And everyone is shopping on Amazon. I don't because I was a Union Organizer and we would not let Walmart in unless they paid a decent wage withe benefits. We either swing alone or swing together.

No mention of lunch, either. 11 1/2 hours without lunch? Barbaric.

Classic extractive commerce. The employees aren't stakeholders, they're equipment.

I think the creation of the first robotic vagina was the first step towards the end of humanity.

That’s capitalism, always striving for more efficiency and productivity.........

I worked in a machine shop on piece rate with bonuses for inrceased productivity over the rate,but if you got to productive they would come out and retime it and lower the rate,so you had a fine line not to over due it and other times was impossible to make the time and put out a quality production at the same time,,I can see Amazon using robots for that particular job and they will work 24/7 with out a break for increased production

Really isn't different from years ago except for the fact that computers tally data and not people. I started working in factories on the manufacturing floor back in the mid '70's. At that time you had people with clipboards and stop watches standing behind you timing how long it took to do a process. That data was manually processed to provide times to do a specific task. The people who could not keep up were either moved to another more simple task they could complete in time or they were let go. Can't blame technology for something that has been in place far longer then the current computerized systems.

I entered my technology career [electrical engineering specializing in computers and communications] at an interesting time. My job was to design and use these robots to do jobs quicker, better, faster than people. In some cases it made life better for everyone. In other cases, it set up competition between robots and people.

At the same time the bosses of industry figured out how to influence government so they paid less taxes, usually by cutting money going to education, infrastructure, unions, pensions, benefits, and social services. They also learned to influence the government to issue more (unneeded IMHO) H1-B visas to attract immigrants whose education had already been paid for by the foreign government and demanded a lower salary because of the lack of student loans to pay. This made the bosses richer and put a strangle hold on my "advancement" in my career.

I did manage to have a decent career and reached retirement while hearing doors of opportunity slam shut behind me the whole way.

My remaining observation and question is this: Robots will continue to get better and smarter able to do more jobs. Who benefits from their productivity? Only their bosses and owners? What about the workers displaced and indeed the workers who created these monstrosities (though I use that term to no fault of the machines themselves ... so far). I also wonder who will be able to buy the resultant productivity? ... only the sons and daughters of the bosses??

We are moving rapidly towards a world where humans may either become obsolete due to inefficiency and limited ability, or be "hacked" thus increasing our capabilities drastically. Withing the next few decades, we will likely know enough about human nature that those wielding this knowledge and capability will effectively be able to convince anyone to do their bidding without being aware that it is happening. We have already seen this occur in primitive forms, take cambridge analytica for example.

Unfortunately, we will soon be faced with the choice to augment ourselves to effectively become robots, or be left behind.

I remember my mother putting six meatballs on an assembly line of pizzas. She loved that job. She also worked in a crystal factory and did well because of her manual dexterity. I know lots of people who love their jobs at Amazon...not everyone wants to be creative or think at their jobs and some like the challenge of beating the clock.

I think the majority of people of these types of jobs, involving repetition and hard physical work will be replaced by robots or other technology...then, I guess, we will be hearing from people like my mother who won't have a job at all.

This is why we joined unions and why OSHA regulations were made part of the law. At least it was until the Repubs started dismantling all of the worker protections they could. And somehow the people hurt the most by this still voted for their overlords. Go figure!

One problem I see is a public school system and infrastructure set up to produce individuals who are slightly more intelligent than empty boxes of rocks. And I'm not sorry if that offends anybody. Creative thought can be taught also.

So far the only one I’ve heard address the 4th industrial revolution is Andrew Yang. I hope he’s in the game long enough to bring this topic to the forefront of the debates. I’ve personally lost my job due to the success of the robot revolution. I think when all the truckers are replaced by robots in the next 5-10 years then people may finally take notice.

We have to log every hour of evwry day to specific task accounts, that's how the bussiness track budget, productivity and justify our existence as employees. Do I find this annoying as a minimum? Absolutely yes....that being said, I consider it as a lesser evil. I cannot understand life without a challenging job.

I’ve seen this happen just not to that extent. I have no doubt that it goes on exactly as stated. Meanwhile the top are out on the golf course improving their stroke.

Despite decades of evidence that micromanagement is counter-productive to employee morale and long term job satisfaction, people like Bezos and his army of supervisors refuse to accept it and continue to look for more ways to monitor everything their employees do short of time wasted due to excessive breathing.

Micromanagement requires no vision, no creativity and no useful ideas. It's what managers do when they have nothing of any real value to offer.

For these kinds of tasks, and many others including writing original music in any venue & complex surgical procedures, robots WILL become far more efficient than humans. Some theorists have proposed that biological entities are a very early and short lived part of the evolution of intelligence.

Ten years ago, I worked as a human resources manager for a privately-owned home care company. Most employees were low-paid caregivers for disabled and elderly people in their homes.

My every keystroke was monitored and counted by my supervisor in another city. He was a finance manager. My HR office was only partially computerized. Frequently, I turned from the computer to consult thick manuals in a bookshelf behind me.

It was intolerable. I had never experienced this before. With a steep learning curve and a new computer system, I was under tremendous pressure.

Human resources requires people skills, organization, knowledge of employment laws and diplomacy. It's not about fast typing. I was responsible for interviewing candidates, multiple background checks, organizing training, documentation required, hiring and firing. This took up a lot of time.

Unsurprisingly, he fired me after six weeks. "You're not learning fast enough," he said. It was a relief to leave.

I've had similar feelings about Amazon. Now I avoid it totally, except occasionally buying used books THROUGH amazon, although from 3rd party book sellers.

John Oliver did a very detailed report about this issue. After watching it, I started to think twice about ordering anything from Amazon. For some things, it's virtually unavoidable, unfortunately. I'm linking the full segment below: