A week ago, e-commerce and technology multinational Amazon revealed that it is going to introduce walking robots and then new drones that will deliver goods to people’s homes. After this announcement, the company has started giving assurances.
Ty Brady, head of the company’s robotics division, insists that all these technological advances (in the case of robots in practice) don’t mean that people’s jobs are at risk.
He was speaking after his team unveiled new developments at the company’s headquarters in Seattle. Perhaps the most headline-grabbing machine of these was the ‘Digit’. Digit is a humanoid machine capable of lifting boxes. It is just one of many robots.
Many of Digit’s colleagues are already well advanced in their work at Amazon. Many of Amazon’s warehouses that go to fulfillment centers already rely heavily on automated systems. These systems are doing what humans once did.
For example, in the past, Amazon workers would walk through a forest of closets full of supplies after receiving an order, where they would retrieve the desired item and bring it back in a condition that could be packaged and shipped.
Many of Amazon’s warehouses now have shelving workers, meaning small robots pick up shelves and carry them to workers who take goods off them and ship them back to the shelves.
More automation is coming. For example, Amazon’s robots are currently mostly inside warehouses. The packages created there are delivered by humans to the specified destination. But the humanoid robot Digit and its powerful legs mean it could be useful for moving people into less stable environments like parking lots. Robots are expected to have a “profound impact” through Amazon’s delivery chain, Brady says. They may eventually arrive at your door.
Amazon says the robots have made its operations more efficient and safer. But it has also raised fears that when these jobs are done by robots, the jobs of the people who used to do them will become redundant.
The company is clearly concerned about this situation. Along with her announcement about robots this week, she also said she would launch new research with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and polling company Apsus to better understand how people will replace them at work. How do you feel about robots?
But Brady also flatly denies that the advance of robots means Amazon will cut staff. As efficiency increases, Amazon will do more, he says. Although each building may have fewer employees, Amazon will have more buildings. He was pointing to the fact that Amazon’s investment in robotics began in 2012 and since then the company has created millions of new jobs, and seven hundred new types of jobs.
Yet the threat to jobs from robotics and artificial intelligence is real and growing. Earlier this year, global investment banking and financial services firm Goldman Sachs estimated that the new technology could eliminate 300 million jobs, while the remaining jobs could reduce wages. For example, over the summer BT (the British telecommunications company) said it planned to cut more than 40 percent of its workforce in a transition to automated services.
Amazon says it has not laid off employees because of its robots, and the workforce at its fulfillment centers has grown to 7.5 million people. But it faced public criticism from unions over pay and other conditions. The UK’s GMB union has described the automation plans as ‘a rapid loss of jobs’.
Brady says that certain types of jobs will disappear instead of workers. ‘I want to eliminate mundane, repetitive and mind-numbing tasks,’ he says. This is a process that machines excel at. On the other hand, humans are better at logical reasoning and problem solving. Brady says he wants to give them the opportunity to do just that.
Employees can still work with robots, he says. They may be monitoring many machines at the same time, or trying to understand why certain items cannot be picked by robots, etc.
Brady’s argument in this context is about designing things with a clear purpose in mind and he believes that in the process. Rather than relying solely on automated systems or machines, it is important to involve real people.
Thus, the words of Julia Shaw, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, who is working on the Amazon research project, are highlighted, in which she said that ‘when humans are involved in the design and use of technology. If monitored, it leads to better outcomes for workers and companies.’ He suggests that the best job for a robot is to be an ‘active helper’ that works alongside people.
One of the reasons for this is the failures of robots. Brady says there’s “no part of me” that ever thought it would be possible to fully automate the process of fulfilling customer orders on Amazon.
Robots make mistakes. Even if they do this at a modest cost, the company shipped eight billion packages last year, so errors can add up quickly. Humans have certain abilities that mean they will play a key role in preventing these errors. That is, the ability of humans to think of higher order and identify problems. ‘We have a tiny computer (in our brains) that is very light and can run (on energy) from a granola snack bar.’
‘This is a living computer that we have with over a million years of evolution behind it. Why in any world would you not want to take advantage of that?’
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Brady, speaking to reporters, hinted at the idea that we ‘overestimate technology in the short term and ignore technology in the future’. How do they know they are no longer doing this with the ability to outrun the human mind? However, a few years ago we might have seen artistic images or poetry as natural and eternally human creations, but artificial intelligence possessing the creative potential DALL. A system like EawarChatGPT has enhanced this human ability.
Although these tools have evolved, they’re still just a tool, says Brady. Brady says he likes to paint and draws on self-generated images as inspiration. But their drawings are fundamentally more human and creative than artificial intelligence systems. He says that new technology does not replace humans but increases their capabilities.
For example, the same is happening in the medical field. ‘A machine learning system can detect breast cancer better than a doctor, but a machine learning system does not tell a patient about breast cancer or cure it. An automated system is a ‘tool’ that ‘enables doctors to do their jobs more effectively.’
Brady says that’s his view of Amazon’s robots. ‘We have designed this machine in a way that makes us more productive and also provides a safer environment for our employees. This care and thought and the voice of our employees influence our system designers to create a better machine so we can achieve success. When it comes to e-commerce, I think of something that is unprecedented.’
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