Robots will work for $1.40 hour - how's that salary re-negotiation working out for you?

I, Robot.

Writer Isaac Asimov published the book in 1950. 

Actor Will Smith played in the 2004 movie.

Soon enough, robot workers are coming to a neighborhood near you!

Today in Amazon warehouses, robots make human payrolls smaller.

And when payrolls shrink, what happens?  

For Amazon, it worked so well that Amazon just flat out bought the company that made the robots - and then stopped making robots for other companies. 

It's no surprise that other robot makers have started up. 

An excerpt below is from a news story that concludes warehouse robots can be rented for as little as $1.40 an hour.

$1.40 per hour? 

I was paid $1.60 an hour flipping steak burgers at Hardee's one summer in the 1970s.  But at least back then I didn't have to work several hours to pay for a value meal.

When robots help make the payrolls shrink, what will today's 35 year old to 65 year old displaced man and woman do: take STEM classes from a unionized teacher?   PB
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From Bloomberg.com:

Fetch Robotics [is] one of a handful of startups working on warehouse robots aimed specifically at e-commerce companies.

With the holiday season approaching, the roboticists are pitching the machines as a way to speed up packing without having to hire extra workers.

As with most things in the world of online retail, Fetch exists because of something Amazon.com did.

In 2012, Amazon paid $775 million for warehouse robot maker Kiva Systems; shortly after, it stopped Kiva from selling its machines to anyone else.

“When Amazon drops nearly $1 billion on something just to keep it out of the hands of competitors, it sends a really strong message to the market,” says Bryce Roberts, managing director of seed investor O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, which has invested in Fetch. “It left a big hole that’s still wide open.”

In stepped companies such as year-old Fetch in San Jose and six-year-old Harvest Automation in Billerica, Mass.

Both say their robots can keep up with a briskly walking person for about eight hours on a fully charged battery. Fetch says its basic models can carry as much as 150 pounds; Harvest, 50.

Tim Barrett, the chief operating officer of shipping company Barrett Distribution Centers, says that with eight Harvest prototypes moving goods around its Massachusetts warehouse, the company didn’t need to install a pricey conveyor belt....

The bottom line: Robot makers are readying warehouse models that they say will rent for as little as $1.40 an hour.
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Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/the-robots-chasing-amazon