Our leaders seem to be preparing an economic sphere that will need only a minimal number of pesky humans. What a great idea! Organics are just so ... inefficient. And they complain too much.
Amazon’s autonomous car strategy is not to build one
Chris Burns - Apr 24, 2017
excerpt:
Much like what’s suspected of Apple’s driverless car strategy, Amazon has been reported to be taking a different approach. Instead of building their own vehicles that’d be able to drive themselves, Amazon is said this week to be working on leveraging the incoming technology. This means Amazon would use autonomous cars made by 3rd-party companies instead of going through the trouble of making their own.
[....]
Before long, Amazon could potentially have a system set up where the only humans needed in the process are those that make sure the machines are functioning properly. Customers wouldn’t need to worry about re-ordering supplies (as Amazon allows with a number of products already), and robots could sort the packages out, while autonomous vehicles make the deliveries. And factory worker humans could move on to other, less repetitive, less backbreaking labor.
more at slashgear.com
Here is another short article along the same lines:
fortune.com
Amazon Might Be Planning to Use Driverless Cars for Delivery
Leena Rao
Apr 24, 2017
Amazon could be eyeing driverless car technology as a way to get items to people's doors faster, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
It seems nearly every tech and auto giant are now evaluating autonomous vehicle technology. Google-owner (“GOOG”) Alphabet recently spun out its self-driving car unit, Waymo, into its own subsidiary. Apple (“APPL”) was just granted a license in California to test autonomous vehicles. Ford (“F”) and General Motors (“GM”) are also doubling down on creating autonomous vehicles.
Amazon's (“AMZN”) ambitions, however, may not be to actually build these cars. Instead, the e-commerce giant has a team of around a dozen employees thinking of ways to potentially use the nascent technology to expand its own retail and logistics operations.
Operating fleets of driverless trucks to ship items bought from its marketplace could help lower costs for the company. Amazon spends billions of dollars each quarter on shipping, and these costs continue to rise as the company aims to deliver everything from toiletries to TVs to customers around the world in two days or less.
Over the past two years, Amazon has been seeking to take over more shipping duties from the likes of UPS and FedEx by leasing trucks, planes, and ships. The company has also started testing drones to deliver items from warehouses to buyers' doorsteps as part of its Prime Air initiative.
Earlier this year, Amazon was awarded a patent for the technology that would allow driverless cars to to navigate traffic and lanes on highways. |
