
What’s The Secret Behind Diapers.com Success? A Kiva Robot Warehouse - jamesbritt
http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/10/whats-the-secret-behind-diapers-com-success-a-kiva-robot-warehouse-video/
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ThomPete
I am always reminded of what John Smart said in one of his lectures some years
back.

America lost 2 million jobs to the Chinese. But guess who the Chinese lost 15
million jobs to... the robots.

~~~
koeselitz
... and _I_ am reminded of what a friend of mine who worked in a warehouse
said to me a while ago:

"This is the most idiotic job on the planet. Someday they'll have robots to do
this."

~~~
skinnymuch
Hah. I have this poster in my home office:

<http://www.despair.com/motivation.html>

It reads "if a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate
you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."

------
martincmartin
SeeGrid does something similar, but without having to modify the warehouse at
all:

<http://www.seegrid.com/>

It was started by CMU Roboticist and futurist Hans Moravec, as the culmination
of his life's work to date.

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exit
how much of the work force will automation eventually render permanently
unemployed? i'm not a luddite - i think this is inevitable and there's no
point resisting it. but some of the consequences might be worth thinking
through.

~~~
avar
It's only because of our crazy and short-term way of looking at things that
this is even considered a problem.

People losing their jobs because robots replace menial warehouse jobs is a
good thing. They can move onto doing more worthwhile tasks.

~~~
natrius
What happens when robots can do more worthwhile tasks than a wide swath of
humanity? This point doesn't seem very far away. There are tons of jobs that
don't require creativity, and those don't seem long for this world.

~~~
houseabsolute
Presumably if robots ever become that productive there will be no need for
most people to work, since the robots will produce plenty of goods for
everyone. Jobs are not an end unto themselves. Work is required to consume
only because of scarcity. In the world you're imagining, that won't exist for
most of the things people need to live. So it will be provided for free.

~~~
natrius
Somebody will own those robots and their output. Either robot owners will have
to give away goods, or the government will have to forcibly redistribute it
for your conclusion to hold. I actually don't think either of those are very
unlikely, but it's still going to be a major change that makes the current
political discourse about "socialism" seem quite trivial.

~~~
GFischer
I'm worried about the population always growing to match (or exceed) whatever
the robots (+human) output can be.

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rakslice
Since this is basically what Piggly Wiggly brought to the world of grocery
retail in 1916, but with the customers replaced by robots (tee-hee), I wonder
how long it will be before robots do the moving around of products at a
supermarket near you?

Whether I shop at a warehouse store, or I go to the big department store and
or supermarket chain stores that are all evolving into the same kind of
150,000+ sq. ft. 'everything' store (i.e. warehouse stores with better product
packaging and shinier floors), I can see that retailers are already doing
warehouse-sized volume in cities all over the planet.

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gmack
Wait, they _fly_ airplanes full of diapers to the West Coast!? I wonder what
quantity of jet fuel exhaust gets spewed into the atmosphere, just so you can
get diapers _the next day_. Even with the increased per-worker efficiency, is
the overall environmental impact worse or better than cloth systems, or simply
getting them from the corner store?

~~~
ars
Cloth diapers are worse for the environment compared to disposable, no matter
how you get it.

(Disposable uses landfill space of which we have unlimited quantities, but
cloth uses water which is in short supply. Also cloth uses more energy.)

But it's easy to tell if this method is better or worse for the environment:
You have to pay for jet fuel, or truck fuel, or whatever. All forms of energy
cost about the same. If it's cheaper to get it delivered via next day air,
then it must have used less energy.

~~~
xal
Do you have some more information on this? Our first will arrive within the
next 2 weeks and this sounds really interesting.

~~~
ars
Oh, this is a massive debate, and more emotional than rational. "But cloth
should be better! It just seems like it should be better!"

Wikipedia is probably as good an introduction as any:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloth_diaper#Debate>

Also, cloth diapers cause more rashes. (Unless there is an allergy to the
disposable one, in which case it causes more.)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>cloth diapers cause more rashes.

I'd heard the contrary (we use both cloth and compostable disposables), any
citations?

I can see how those using strong washing detergents could have problems, we
use ecover and haven't had nappy rash problems (anecdotal I know).

~~~
ars
Yes, here: <http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/801222-overview>

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daveyb100
Can you imagine working in that warehouse? A never-ending series of tasks
brought to you by a being that never stops, sleeps or wants to know what
you're doing at the weekend. A job that requires no intelligence and is
endlessly monotonous. That is a vision of hell. I think they have solved one
problem but created a dozen others.

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melling
I want all my non-perishables delivered this way. Let's get the robots to pack
a more complex box.

~~~
grinich
Amazon.com has food.

[http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-
organic...](http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-
organic/b?ie=UTF8&node=16310101)

It's a killer deal when combined with Amazon Prime (free 2-day shipping).

~~~
covercash
Also check out Amazon Subscribe & Save:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-
save/details/index.ht...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-
save/details/index.html)

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d_c
Where can I find out more about the algorithms they use? Multi-agent systems?
Any suggestions?

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leej
afaik, amazon does not use this kind of tech, at least for most of the
shipments. does anyone know why? not ready for amazon-scale operations?

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jdabney
What I can't believe is this company won't ship anything to Alaska or Hawaii.
I don't understand how companies think that is acceptable.

~~~
philwelch
It's significantly less reliable, more expensive, and of extremely limited
benefit to ship things to relatively unpopulated states in the middle of the
ocean, or across two international borders into the Arctic. People are of
course free to live in those places, but they're not free to demand the rest
of the world to accommodate their decision.

~~~
jdabney
I would completely agree if companies had to setup their own shipping
infrastructures to ship to these places; but they don't. Companies like FedEx,
UPS, etc, already do this for you and they already ship to places like Alaska
and Hawaii. Just charge the customer the extra shipping they are charged by
the shipper and let it be at that.

~~~
pbiggar
Alternatively, make it illegal to only offer shipping to the lower 48, so that
the fringe states don't end up in the third world.

This (I believe) is what the UK does with Northern Ireland.

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mkramlich
babies

babies _and_ robots

 _and_ organic search with a great domain name

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die_sekte
Whoa. I wonder when we will see completely robotic warehouses.

~~~
bradgessler
I believe the US Mint operates one.

