Amazon is reportedly training humanoid robots to deliver packages

Amazon announced using drones in 2014. In pop culture, drone delivery is like an assumed common practice. Yet fucking nobody gets their packages delivered by drone. It's been over a decade.
These robots are vaporware. Amazon will get a stock bump and that's the whole point.
- Yeah, humans regularly deliver stuff wrong on our street. There is no way robots will manage. I get packages for both by neighbours and they get mine more often than correct deliveries and one of my neighbours is a business.
  
  At my old workplace we ended up getting like a thousand toilet seats delivered to us. We were a web publishing firm.
  
  Stop redirecting them. Make it cost them.
  Tell your neighbors to file an “it arrived late” or “it didn’t arrive” complaint. Get two and send one back. Their fault for being shit companies.
  If something is delivered to you by mistake, it’s not your responsibility to fix the mistake, you just got free stuff.
  If it goes through USPS, it might be a federal offense to open stuff delivered via USPS, but is that true of third party parcel delivery? Almost certainly not, because USPS is a government org and those third party shit delivery companies aren’t..
  So now any package that’s delivered to me by anyone other than USPS.. it’s mine now, and I open it to see if I want whatever trash my neighbors are buying.
  I used to try to fix the problem.. but then I realized it’s NOT MY PROBLEM.
  
  What makes you think you can't have individualized instructions for harder to reach addresses? After the first failure it's pretty trivial to go out and fix it. Google does far more work maintaining maps and directions services.
  Vs having a new delivery guy get confused every other week?
  
  What you just described is humans causing the issue, drone delivery would absolutely solve your problem.
- That's a great point. Where are all those delivery drones? Lol
- You are wise
- Amazon just rolled out their first production drone delivery SSD site in Phoenix. It's sorta shit though.
  Zipline is way more interesting and I cant wait for them to go live in my area.
- Airspace rules are a huge factor there. I see delivery robots on the sidewalk often enough though.
  I suspect most companies are still waiting out the testing and waiting for costs to be reduced.

Companies like Amazon would do anything. Except paying living wages
- Remember that hitch hiking robot that made it across Canada but only made it to New Jersey (started in NYC) in America? These will 100% get the same treatment everywhere on earth.
  
  Not only Canada, but also Japan and Europe.
  The main difference is that these robots kind of deserve it. Not "personally" but for what they represent.
- Yep.

Wanna bet its 7000 Indian workers again?
- Package delivery simulator, pre-order on steam
  
  Evil genius level right here
- just like thier shop and go stores, were mostly india controlled. probably 70k indias.

Anything to avoid one of the richest people in the world paying his employees a livable wage.

I imagine they will scale back robot design and just throw from the truck.
- ...okay, I really want to know the story behind that picture!
  
  I'm gonna say CGI. Arm isn't mounted to the floor (I can tell by the pixels), no cables going to the arm, holding the bowling ball like that is extremely unsafe.
  
  "...creation of motion graphics designer Tom Coben..." https://mashable.com/video/bowling-robot-video-computer-generated

Bro that is so gonna get HitchBot'ed
a photo was tweeted, showing that the robot had been stripped "beyond repair" and decapitated in Philadelphia. The robot was located by some people following its progress on its website. The head was never found.
Also, like... if you wanna replace human workers, fine, just give us the UBI.
Otherwise, riots would be justified.
- as someone who has spent time living in Philly what were they THINKING lmfao
- Just one shitty makeshift EMP and that thing is toast.

Amazon 1 year after launch: Unfortunately, the space needed for robots in the van means that the van has to return to base 5 times more often to reload with the actual packages and the extra weight of robots more than doubles the weight of the van being lugged around in the form of heavy robots. So that's why we are having to charge more for delivery and why it is taking longer for you to get your packages. But at least we can pay fewer salaries.
- Also we don’t pay taxes but will fuck up the roads with the extra weight. Good luck driving over potholes suckers!
- That is still better for both the environment and safety than everyone going to the store seperately in their own car. (Transit or walking of course are still better yet).
  
  Why is that the comparison, though? Sears developed mail-order catalogues in the 1800s. That's what Amazon replaced.

I can't wait to throw a Faraday blanket over one of these and jtag some open source firmware on it. What do you mean steal? I didn't steal anything, I just repurposed some garbage left on my front step!

The robot then encounters the entirely unpredictable American rural south
staircases half busted up surrounded by weeds and gravel roads full of holes
robots fucked with by kids who are now tying it to a tree with bungie cords for fun
one being dragged off in the background by a dude with a welding mask on
wageslave.exe has encountered an internal exception and must close
- Wonder how much copper is wired up in those things
  
  I'm pretty sure it will be a valuable amount of copper.
  Edit: Except of course I guess it won't, because they're just bullshitting to drum up invetor interest, and only three of these will ever exist.

I'd be terrified if that thing showed up at my door.
- Better keep a big furnace full of molten steel ready just in case.
  
  👍
  
  brb popping out to get that right now
  
  Gallium would do
- I'd be very glad and a bit richer

Be funny if hackers hacked them to kill CEOs.

Amazon still can't even figure out how to reliably get human drivers door passcodes into an apartment building, and then into its mail/package locker room.
The map system it uses for for telling drivers how to get around a city to make deliveries is also garbage, can't account for traffic, punishes people for using faster side routes to get to the same place, tells you to park in areas that either have no parking at all, or where parking there would majorly disrupt traffic, or assumes available street parking will always exist in places and times it almost never does.
I once did an Amazon delivery gig where they booked me in for the time slot, I get to the FC, after waiting an hour they tell half of us: 'oops we booked too many drivers, so today you all get $200 for showing up and doing nothing, go home now'
???
- Update: It is day 126 and Amazon still can't figure out where my camera is.
  I know where it is. Their delivery driver stole it. (Yes, I just charged back my credit card. Their response was to send me an incredibly smarmy and condescending form email asking why, as if they don't already know. And they lost the chargeback dispute, obviously.)
  So maybe their robots won't steal your package. They'll just yeet it into a bush 65536 yards from your house in a random direction instead. On the bright side, you might occasionally get a package that belongs to someone else from the other side of town dropped on your lawn.
  To both this and that I say no thanks; I don't use Amazon anymore.
  
  Amazon sent my next door neighbour a photograph of my back garden indicating they delivered the package. In the photo you can see my door with the obviously wrong house number.
- or assumes available street parking will always exist in places and times it almost never does.
  That explains all the amazon vans parked in the middle of the fucking street.
  
  Yep!
  Drivers have to visit an absolutely absurd number of locations in a small block of time, so if they attempt to park like a sane member of society, they'll be fired very quickly.

I tend to disbelieve this, mainly because a humanoid robot would be overkill. Custom-purpose robots would be much cheaper to design, build and maintain, with fewer potential failure points.
- Eh I dunno there’s so much infrastructure that is human centric; if you could make a humanoid robot it could easily traverse all the human designed places
  
  The main problem is walking on unpredictable terrain, which spidery or doggy robots can do with fewer balance issues than two-legged humanoid ones.
  
  Like what... stairs?
  Just leave the package at the bottom of the stairs like humans do.

Not in Philly they won't lol

They'll be vandalised almost immediately.
- I prefer the term "beautified".
  
  are you promoting vandalism?
- Non-consentually arbitraged

They can depreciate these assets over their useful life, because unlike your soggy flesh sack, these are capital expenses, not operating expenses.
... For now. I'm sure there are libertarians that think you should be able to sell yourself as the depreciable asset you are.

Amazons “genius” packing bots will throw a tiny fragile thing with a medium size heavy thing in a box 16x too big along with a shred of packing material.
Can’t wait to have that same “genius” applied to the actual delivery itself.
Seriously, I make maybe 5 or 6 Amazon purchases per year. I would say at least 50% of those disappoint in some way: the item was misleadingly listed, or it was damaged in shipping, or it doesn’t arrive when the promised. I really don’t find it convenient at all.

everyone knows its just going to be indians in a data center in india controlling the bots.

If i see a humanoid robot delivering a package i will throw bricks at it and then pee on it, in the way a 3 year old would during a tantrum.
- I, for one, will certainly not loot it for parts, unless it has an unfortunate accident, in which case I'm just recycling trash that someone left out.
- No you won't.
- I see you're channeling the spirits of Social Media

So, from what little research I did the robots cost from 5000$ to 500000$, as most articles point out the advanced robots cost 200000-300000$. In a lot of places around the world that's like paying a human for 8-10 years. Humans are easily "replaceable", where those robots have maintenance cost additional to the initial "investment". How is that feasible in the eyes of the big money oligarchs? I genuinely don't understand the end goal here.
- I don't think they really plan to replace workers with robots. It fulfills two other purposes:
  Keep the work force humble by threatening them with permanent replaceability.
  Keep the stock holders happy. This shit simulates "innovation" like the delivery drones 10 years ago.
  
  if its actually feasible and it reduces cost, then it will be the plan. right now though, its bullshit. As soon as people start stealing and destroying these 5000-500000 dollar robots all of the potential profit goes out the window.
- When the mask comes off, humans will revolt. Robots won't.
  Or, that's the delusion.
- The labor aspect of class politics is complicated.
  But you don't have to understand any of it to think stealing these would be cool as fuck.
  
  The cost of an employee is far higher than just their pay though.
- Yes, because nothing new is ever reduced in price and improved upon after research phase is finished

They already treat their workers like humanoid robots, so this tracks.

what? they gave up on the drones?
- I guess they felt like drones flying over civilian populations was a bit too unsettling in this day and age, so they are shifting to humanoids that will jump suddenly from moving vehicles and dash towards a destination.

I just stop buying from Amazon

No they fucking aren't. That shit would be so much more expensive than a person. Liars, and not even particularly good ones.
- I mean apparently they're partnering with a private robotics company. The picture is an actual model of the company's robot. Whether or not they actually end up implementing this, they're allegedly currently training the robots.
  Presumably, if nothing else, Amazon/Bezos is probably getting some sweet federal kick backs to attempt this and further the current administration's agenda to beat "Gyna" in the science and tech race. Except unlike Gyna, the U.S. is firing all of their scientists (which, until Jan. 2025, was one area that the U.S. had unquestionably dominated China) bc they think AI can replace them too.
  So now, they're just handing all the resources to the kind of technocratic "elites" who are used to just purchasing their good ideas, rather than actually creating anything. This is also why they seem to genuinely believe something like Amazon humanoids is a sound investment, "durr, we don't need people bcuz we haz robots."
  Fun fact, just learned they are indeed going to try to replace scientists with robots too. There was a meeting about it yesterday:
  For all we know they made the futuristic robot exoskeleton, took some fancy pictures of it holding a package, and that's all she wrote. The end result is just some rich assholes are slightly richer at the expense of the tax payer, and we should be grateful. 'Merica! 🇺🇲
  
  Amazon/Bezos is probably getting some sweet federal kick backs
  I think it's more a threat against employees. The robots can be used as scabs.
  which, until Jan. 2025, was one area that the U.S. had unquestionably dominated China
  China had more scientists and papers well before this year. And China dominates particularly in fields like maths, computer science and manufacturing.
  they are indeed going to try to replace scientists with robots
  I can actually think of a lot of uses for robots in research. And, of course, there are a lot of robots in labs already; they just don't look like humans.
- Just like when they were going to replace all their delivery drivers with drones. It's just bullshit.

At first glance it looked like the robot has a tail. That would be cool and seems like it might help somehow. Add a tail!!
- Pass the blunt

They will train it so well, it will even collapse like a human when overworked! https://youtu.be/6Kp5qrCExps . I recognized that bot from the photo.

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.
- 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.

I hate that!

humanoid robot: dances
amazon: shock
humanoid robot: makes coffee
amazon: shock
humanoid robot: delivers package
amazon: friendly shock

Let's count the problems:
Up front cost
Maintenance cost
Varied problems like different types of stairs, tripping hazards, etc.
People attacking or stealing robots and their packages.
Safety issues with 100+ pound metal robots falling on pets and children
Any others?

The head was never found

If I get one of those, I'm definitely killing it and stealing its copper. Amazon can pay for the repairs.
- I'm clubbing the bot in the head and stealing it's batteries.

It is the distant future,
The year 2000,
The last known survivor lives is a cave somewhere in the Madagascar desert. A robot travels by foot to deliver a package. A simple letter with the following URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFZjo5PgG0
The survivor dies. Amazon has finally won. They have all the money and everyone else is gone. All robots shut down. Besos jumps into the money pile only to learn that cartoons don't work in reality as most of his bones become powder on impact. The world is silent for a second. In the distance two flies are doing it over a pile of cow dung. The world becomes a peaceful place with no human presence whatsoever.

Study the weak points, make true your aim. The inevitable human-robot war draws nearer.
- I feel like we're going to end up with more laws protecting robots and surveillance cameras than our own civil liberties.
  Wonder where all those angry white guys with tiki torches and khaki shorts are now? The ones that thought the Jews were trying to replace them? 🤔
- The robot dogs police are starting to use has a two big red buttons, one on the face and one on the ass. Just jam your finger or pointer end of your rifle and it returns to station or shuts down.

Reminds me of these cheeseparade skits:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Ov6RzGdrJig
https://youtube.com/shorts/Ah1JG1P6W4Y

the robot got stolen

This makes me wonder what the benefit of bipeds are for this over something like iBot's multi wheel design. I get it makes sense for rubble or debris, but for halls and stairs multi wheel seems better and more refined.
Edited for autocorrect.

Like Marty in the grocery store, a waste of space. Get out of my way, Marty!

Didn't they just have two or three drone crashes within minutes of takeoff recently, not sure I really trust Amazon with this stuff.

They are trying to solve last-mile delivery problem
- They are wasting tax payer dollars
  
  Tax payer dollars? Also, why waste? It might pay off with more efficient and cost effective delivery. R&D is never a waste. You can't tell if something will work if you haven't tried.

Why is everyone here so negative about this? This is pretty cool!
- Would be cool, if it wasn't so hard to find a job already. Now androids are going to take the rest. If I would be able to buy an android for doing house chores then yes it would be cool
  
  The problem isnt "robots replacing humans"
  The problem is: WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR UBI?
  
  There is always going to be jobs. Else, there is nobody who's buying products from Amazon. It's a self-regulating system. New jobs will be created when old ones die out. Just think of the millions of workers doing manual sewing that got replaced by mechanical sewing machines. Or all the farmers and oxes that got replaced by tractors.
- Presumably because it's Amazon doing it. It is quite reasonable to have a general level of distaste and suspicion for tha company
- Because I've seen this movie before, and it did not turn out well for the humans.
- Technological unemployment is only going to get worse without a plan to support the people being replaced by automation. They can't just 'get another job'. As long as the benefits of this stuff only goes to shareholders, it can fuck off.
  
  The solution is UBI
  
  It's called structural change. And I don't see why it's a bad thing. We would still be plowing our fields with ox and cart if we had denied every technological unemployment in the past.
  Delivery jobs are the most ungrateful and exhausting low-paying jobs. And you want humans to keep doing them for the rest of mankind's future? Pretty grim future in my opinion.