That's mighty nice of the company


Amazon workers are now wearing safety belts to prevent the robots that prowl the tech giant's cavernous warehouses from killing them.

The Robotic Tech Vest, which was rolled out over the course of the last year to over 25 locations, appears to be an electric utility belt attached to a pair of suspenders, reports TechCrunch, but it has built-in sensors that alert robots of a human's presence.

The belts are designed to work in coordinated fashion with the robots' obstacle detection systems, according to TechCrunch.

According to Amazon, the company's robots, which number over 100,000, are designed to assist humans with the transportation of packages and the movement of large pallets of inventory, among other tasks. Although there are widespread fears that robots will displace human workers, Amazon has added more than 300,000 full-time jobs globally since robots were introduced to its warehouses in 2012.

"Robots increase efficiency and safety at fulfillment centers. They make it possible to store 40 percent more inventory, which in turn makes it easier to fulfill Amazon Prime and other orders on time since it’s less likely an item will run out," the company said in a blog post. The company said the new high-tech belt are an improvement upon several existing safety systems.

“In the past, associates would mark out the grid of cells where they would be working in order to enable the robotic traffic planner to smartly route around that region. What the vest allows the robots to do is detect the human from farther away and smartly update its travel plan to steer clear without the need for the associate to explicitly mark out those zones," Amazon Robotics VP Brad Porter told TechCrunch.

In December, two dozen Amazon factory workers were hospitalized after being sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot.

Fox News reached out to Amazon for comment on this high-tech belt.


https://www.foxnews.com/tech/a...ts-from-killing-them

"...sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot..." Now I am confused...

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:
...two dozen Amazon factory workers were hospitalized after being sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot.

I’ve worked in automotive factories all over the world, many very highly robotized. None of them had any bears. What the hell.

They are arming the robots with less than lethal weapons today. Wait til next week when the bear spray is replaced with duel uzis.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
They are arming the robots with less than lethal weapons today. Wait til next week when the bear spray is replaced with duel uzis.

Better yet, what if the robots armed themselves rather than being armed by humans?

Safety belts? Next they’ll have to be provided with Phase Plasma rifles in the 40 watt range

Ummmmmm...Skynet is becoming self-aware as Arnold predicted. And we all thought it was just BS fiction!!! This week bear spray; next week plasma rifles...

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
"...sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot..." Now I am confused...

I'm guessing a collision involving a robot, a box/pallet of bear repellant and some humans in the vicinity.


Or shenanigans.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:


Safety belts? Next they’ll have to be provided with Phase Plasma rifles in the 40 watt range

Fulfilling the shit out of you...

>The Three Laws, quoted as being from the "Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.", are:

>First Law – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
>Second Law – A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
>Third Law – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

quote:

What the vest allows the robots to do is detect the human from farther away

That's the last thing I want to be wearing during the robot uprising.

"Are you wearing your "First Rule" vest?"

quote:

Originally posted by phydough:
>First Law – A robot may not … through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Well I remember first reading Isaac Asimov’s Robot series as a kid and was quite impressed with the three laws. Much later, though, I ran across a story pointing out that the highlighted portion of the first law would inevitably result in robots’ taking over and controlling virtually all human activities. There are countless activities that we accept and often enjoy that would need to be banned in order to prevent human beings coming to harm.

Possessing weapons and engaging in dangerous activities such as riding motorcycles and bicycles would be at the top of the prohibited list along with dietary restrictions. The British “fry-up” breakfast currently being discussed in another thread would probably induce the equivalent of a stroke in robots’ positronic brains. In fact, as life is a fatal disease itself, the ultimate way to avoid allowing humans to come to harm would be to eliminate humans entirely by preventing reproduction.

The vest is used to ID the Human instead of waiting for the DNA results to come back.

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInWV:

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
"...sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot..." Now I am confused...

I'm guessing a collision involving a robot, a box/pallet of bear repellant and some humans in the vicinity.


Or shenanigans.

When I was much younger, I worked in the warehouse of a manufacturing facility for a couple years to help pay for college.

My first choice is always shenanigans. Just like the time Robert drove over Louie's foot with a towmotor in front of about five of us (two of the witnesses were management).
Robert quickly became unemployed, and Louie drug out his recovery forever while lobbying for a never-realized Disability claim--he later quit.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
"...sprayed with bear repellant in an incident involving a robot..." Now I am confused...

Robots have to be able to protect themselves from large Omnivores, hence they are armed with bear spray.

AI Language

And interestingly, they don't seem to see a problem with that.

On the radio I heard of a warehouse in China which shipped 200,000 parcels per day but only had 4 humans as staff. Where will the humans be employed at ?

They'll be mopping up the spilled bear spray.