The Economist's Babbage podcast reports that Amazon is buying a company that develops and sells robots that run around warehouses and pick bouquets of products a customer has bought for shipment. This is obviously a clear example of VI as Amazon clearly needs these sorts of robots to make their business more profitable (they have been described as too labour heavy by investors).
Hang on a second. An online retailer being described as labour intensive? Who's point of view is this? With an unemployment rate (what it actually is is irrelevant) in the US, it can't be the person on the streets, or the governments surely? So who are these people? Crazies, that's who. The type of person who believes in endless growth on a finite planet. These type of people:
As if Amazon hasn't hoovered up enough jobs from traditional retailers, they're now looking at getting rid of their own. What's next? Virtual CEO? I wish, then we could unplug him.
People want to work. I have a sneaky suspicion that they would prefer to do work that makes the planet a better place and improves our environment.
P.S. Next time I won't be lazy and will actually look up the unemployment rate in the US.
