• pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This seems like it has pretty powerful potential for space flight.

    Being able to aggressively min max packaging materials to secure materials could be critical for reducing payload sizes on shuttles, where every single individual gram counts.

    Each kg of packaging is thousands of dollars to get into orbit, so that’s really appealing.

    I’d be curious to see if Amazon is also working on box packing algorithms for maximizing fitting n parcels across x delivery trucks.

    IE if you have 10,00 boxes to move, what’s the fewest delivery trucks you can fit those boxes into as fast as possible too, which introduces multiple complex concepts. Both packing to maximize space usage and the order you pack it in to minimize armature travel time…

    I’d put money down amazon is perfecting this algorithm right now, and has been for awhile.

    • polygon6121@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is already worked in through mathematics, it is its own mathematical field. We can optimize packaging through formulas that are very fast and accurate. No need to train a AI for that. Especially not for space flight, AI are prone to hallucinations that is not something you want anywhere near any space mission that requires precision and predictability. I believe Johannes Kepler started this field in the 1600s, it is not something new. It is definitely a complex problem, but not new and not unheard of. Amazon is not exactly inventing something new and amazing here…

    • dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Amazon probably does have some programmatic way of determining how much to fit in a truck, but that’s not what this is. Instead, it’s them trying to cheap out on packaging materials in the dumbest way possible, by figuring out what the reasonably acceptable minimum threshold is for packaging durability but not taking into account size or packing multiples of items at all (as far as I can tell).

      This is a pure cost cutting measure on their part. Anything else is just a tangential side benefit.