> In February, it was reported that Amazon had been granted patents for a wristband that ... could “read” their hand movements, buzzing or emitting a pulse to alert them when they were reaching for the wrong item.
Setting aside the privacy violations of the rest of the article, this part is really depressing for me. I'm reminded of an episode of Mind Field [1] where they steer live cockroaches through a mobile app by connecting a chip to its antennae - the potential application being scouting of buildings, since it's cheaper to use a live cockroach than build a tiny robot.
This to me feels like Amazon are working towards a fully robotic factory worker - they have all the smarts done in software, but for now they need to use a human for the body. Could you imagine how dehumanizing it would feel to be the body of a robot?
Setting aside the privacy violations of the rest of the article, this part is really depressing for me. I'm reminded of an episode of Mind Field [1] where they steer live cockroaches through a mobile app by connecting a chip to its antennae - the potential application being scouting of buildings, since it's cheaper to use a live cockroach than build a tiny robot.
This to me feels like Amazon are working towards a fully robotic factory worker - they have all the smarts done in software, but for now they need to use a human for the body. Could you imagine how dehumanizing it would feel to be the body of a robot?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXNGvDdkXZE (YouTube Red subscription required, unfortunately)