Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/08/amazon-pr-accidentally-confirm.html
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If I had Photoshop chops, I’d do a Bezos/Borg Queen mashup.
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Uh, Amazon didn’t confirm anything - that was just an empty non-statement from PR.
You shouldn’t let your anti-Amazon hatred lead you to jump to conclusions, Cory.
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It’s what they’re best at!
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next up - they automate the cutomers. since people without jobs can’t buy anything.
welcome to your new robot economy…
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It is a sign of things to come. AI generated, content-less, meaningless response. The reign of the machines has already begun and we never noticed.
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Forgive me if you’re being dense as a literary device, but I believe the point Cory was making was that the emptiness of the PR statement implicitly confirms the fictional story. A meaningful human PR response would have acknowledged that it was a work of fiction.
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I don’t think @doctorow published this article…
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I know - that was me being intentionally dense
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I had to add the Locutus eye as the change from Borg Queen to Bezos wasn’t all that dramatic…
edit to add: JeBzuz of Borg here looks like what I imagine the Ultras look like in Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space milieu. 'Look at me! I’m only 274 years young with this new chassis!"
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Maybe an automated one too…
A glorious prosperous economy that runs automatically and without human input forever shifting boots from one human face to another. That the boots are filled with 5% off coupons and invasive cookies is irrelevant.
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If the machines managed to do a certain amount of the work then they could pay their humans a living wage or possibly more…
Ok second coffee not yet consumed. Someone hit me with a sporting implement to chase away crazy thoughts.
This is actually a pretty great point: if they say workplaces (which are only made hellish by company policy) for personnel should be automated out of existence, what stops a corporation from making things worse in the profession that follows that?
Hey, I am far more intensively critical of Amazon and hate them much more. Where’s my “hates the precious” badge?
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I just snorted coffee all over my keyboard.
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Why is automation dystopian - the only dystopian element is societal organization that doesn’t use that to create more free time and abundance.
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I’m a former Amazon programmer who toured a couple of “Fulfillment Centers.” I watched the Kiva robots do their work, I saw autonomous transport robots roll from one end of the warehouse to the other, I marvelled at robot arms routing packages. All of this was buried in endless rows of shelves and a vast network of conveyor belts as complex as a circulatory system. Saying that Amazon is going to automate these places as completely as it can is about as much a stretch of the imagination as saying that a coin dropped off the top of the Empire State Building is going to embed itself in the pavement below.
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Dude that 5% smacked me right in the face, that’s the employee discount, Prime is a digital service, I dont understand why we dont get that shit for free, I do, but, ugh
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