The cage design is probably objectively pretty bad (I don't want to work in there), but the headline is a bit sensationalist. The idea here is that Amazon has a bunch of robots running around in a massive environment. Safe robot-human interaction in close contact situations is still a research problem. This device is obviously meant for the safety of the operator if a robotics engineers looked at it. I know people don't really like big companies and Amazon, but in this case I think the reporting is a bit over the top. The intention of the system is not to enslave humans. The technology is nowhere near there. If anything, we're enslaved by them because they're constantly broken and we have to go fix them by riding this cage of a robot!
> Here, the worker becomes a part of a machinic ballet, held upright in a cage which dictates and constrains their movement.
The depiction here is way too sensationalist and eye-roll-inducing. If we want to go there, how is this different from let's say.. a car (or a self-driving car), or even the idea of working for companies to sustain your daily life, especially in person. In any case, I think we can all agree that a mobile safety system like this should have some better industrial design than that diagram.
Exactly this. This isn't some kind of roving solitary confinement, it's a safe vehicle for human workers to travel through automated automated-robot-only areas.
An Amazon exec posted about it on Twitter saying that they scrapped this idea and replaced it with a vest with a sensor on it that causes automated robots in the vicinity to stop moving (creating a safe zone around the worker).
I hate Amazon more than most, but this invention is kinda cool, and also probably not going to get used.
They should really label their packages accordingly so I can differentiate between cagefree packaging and free range worker conditions. I don't mind paying a little more for free range if that's what it takes.
Like a guard cage that prevents you from sticking your arm into a whirring piece of machinery. Just so happens that the guard is in every direction. Now your in the cage.
while true, it's a pretty meaningless observation. F1 drivers aren't in a cage because or related to the amount of money they make. They're in a cage because the alternative is death or dismemberment. just like the Amazon worker sitting atop a performance robot. If that worker gets in the way of the robot the robot's family won't be suing for wrongful death.
OH and because we as humans decided a long time ago that pain suffering and death is bad so we generally try to prevent it when possible... which makes me wonder why Amazon is doing it :P
They are trying to be defensive about it - but I think it is a good system . They are heading toward a future where warehouses are fully automated and it is dangerous for a human to enter this kind of auotmated warehouse . In that sense , it is not a bad design to protect the human from the worker robots.
Bad idea! That's a commanded design rather than a fail-safe design. Yes, there should be some sort of stop-robot beacon, but you need to shield the worker also. Emergency systems should always fail in the safe direction!
They're not really trying to be defensive, so much as they're saying "actually, we found a more practical and more elegant way to solve this problem so we're not gonna do this."
This is one of the places the internet meme of 'Wagie Wagie get back in your Cagie' original stemmed from, at least from what I've seen. Given Amazon's treatment of workers I think the bleak outlook isn't totally unwarranted.
Amazon should trademark the term Wage Cage. At least now it's not been implemented yet, but I would imagine it is very unfulfilling to work at Amazon fulfillment center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO9VRtrTJwc
So a cubicle is pretty much the same thing, only usually with somewhat padded walls. Seems legit; getting into this business is a sign one belongs in a padded cell...
You'll find plenty of examples of safety cages for use in threatening environments. This is just one example that Amazon-bashers keep trying to make into something else.
But in all seriousness, this is the same sort of caging currently put around robots to prevent humans being struck by an unexpected stray movement. While collaborative robots are starting to become more common, the overwhelming majority of industrial robots will go right through a person effortlessly and not even notice they hit anything. While I question whether this would actually work as intended (the caging is designed to keep a weak human out, and is usually placed around a perimeter out of reach of the robot which could likely break through it), the desire for it is sensible. The caging could also be good for the hazards besides the robots, for example loads falling from significant heights as a result of whatever sort of issue the human is in there to deal with.
> Here, the worker becomes a part of a machinic ballet, held upright in a cage which dictates and constrains their movement.
The depiction here is way too sensationalist and eye-roll-inducing. If we want to go there, how is this different from let's say.. a car (or a self-driving car), or even the idea of working for companies to sustain your daily life, especially in person. In any case, I think we can all agree that a mobile safety system like this should have some better industrial design than that diagram.