It says "ships themselves". I interpreted that as meaning through their own delivery service versus UPS/USPS, and I thought those third party shipments were still picked up at Amazon warehouses. Meaning this could have much more to do with Amazon building out their delivery service than with warehouse efficiency.

I'm also under the impression that most of the Amazon delivery drivers are contractors, and wouldn't count in "per employee" metrics.

> I think there's a non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years.

I can't imagine this would last long with the social instability that would follow.

That also seems like a gross overestimate for many industries. Many supply chains are nowhere near able to be automated to the extent this ratio would imply.

> non-zero chance of 95% unemployment within the next 20 years

With that said, there is probably also a non-zero chance that something like that wouldn't be negative but something positive instead. I suppose that'd be the ideal scenario.

That would be bad for anyone selling stuff

“Executive” is another word for “sociopath” so this is unsurprising.

I have worked with him.

He's a robber baron, not a captain of industry.

Don't have to look much past his "gobble gobble" email to see that, nor his announcement of RTO the day after an all hands where remote work was touted as the future.

Looking just at their physical-item distribution model, I'd imagine it's far more carbon-efficient than physically shopping.

Case 1: I drive to the store to get a widget. There is a low chance Store-1 doesn't have it, and I have to keep shopping. Regardless, I am driving about 30 minutes total, conservatively.

Case 2: I order a widget from Amazon. The Amazon driver organizes their stops to minimize travel time, and it's undoubtedly less than 30 minutes driving from the previous stop.

Both cases require transport of goods from factory to the final storage location (shopfront or Amazon warehouse), so the difference there is negligible.

"Robots don't take bathroom breaks, so you shouldn't either. If you're lucky, we'll let you work for a little while more until we can replace you with something cheaper. Now, back to work!"

I don't think the parent is making the argument that this level of automation can't be a net benefit for humanity, just that if it results in nearly the entire middle class and down being laid off at the same time with no recompense, that's an almost perfect storm for revolution, violent or not.

> net benefit for humanity

Some people might argue that wealth concentrated in the top 1% is a net benefit if you look at it as one big pool of resources. But will the remaining 99% actually see any of that benefit? Or will the 1% simply tighten their grip, keeping the rest dependent on their “generosity”?

Thinking "there will always be something else for everybody to do" because "there's always been something else for everybody to do" is like the dinosaurs thinking "we've always been fine after a meteor strike".

that depends on how important it is to people to be able to continuously overbuy cheap, poorly-made, low-quality disposable textile goods.