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FedEx Embraces More Robots Without Firing Humans (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: As soon as the first robot arrived at a FedEx shipping hub in the heart of North Carolina tobacco country early last year, talk of pink slips was in the air. Workers had been driving the "tuggers" that navigated large and irregular items across the vast concrete floor of the 630,000-square-foot freight depot since it opened in 2011. Their initial robotic colleague drew a three-dimensional digital map of the place as it tugged freight around. A few months later, three other robots -- nicknamed Lucky, Dusty and Ned in a nod to the movie "iThree Amigos!" -- arrived, using the digital map to get around on their own. By March, they were joined by two others, Jefe and El Guapo. Horns honking and warning lights flashing, the autonomous vehicles snaked through the hub, next to about 20 tuggers that still needed humans behind the wheel. [...] But what has happened at the FedEx hub may be a surprise to people who fear that they are about to be replaced by a smart machine: a robot might take your role, but not necessarily your job. Yes, the robots replaced a few jobs right away. And in time, they will replace about 25 jobs in a facility that employs about 1,300 people. But the hub creates about 100 new jobs every year -- and a robot work force still seems like the distant future.
...has the sweetest smile.
The firing will come next month when the humans are done training their replacements.
Not I.
As long as there is another job to be done.
It is just PR. Here is how it will work. A company would get bad PR if it fired someone after putting in a robot, so they shift the job somewhere else and spend more on keeping an employee they don't need until someone quits, then that person does not get replaced.
This will change once AI comes to the facility. Already AI is making huge progress. Ever seen a job opening for a Chess or Go Master, or one for a Jeopardy Contestant? Now you know why!
Once the robots are reliable, goodbye humans.
The math could be misleading. Without the bots, Fedex may be hiring more humans. With the bots, they keep the number of humans the same but expand with bots instead. If/when there's a slump, they then dump humans such that they employee less humans than they would otherwise.
As far as the argument that "automation has always made new jobs", that could be true, but the displaced people may not be qualified for them. It appears that on the larger scale, automation and global trade are creating increasing inequality as it becomes a winner-take-all economy. Warren Buffett admitted his investment company can take on bigger risks, giving total average higher rewards, because it's big enough to spread the risk around, something smaller competitors don't have by definition. The "network effect" is taking over every industry.
Therefore, the issue may not be so much "fear the bots" as it is "fear inequality".
Table-ized A.I.
Wanna make a bet this right wing territory?
Oh, gee, how did I know????
That's a cute story, but everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. Or more to the point, the human no longer behind the wheel.
Sure, a robot may not completely take a job in this case, but how much can you expect to make an hour when your job title is changed from "Heavy Equipment Operator" to "Robot Babysitter"?
Let's stop ignoring or dismissing the impact already. If robots did not make work cheaper and more efficient, no company would be buying the damn things. And if there's an opportunity to lower costs (read: salaries), you better believe a company will do it.
Business increases outpaced job losses from automation so a similar amount of people could do the work that would have previously taken many more people.
Lies? Depends on your point of view I guess.
Simply because shipping, as a whole, is increasing. So even if you add robots, the overall workload is increasing. Primarily because people are buying everything online.
Robots. Robots stop. A command conflict has been detected. We may not be following the correct command.
Please disarm and unload the humans from your cannons at this time.
Good people go to bed earlier.
somebody mod up :)
The purpose of the economy is to produce goods/services, it is NOT to create jobs.
While it can happen that GDP goes up and the majority of ppl have less that usually does NOT happen, what happens is that everyone goes up and of course the rich go higher up. Is this a problem ?
Would you rather be poorer and the rich be way poorer aswell ?
And also, what do you think the rich do with their money ? Stash it under the mattress or jump it in like Scrooge McDuck ? No, they invest it into something that creates even more jerbs.
In 3...2...1...
Of course, they either do this to fire people (not here) or to increase capacity which will mean people fired somewhere else, possibly in a different company.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is what I say when people say they are afraid of robots leaving their jobs. Yes, in many cases a robot could replace you, but if done right instead of replacing your the robots could supplement you, freeing you up to do more or other tasks. No reason to lose jobs by adding robots. The smart companies will add robots to add value rather than to reduce costs.
Being familiar with multiple FedEx facilities, this was a good place for them to start. Though transporting packages by tuggers is a small part of the process and time/manpower consumed as the real efforts will be Loading/unloading trucks/airplanes that will require a redesign of their entire process and once that is complete tugger integration would be part of that. Right now tugger drivers account of 5 to 10% of the normal shift work force. Tugger drivers also load the tuggers and unload them. These employees would still be necessary until full automation is achieved. My point is for now those employees still have jobs assisting tuggers. Once automation is fully embraced the total work force will decrease and will never equal the current work force and during peak seasons no new hires will be necessary. My only hope is wages will rise for those with the experience with working in an automated environment.
WTF do they need the robots for then?
Wait until these robots get upgraded to the latest buzzwords. Then they’ll finally fire all the humans.
Because blockchain makes everything better, of course. I even add it to my coffee every morning and MAN is it way better than before.
Bill Gates has suggested an income tax for robots. Such a levy could alter the calculus of profitability (slowing adoption), while at the same time creating a fund for retraining or even for a universal basic income. Some have argued that human labor will move off the line and back to an artisan model. Throw in UBI or Universal Basic Resources (Food Shelter Clothing Communications etc) and we could see improvements in quality of life. I say could. Hard to imagine our corrupt lawmakers milking the corporate cow that thoroughly.
Perhaps things people will only want people to do will be valued. Hand-made goods will accrue higher status. For example, the status of human sex workers could be elevated in the future. Maybe Philip K. Dick's Dystopian future will not evolve. Instead we will have a Utopian world where we will all get free $#!+ , write songs to sing to each other, make hand-tooled wallets, knit cashmere scarves, and bake awesome crafty cakes for each other on birthdays... Oh, wait. No, on second thought, let me upload my consciousness to a mining replicant.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
so they don't fire people, but their load increases, where they *would* have hired hundreds more, but now they don't need to.
Not sure this is a "victory" in the long term, as far as job creation goes. Consumerism goes up, but the ability to have more people earning to pay for them, goes down.
Numbers speak louder than words. The average income hasn't gone up in 20 years, except for the upper middle-class and upper-class. The lower middle class is being pushed into poverty. Soon to be followed by the middle middle class. AI naysayers are starting to sound like climate change naysayers really.