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Comment on Amazon is reportedly training humanoid robots to deliver packages

Yo why tf can’t they just fucking pay people a reasonable wage AND give them sane working conditions? This is insane. Capitalism does not favor anyone except the rich. It’s time to tear down this wall of mediocrity and face the facts. No sense of government intervention will fix this. It must all be rewritten entirely.

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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Because it’s not real. It’s purely for marketing, not for actual wide-spread implementation.

Even in the best of cases, even factoring in economy of scale and all that, a robot like that will cost upwards of €50k at least, probably closer to double that, will require constant maintainance, and the risk of vandalism or accidental damage is really high. And you’ll likely need a (skilled) human operator nearby anyway, because the delivery vehicle doesn’t drive itself.

The purpose of projects like this is marketing and public perception.

The company looks futuristic and future proof. That’s good to get investors.

The company looks like they could replace humans with robots at any time. That’s good with negotiations with unions and workers.

The company gets into headlines worldwide. That’s advertisement they don’t have to pay for.

This robot is not meant to ever go mainstream. Maybe there will be a handful of routes where they will be implemented for marketing purposes, but like drone delivery and similar gimmicks, it won’t beat a criminally underpaid delivery human on price, and that’s the only metric that counts for a company like Amazon.
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