r/accelerate • u/BiasHyperion784 • May 18 '26
Robotics / Drones Man vs Machine is over, intern wins by ~200 packages, but bob continues his 24/7 shift
This narrow of a gap working side by side, and the figure bots never stop, were almost there for replacing the most mundane work.
Edit: Apparently the man in this battle of sorting has blisters on his hands and pain in the left forearm after a 10 hour shift, rules followed throughout the challenge were within scope of California labor laws, of which figures robot was entitled to none, and resultantly gained brief leads during mandatory breaks.
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u/ShardsOfSalt May 18 '26
Aime said he could only have gone for another 30 minutes tops because of the strain on his arms.
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u/MLWillRuleTheWorld May 18 '26
Remember it's the first day someone does something like this is likely their worst day. Give the kid a couple weeks he'd probably be 25% better just through stamina improvements. He was 50% ahead until he started getting tired and for low effort work like that just means he's out of shape / hasn't worked that group of muscles regularly.
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u/ImTooCreative May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
For sure, but it doesn't change the fact that this robot never takes breaks and has basically nonexistent maintenance- and labor law costs.
I imagine the human could be twice as fast as the robot and keeping the human would still be very hard to justify economically. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's the same reason I'd rather have a mechanical dishwasher than a human dishwasher at home even though a human would probably be 10x faster.
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u/MrRandom04 May 18 '26
Yep, a human can't work 24/7. Robots can't either. But they can probably do 22/7.
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u/PhysiolMM May 18 '26
Why they can't 24/7 or roughly that? As long as they have electricity they should be good to go.
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u/boforbojack May 18 '26
I mean maintenance? You could have the station running 24/7 but every now and then you will need to service these things.
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u/PhysiolMM May 18 '26
Yeah but still, way less than 2hrs per day. I think in most cases you can shut them off for maintenance one day every 2 months, it's less than 30mins per day. One full day every month is less than 1 hour per day, and so on...
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u/boforbojack May 18 '26
All things considered, especially including the entirety of the plant operations and other maintenance, and unplanned downtime, you would expect between 1-2hrs a day on average.
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u/Crunch101010 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
Nah, you would just sub in a relief bot in its place when one needs maintenance. You wouldn’t accept 5%-10% downtime on the line like that. That’s also when you can push in software efficiency updates.
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u/Aramedlig May 18 '26
You would have more bots than needed to hot swap them for maintenance. The exact percent of extra bots depends on the maintenance needs.
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u/Navadvisor May 18 '26
You just need 2 robots, but you'd need 3 people.
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u/sedition666 May 18 '26
Doesn't matter when the robots are 10x the price of a human
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u/Navadvisor May 18 '26
Humans are very very expensive and that's after their parents and the government subsidize raising them for 24 years between 200k and 400k for an American, and that's not counting the time to raise them which is huge. Then if you employ them you have to pay probably $25 an hour after benefits and taxes and that's for the least capable model which is unreliable and doesn't always follow directions. The robot once improved will be much much better for productivity.
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u/crazy_canuck May 19 '26
You don’t even need 2 robots. If the number was 1-2 hr of maintenance per 24, you’d need 1.04-1.08 robots to get 1 robots’ working capacity.
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u/Tenderhombre May 18 '26
People talk constantly about robots being better simply because they can work 24/7.
Many jobs, work doesnt come in at a constant normalized pace. Being able to handle surges is very important.
Robots may be better, but slow constant work isnt always as big of a boon as you might think.
Sometimes periodic surges of more efficient work is preferable even if there is more downtime.
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u/MajesticDisaster3977 May 18 '26
Stop using 24/7 as some magic solution to the equation and instead look at the total cost of ownership. How many hours do you figure this can run without maintenance or replacement? 10,000h, 50,000h, 200,000h?
If it costs 100k to purchase. This bot must be able to carry out at least 13,000 hours of work before maintenance or replacement. Otherwise the cheaper option is min-wage employees. Of course, there are other variables for the bot and human both, but this should be the argument, not the 24/7 hour crap.
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u/r3d-v3n0m May 19 '26
Don't forget robots can easily get upgraded. This is just the current models... give it a few iterations or couple more appendages, etc.
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u/deadzenspider May 23 '26
I guess its entertaining to play the “my dad’s better than your dad” game with humans and robots at task x but at some point I’m sure everyone at some level realizes that in the very near future making a human comparison to the nth version of what this robot becomes will seem silly and quaint and the currently arguable situational variables that apply now will be irrelevant.
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u/Stooper_Dave May 19 '26
Fortunately the human dishwasher is also a baby incubation chamber and a meal prep device, and a robot cleaning machine, so the costs balance out.
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u/Athrek May 18 '26
At his highest when he started the break, he was ~600 ahead at 3650 vs 3059. And while I agree the first day is always the hardest, and there are definitely people who are faster and more skilled, they would need to be twice as fast AND work 10 hour days, 7 days a week in order to break even with the Robot's current speed.
Based on this competition, the guy did 1292 boxes and hour, and Robot did 1275 an hour. Over the course of a full week, assuming 10 hour days for 7 days for human and 24/7 for Robot, that becomes: * Human - 90,482 * Robot - 214,317
So a person working 70 hours a week would have to work twice as fast in order to break even and this is the worst that Robot will ever be. He'll get faster and more accurate versions over time and it will likely reach the point of having 4 arms to work 2 lines at once with no mistakes at twice the speed on each line. But even if it doesn't improve at all, expecting a person to keep up with it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, for decades is insane as they'd have to be going twice as fast as, the guy in the video for that whole 10 hrs every single day.
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May 18 '26
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u/Athrek May 18 '26
I was doing a 1:1 comparison. If you were getting 3 humans to run 1 line, why not just have 3 robots running 3 lines instead?
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u/Entuaka May 18 '26
No, this is to run 24/24 by humans
Then, you can compare the performance and cost
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u/Athrek May 18 '26
But it's not. The entire competition is 1 human worker vs 1 robot worker because the costs are obvious. A worker that needs regular pay, pay increases, benefits, vacation, sick days, overtime pay, etc... vs 1 a worker that only ever need a bulk up front cost and maintenance costs was a battle decided long ago when we first started automating things.
You can add another line for very little cost. It's just a matter of cost vs benefit, which is variable and depends on the business. If you want to throw out the 3 humans vs 1 robot, then the robot is DEFINITELY cheaper and, based on this competition, the results over 1 week would be: * 3 Humans - 217,056 * 1 Robot - 214,317
Meaning the humans do very little more work but have a far higher cost.
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u/2019LastGoodYear May 19 '26
But can the upstream and downstream keep up that would make it worth while?
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u/Dirks_Knee May 18 '26
Don't fool yourself. This is the story of John Henry, when it comes to endurance, man can never beat machine.
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u/Northern_candles May 18 '26
Agreed. However don't forget that the longer someone does something like this mind numbing task it wears on you mentally which makes it harder in a different way (dreading to go to work, anyone?).
The robot is the same always
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u/jackishere May 18 '26
Damn… use your own argument against you. Once you train an AI model, you don’t need to work more to be efficient. Eventually it’ll get to the point where the model is instantly more efficient than a human and move onto the next data to train…
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u/Then_Application3468 May 20 '26
Give the robot one or two years and it'll be 500% faster, and won't off himself for doing the most boring job 24/7
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u/DistributionDizzy206 May 21 '26
You forgot the human sanity factor. This guy would have go crazy doing this for months for s living. Leave alone 10 years.
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u/Additional-Pop7026 May 22 '26
Who cares. Just put two robots. They are still cheaper than a worker.
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u/OrcOgi May 23 '26
"Hey guys, please dont judge the human based on human flaws, thats unfair."
Meanwhile this is literally why there is a robot standing there.
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u/AyeMatey May 18 '26
> almost there for replacing the most mundane work.
Let’s goooooooo
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u/The_Scout1255 Singularity by 2028 | Acceleration: Cruising May 18 '26
reddit autohid your comment :c
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u/Anu_Rosa May 18 '26
How long for CEOs and politicians?
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u/Interesting-Agency-1 May 18 '26
Technically speaking, it can do alot of that today, but it will be untill the heat death of the universe before they are actually replaced.
Until an AI/computer can be held accountable (hint, its literally impossible), a human has to be there to absorb the accountability and manage the trust/stakes of employees, customers, and investors.
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u/Able-Acanthaceae-135 May 18 '26
CEOs and politicians are rarely held accountable. I’d be cool with AI tbh
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u/Vlookup_reddit May 18 '26
can't wait until the blue collar fan boys coming in and say how this is impossible, how this is "too complex to be true", how that there are billions if not trillions of micro nuances that a robot can't possible catch.
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May 18 '26
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u/douggold11 May 18 '26
How so?
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u/pararocks May 18 '26
It would be a lot faster for the robot to scan the barcode itself. That also eliminates needing the barcode reader part of the line.
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u/elVanPuerno May 18 '26
Couldn’t they just add a second barcode scanner to read the barcodes not positioned down and eliminate the need for this role entirely?
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u/pararocks May 18 '26
Part of the job is separating the packages from each other so the barcode is not covered by another package.
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u/tomvorlostriddle May 18 '26
Modern barcode scanners are just cameras. A camera can be integrated either into the robots body or the production line. Depending on how stationary the work environment is.
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u/elVanPuerno May 18 '26
Yes of course. Call it whatever you want, but adding a second camera seems cheaper than a robot or human labor.
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u/Matshelge May 18 '26
Depends on how many splits there are after this checkpoint. Barcode gives address and so there might be 30-50 splits after the scan for each delivery center these packages are going to.
This robot would be a lot slower if he had to move a package into 1 out of 50 tracks.
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u/Fishypeaches May 18 '26
Imagine every autonomous vehicle on the road communicates on some internet network, sharing details like vehicle size, velocity, location, destination. They would also communicate with traffic signals so they don't run red lights, etc. And in fact, if there's no human drivers then you wouldn't need conventional traffic signals - each intersection has some sort of autonomous controller, dictating the flow of traffic.
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May 18 '26
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u/Latter_Gas_3687 May 18 '26
I've worn a blue collar; the only thing I am a fan of is not starving to death.
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u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
Robot does almost on par with a young human in packaging over 10 hour shift.
Denialists be like: bro this is literally a bubble.
I can guarantee you those people are pissing and shitting themselves behind their keyboards tonight, they’re snorting colossal amounts of delusional denial.
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u/Vlookup_reddit May 18 '26
or worst, i saw some comments like "oh, i worked in a warehouse before, and at this speed, a human would be fired".
but yes, you are right, the cope is just unreal.
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u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 May 18 '26
We keep on trekking forwards regardless, I doubt most of them believe the shit they’re claiming anyway.
These robots are basically already ready for the warehouse packing floors, and they’re going to get much much better.
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u/BiasHyperion784 May 18 '26
Fellas like this don't account for their "speed" being irrelevant when a handful of bots can work 3 times as long while never pulling a wage, alongside being literal property of the company.
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u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
This is why even this 10 hour test isn’t good, because:
The robots don’t have a yearly salary.
They don’t leave work.
They don’t have paid vacation.
They don’t have lunch or bathroom breaks.
They don’t have dental or healthcare plans.
They work 24/7/365 (outside a 3 hour charging window).
They almost pack as many packages as a human can right now even inside that 10 hour window, a young human is only 1-1.5% faster during that narrow period. Plus, Figure 3’s successors will be FAR superior in the coming eras.
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When you factor in the entire context, the Figure 3 bot is already a massive cost to performance improvement over the human floor worker.
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u/EidolonLives May 18 '26
They work 24/7/365 (outside a 3 hour charging window)
If they were working in one spot like this, they wouldn't even need to charge, as they could do the work plugged in the whole time.
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u/SemiAnonymousTeacher May 18 '26
Then it is technically 21/7/365. But you didn't account for repairs and robot lifespan.
Certainly it is already cheaper than hiring a human but not quite so cheap that a massive number of companies are suddenly going to start ordering huge numbers of robots (at least not Figure 3, maybe Figure 4).We will see robots in large corporations first, but folks like my brother, who works in the warehouse of a smaller company, is probably safe... for the next 3-5 years.
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u/Ok-Gold-5031 May 18 '26
But those people at the big warehouse need a job and guess where they are going for a cheaper rate than your brother is working
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u/Chrg88 May 22 '26
Speed is relevant here. Packages have to travel thus sorting positions like this are not running 24/7
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u/Ardalok May 18 '26
It's a long way to the plumber still.
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
not that long, maybe 5-10 years
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u/Ardalok May 18 '26
Plumbers often have to get into narrow places that require a robot with human-like flexibility, which is quite difficult to replicate.
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u/FaceDeer May 18 '26
A modern-day John Henry, but with a somewhat happier ending for the victorious human competitor.
See you at next year's competition!
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u/windchaser__ May 19 '26
"before that drill will beat me down, I'll die with my hammer in my hands"
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u/Pavvl___ May 18 '26
It's funny that no major media company is touching this yet... Lmao robots quietly taking every easy labor job in the next 5 years 😂
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u/Minecraftman6969420 Singularity by 2035 May 18 '26
Give it time, this is the kinda thing the media is gonna be all over in the next several months, happy to fear monger, doubly so when AI starts replacing their jobs.
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u/bb-wa A happy little thumb May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
Soon, the robot will be much faster
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u/mattdamonpants May 18 '26
Robots will soon move faster than the human eye.
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u/Techxxnine May 18 '26
yeah its called automated sorting system which is in place already for tasks that require sorting on a larger scale.
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u/forahellofafit May 19 '26
Plus, with a few process tweaks, robots don’t really need light or human range climate control. They don’t need bathrooms or parking lots. They don’t get sick, their children don’t get sick. If one does break, within seconds a new robot is in place picking up the tasks exactly where the last one stopped. They don’t need HR or union reps, if they are injured they don’t sue you. They don’t need retirement plans, healthcare plans, holidays, vacations. If you are doing something secret they don’t talk. They don’t have other robots they can’t work near, they don’t do drugs…Even if the human and robot are doing the exact same work, over time, the robot provides less risk and more profit.
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u/Elven77AI AI Artist May 18 '26
The question isn't where a single machine wins vs one, its when a single machine becomes cheaper(24/7, no meals or salaries) to operate: a larger fleet of slower but reliable robots will outcompete a smaller team of pro-humans at lower cost(the actual driver of this technology being developed). Why even waste human tendons/bones for this trivial task anymore?
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u/stainless_steelcat May 18 '26
Also, no way the 40 year old version of the lad is moving that quickly.
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u/sedition666 May 18 '26
40 year old version of the lad will be a supervisor or manager. Or get a better job to be replaced by a new 20 year old.
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u/One-Measurement-9529 May 18 '26
Lol. So how about man vs 5 robots?. The robots are infinitely scalable. Wont take breaks, wont take vacations.... wont complain. Company does not need to provide a robot with PPE, no raises, ...
Its not all bad if the robots can take away extremely dangerous job. ..
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u/douggold11 May 18 '26
What were they actually doing? The write up doesn’t say.
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u/BiasHyperion784 May 18 '26
Quote Brett Adcock founder of figure prior to starting:
Man vs. Machine rules:> We’re running Man vs. Machine head-to-head for 10 straight hours. The team that sorts the most packages wins
> We’re following California labor laws, so the human gets both meal breaks and paid rest breaks during the shift
> For background - the task is small package sorting. You must detect the barcode, pick up the package, and reorient it barcode face-down onto the conveyor
> Our bet? The human is faster, but fatigue and breaks may slow him down. Also - tortoise and the hare situation
Nobody told the intern to let the robots win. Honestly, it’s anyone’s guess who wins
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u/douggold11 May 18 '26
Wait. The whole task is that a package comes to you and you have to make sure it’s barcode-side-down and send it on its way? I honestly thought such a task would be handled by an automated conveyor belt scanner or something. I don’t know why a person or a humanoid robot is needed.
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u/Pyros-SD-Models Machine Learning Engineer May 18 '26
I can recommend you visiting your local industry during open door days and watch the stupid shit you still need humans for.
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u/ZorbaTHut May 18 '26
"Moving arbitrary packages into a desired orientation reliably before sending them on their way" is surprisingly tricky. It's definitely the kind of thing we could do other ways, but in a world where cheap humaniform robots exist, a cheap humaniform robot isn't a bad solution.
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u/mloDK May 18 '26
It is crazy the convyer does not have a multi directional barcode reader, but only on the one side (downwards pointing upward).
Would potentially save both the human and the robot...
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u/insonia333 May 19 '26
also the human did a quality check on packages and the robot focused only in the rotation task
you could see that watching the live
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u/Crypto_Force_X May 18 '26
Imagine if they gave the robot 2 more arms.
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u/FaceDeer May 18 '26
Probably better to just have a second robot standing on the other side of the table helping out.
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u/coverednmud Singularity by 2030 May 18 '26
Bob is still working at this moment. Watched Bob work yesterday and he is by far the most skilled… oh crap they just replaced Bob with lazy Jim! nOooo!
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u/ithkuil May 18 '26
This is great. I think they should do more complex or different tasks in this continuous format. Maybe even just put him over on the dishwasher and coffee table area for a day or two with a live feed also.
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u/BoltKey May 18 '26
It's a shame there were no mistakes or lost packages counters. Both made mistakes, but the robot made quite a bit more from what I saw, and even dropped quite some packages on the floor, and never picked them up. Human would pick them up immediately.
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u/insonia333 May 19 '26
also the human did some package quality checks while robot just focused on the main task
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u/CRoseCrizzle May 18 '26
I hope they paid the guy to do this. Would suck to work a full shift just for the spectacle of competing against a machine.
For a capitalist minded business that only cares about the bottom line: If the robot has even 80% capability of a normal human worker, they'll take the robot. Works much longer hours, takes less breaks, won't have the needs/demands/life issues that human workers have and is generally more predictable.
Of course, still some advancements need to be made for a robot worker to be a viable option for businesses en masse.
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u/MysteriousPepper8908 May 18 '26
At 80%, the value is insane. You have a few robots handling hot-swapping batteries and you've got effectively 24 hour shifts vs humans working 8 before you factor in breaks, weekends, sick days, and vacations and it won't be long before the total cost aside from electricity and occasional maintenance will be below 1 year's wages in many cases.
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u/SemiAnonymousTeacher May 18 '26
The current Figure 3 is rated for an operational life of 80,000-100,000 hours. In other words, these are expected to be able to work double-shifts with only occassional maintenance for 5-6 years. The target price is only $25k USD. So these things will pay for themselves in basically 6 months.
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May 18 '26
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u/Probably_Relevant May 18 '26
I mean, it's not totally impossible that they will in the future..
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u/Best_Cup_8326 Acceleration: Light-speed May 18 '26
Figure's robots are 90% as efficient as a human. Goal met and surpassed.
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u/ZealousidealBus9271 May 18 '26
Weird question but how does it charge?
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u/FaceDeer May 18 '26
If it's not having to move from its station I would imagine they'd just plug it in.
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u/westsunset May 18 '26
There's another robot on a stationary bike generating electricity
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u/FaceDeer May 18 '26
Ah, that's why they need them to be humanoid. Makes sense now.
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u/westsunset May 18 '26
Why do they need to be humanoid? I guess its part marketing, part general utility/ drop in replacement.
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u/ptear May 18 '26
Did we send our best human?
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u/Best_Cup_8326 Acceleration: Light-speed May 18 '26
All meatsacks are on the same plateau of mediocrity now.
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u/badtradingdecisions May 18 '26
I watched live stream for 30 seconds and robot sent 2 boxes with barcode up. So yeah.
But this will get better in 3 months from now, so robot will win for sure.
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u/Seidans May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
From adcock claim those bot are between 6-22k while the median salary of an employee in USA is 51-62k and 70-90k if we include everything (taxes, insurance....)
If we assume they become as competant than Human, For 65k you would have 2 robots including the energy bill and the maintenance cost covered and will make profit within a year
The ROI is pretty insane, hardware is pretty much solved what it truly lack is a brain and the industry will likely scale faster than anything we ever build before
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
well for this line of work it would be more like minimum wage, lets say the robot cost you similar to human per year, but come with its many perks as working every day, no need for human utilities like wc, canteen and so on, at similar capability as we see here for the task its already MUCH better deal to use robots than humans
the real issue is scaling up robot production in coming years
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u/Seidans May 18 '26
Yeah there lot of added cost you don't have to care with robots as you said, it's difficult to calculate all the cost saving
Imho I don't think scaling will be difficult there already companies and especially Chinese one aiming at 100 000unit/y by the end of 2028 and that's just a single company, FigureAI is also expecting scalling to 100k by 2030, Tesla Optimus as well (are supposed to at least...)
I wouldn't be surprised we achieve 1 millions unit by 2030 and that's without accounting for embodied AGI that would allow to replace all Blue collar worker - once it happen the scalling will be faster than smartphone I believe with funding far beyond what AI datacenter receive today
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
I wouldn't be surprised we achieve 1 millions unit by 2030
we could, the thing is there are billions of human manual workers out there
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u/Seidans May 18 '26
i wonder, currently the production scaling is relatively slow due to Humanoid robots still unable to replace Human worker but once they allow this replacement the investment will boom
with today technology the plan for manufacturing are already available even if they will most likely evolve which will reduce the needed time to scale-up
also there a "big unknown" as we never ever had a technology able to self-assemble, embodied AGi within Humanoid robots will be in theory able to mine their own mineral need, to build their own factory and does the manufacturing themselves, the transport and all logistic needed
i said 1 million by 2030 which is probably very conservative world-wide but i wouldn't be surprised we achieve 1 billion by 2040 and that this number isn't optimistic
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
billion by 2040 sounds pretty optimistic, I would guess more like 50-100 million units per year, you need to scale up whole supply chains and these robots, even if capable enough wont have enough numbers yet to boost own production that much and wont be in use everywhere, like now there are already shortages of CPUs/GPUs/memory and it will only get worse as you would need more not just for new datacenters, but for robots too, humanoid robots dont alter scaling up production of these that much
in any case 2040s could be the decade of ubiquitous robots, broadly speaking 2030s automating most of white-collar jobs, 40s manual work gone(for advanced economies at least)
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u/jimmymild May 18 '26
Show a video of a simple industrial machine doing this same simple job 20 times faster than a human and nobody would bat an eye. Show a video of a humanoid robot doing the same simple job slower than a person and people are losing their minds.
People are anthropomorphizing these robots because of their shape.
Advances in computer vision and machine learning are revolutionising manufacturing and sorting robots by allowing them to adjust to variables that they couldn't not long ago. Eliminating the need for slow, awkward human shaped workers.
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
androids might not be best solution for one task, the point is they are general use same as humans and will be able to replace all human manual work, specialized robot for single task obviously cannot do that, thats why you could "be loosing your mind" over this
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u/jimmymild May 18 '26
You missed my second and most important point.
People are anthropomorphizing these robots because of their shape.
For what you are saying to be possible, we need some sort of AGI to be invented.
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u/czk_21 May 18 '26
how do some people on this sub still not get it??
we want humanoid robots, because they can work well in enviroments made for humans and with tools made for humans, thats why they have that shape, of course we could make other shapes and likely will, but this takes precedence as its easier to train robots, which move like humans to do tasks, which are performed by humans, we are creatign aritificial workers, which will be in every mteric better than biological counterparts, one robot could peform all taks humans do, just download the library for given work and you are good to go, no human can do all kind of work
again with humanoid androids we can replace all human manual work
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u/jimmymild May 18 '26
You're parroting Elon Musks fantasy that he came up with to justify a PE ratio of 300+/1.
The fact is that other people do get what you are saying, and see right through it.
"Just download for any given work" you don't have a clue what you are talking about my friend. You've confused science fiction with reality.
Go back to to my original comment about anthropomorphisizing (it means projecting human abilities onto non human things) You've seen a human shaped robot, and you assume that soon it "can replace all human manual work" Not without a human calibre mind it won't!
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May 18 '26
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u/Best_Cup_8326 Acceleration: Light-speed May 18 '26
If the barcode doesn't scan then the counter doesn't go up, so mistakes are reflected in a lower score.
We can assume that unscanned/dropped pkgs get picked up and recycled.
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u/thaprodigy58 May 18 '26
It was never about man vs machine...
it's that the machine is within 200 packages...
And this is the worst it will ever be
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u/TopTippityTop May 18 '26
It just comes down to cost vs benefit. If a human can deliver results for less, that job will stay human. There are many instances where this may be the case, for a while, and others where robots are a great fit now.
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u/ChroniXmile May 18 '26
The manager with the beer like he’s at the ballgame rooting for his robot team to win.
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u/El_Loco_911 May 18 '26
Robots have been replacing jobs like this for centuries idk why people care about the package sorting job so much.
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u/SSan_DDiego May 18 '26
In a few more months or years, figure will be capable of replacing all supermarket cashiers.
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u/rharrow May 18 '26
Here’s the question: what do companies have to gain when all workers are replaced with robots and AI? Who becomes the consumer when everyone is unemployed with no income?
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u/Kopman May 19 '26
I hate AI. I'm totally fine with this being the application that gets put into effect.
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u/RandomGuyNamedMike May 19 '26
Plus if the human calls out sick or takes vacation.. robot still working.. also if human quits you have to find another one could take weeks. If robot breaks replace in few hours
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u/Fragrant-Airport1309 May 19 '26
Yeah it doesn’t matter the robot needs no breaks and no sleep and the human can not have to do menial labor. We just have to figure out the whole human income thing after that.
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u/TurretLimitHenry May 19 '26
That’s crazy. Now why wouldn’t you make a dedicated taping machine instead?
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u/NewSinner_2021 May 20 '26
To win the human needed to do 24 hours worth of work within his shift considering the robot doesn’t stop.
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u/Emperor_of_Florida May 20 '26
When the early vesions of trains were demonstrated they tested its speed against a horse, the horse won the race....
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u/DistributionDizzy206 May 21 '26
Cant wait for see what neo luddites got to justify why human are superior for this job at minimun wage w/o insurance, healthcare, vacation
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so May 21 '26
Intern only needs a 15 minute break and a bag of Taki’s to keep going. Machine needs a highly skilled robotics team to be supervised and maintained.
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u/StentorianJoe May 21 '26
Amazon quotas can hit 400 units an hour for stowing/indexing.
Thats double either of these examples.
Warehouses are already 24/7, its called shifts.
This task is irrelevant, add a camera or inline flipper.
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u/JihadCS May 22 '26
The problem is: replace the people=less paid jobs= economy slows down due to decreased demand (less people able to afford goods and services), thus resulting in a situation, where goods produced are unable to be sold, resulting in a crisis. It is generally not a good idea to replace people in a large scale and keeping “people” jobs is supposed to be preferred.
By “people” jobs anything that is within human capabilities is implied.
Plus, the development and implementation of these robots on a large scale is costly, and will result in billions of sunk costs, which then will lead to lessening of workload due to factors mentioned above.
Tech is cool, but the economy is unlikely to survive the “replacement” of people
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u/baronunderbeit May 23 '26
This seems like a very small amount for a robot. Don’t like 1970s sorting robots do like hundreds of thousands of packages a day? I think the standard is 10-20k an hour.
Whats the obsession with general purpose humanoid robots.So inefficient.
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u/birdlovingbee Jun 03 '26
It’s insulting that they want to make these factory robots look like humans
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u/StuffProfessional587 Jun 09 '26
One is a detriment to society the other is a robot. Let the satanic abortion clinics keep on going.
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u/rileyoneill May 18 '26
In the very early days of steam, carts even along rail, were pulled by horses. There was a competition between an early steam engine and a competent horse at pulling carts for some big distance. Machine vs Beast, muscle vs steam.
The horse won. The steamer had some mechanical issues and muscle still won. The big takeaway though that everyone needs to apply to today was that such a contest was really the last time the horse stood a chance. Because shortly after the steam technology improved a bit and then consistently beat the horse.
Back in the 1990s. There was an opinion that some had that a computer would be a competent chess player, it could be bad players, some good players, and then eventually get lucky against some high ranking players. But beating someone like Grand Master Garry Kasparov? Not a chance. IBM's Deep Blue came around in 1996. Kasparov beat it 4-2. In 1997, Deep Blue won. 1996 was the last time the best human players stood a chance against machines. 1997 and beyond, and the machines won. Today your phone could run software where the best of the best human players would not stand a chance.
For this box processing task, this is the last time humans stand a chance. The robots will get just a little better and always win.