft. There are a whole lot of people being paid less than the value they
create. (Remember, this is profit _after_ expenses and salaries and such)

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/what-18-of-the-
biggest-t...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/what-18-of-the-biggest-
technology-and-media-companies-earn-p?s=mobile)

~~~
icebraining
That's based on the assumption that only employee labor creates value.

------
louwrentius
Very cool, now the last step, automate the picker. So no humans are required
to do this work. Saves a lot of money. And Amazon can be cheaper still.

This is what IT is all about. Automate the humans away. Now what are we going
to do with all those humans that are not capable of doing work that cannot be
automated away?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Amazon actually has a competition [0] to design a robot that can do the
picking. The difficult part ATM is being able to grab hold of a large variety
of objects, from keychains to footlong dildos. I'm sure that they'll introduce
picking robots for the more uniformly sized products like books soon enough,
or introduce a container system to provide a generic framework for the picking
robots to use.

Still leaves humans to assert the quality of the products though, although
with fully automated systems I'd imagine that products get damaged less while
in the warehouses.

[0] [http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/](http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/)

~~~
swalsh
I've always imagined that if amazon would have as much negotiating power as
Walmart does, they could mandate suppliers to put items in standard boxing, so
you could put a bunch of vending machines on top of kiva bots.

~~~
goatforce5
...or boxing that fits in standard sizes of storage containers that can be
easily handled by the robots. Similar to how small sized by high-value items
(video games, perfumes, etc) are often stored (and rattle around in) clear
locked boxes on the shelves at department stores.

The manufacturers could be encouraged to reduce their box size (and, thus the
amount of room it takes up in the warehouse) by being charged a fee for items
that took up too much room and/or non-standard room.

For a while during Jobs' Keynotes they'd announce a new iPod, and then say how
much smaller the packaging was. The end-user probably doesn't care, but for
those in the supply change I guess it's a huge deal. Less airplanes and
shipping containers from China, more stock on the same amount of shelves, etc.

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gregpilling
I am surprised that only 20% of the Amazon warehouses have the Kiva robot
system. Maybe it is just the new construction warehouses.

From the article "In the US, Amazon now has a workforce of 15,000 Kiva robots
deployed across 10 of its 50 domestic fulfillment centers."

So 80% still to get automated.

~~~
flyt
You can't just switch this stuff out overnight. Give it time and Amazon will
probably run most of their FCs off Kiva robots, but there will also be some
FCs that don't adopt them because their items are too large, oddly-shaped, or
other reasons.

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phatboyslim
60 Minutes did a story on robotics in January of 2013 that showed Kiva robots
in action. You can jump to 2:45 in the following link to see the demo:
[http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/are-robots-hurting-job-
growth-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/are-robots-hurting-job-
growth-50138922/)

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shiftpgdn
Is there a weight limit for those machines? I take great pleasure in ordering
silly heavy things off amazon with overnight shipping. Most recently a very
heavy adjustable dumbell set.

