Amazon, Robots, and the Holidays!

For the increased shopping season Amazon has rolled out more than 15,000 robots across their warehouses in order to improve efficiency and cut costs. The robots are being deployed across Amazon’s warehouses in time for Cyber Monday which is one of the busiest shopping days of the year. According the article, the robots are expected to decrease operating costs by one fifth and help get packages out the door. This is particularly important around this time of the year because more people are buying online for their Christmas list and Amazon needs to keep up with the increased items being purchased. Last year the surge in Christmas shopping overwhelmed UPS shipping which resulted in late packages across the globe. Hopefully the robots being introduced this year will help prevent any mishaps during this season. This is continuing the trend of increased automation in blue collar jobs, which poses a problem for many people who don’t have technical skills and can’t get them.

While overall, I feel that the trend towards increased automation in manual labor type jobs is a good thing, I definitely feel that there are a lot of problems associated with it. A large part of the population does not have a college degree, or any sort of specialized skill, and rely on the availability of jobs to get by. When these jobs are replaced by robots then we, as a society, will have to find a way to solve this problem. I personally think that the best solution to this would approach the problem from two angles. Firstly, as automation increases the average work week would be decreased, but pay would stay the same. For instance, if these robots help decrease the number of hours to move goods by 20% then the employees will also see a reduction in how much they have to work, but Amazon would pay them close to the same wage. This would allow for workers to have more free time, and Amazon to increase efficiency and productivity at the same time. The main issue with this is that Amazon wants to maximize profit so they would not want to do this, but if they could be convinced to it would work out in favor of everyone. The next step would be to offer specialized training to people who have no specialized skills. While this would end up costing money the benefits would far outweigh the costs because these workers would then help advance the country and the economy, and would ultimately give back more in terms of tax money and benefit to society. While I feel this would be one of the best ways to solve the issue of increased automation in jobs I do not think it is likely to occur for a long time.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/amazon-rolls-out-kiva-robots-holiday-onslaught-n258976

Google Glass

Although Google Glass has been available to the limited public for a long time for now, the technology is still in its beta phase, and it is having problems finding its way into common use, but for now Google is finding more uses for it in the business world. In a new application of Glass, highlighted by this article, it is being used in hospitals to provide life feedback of surgeries. The particular example in this article is when a new doctor performing a procedure uses Google Glass to provide a video feed of the surgery back to an experienced surgeon who can provide live feedback. The major benefit of Glass seems to be that it can allow people to pull up information without using their hands which has the potential to help the millions of workers who use their hands everyday. With the benefit of Google Glass a mechanic could figure out how to remove a part while still having free hands, a nurse could ask for advice while still working, and so on. This is why Google has begun working directly with companies to work with Google Glass and see if productivity can increase.

I personally think that it will still be a long time until Google Glass catches on. While it is a great idea that has many applications, I just feel that people will expect too much out of it, and the technology that exists now won’t be able to provide what people want. Looking at it now, I barely hear anything about Google Glass even though there are people who can wear it, and there is even one on NC State’s campus. While there will definitely be people who will use Google Glass I just don’t think that it will become a major part of our lives until the technology gets better, and it becomes cheaper. Right now a phone does nearly all the functions of Google Glass, and is cheaper, and more convenient for people. What I can see happening with Google Glass is for it to become more specialized and become the next big thing in a certain field. Maybe for surgeons it will become the crucial piece of information that can provide the surgeon with the power of a computer while operating, for people in the military it could provide crucial information on the fly, and so on. I do still believe that something similar to Google Glass will become a thing soon because we are rapidly progressing to a point where technology is wireless, convenient, and there is no need for screens.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/british-doctor-livestreams-cancer-surgery-using-google-glass-n113596