Questionof

Question ofthe
theFortnight
Fortnight
Will Amazon’s new robots
take the jobs of humans?
The company is testing a machine that can pick up millions of different items

W
hen children in the
1950s and 60s THE FACTS
wondered how
Be careful
robots would aid us in the
of pic box width
• Amazon is trialling a giant
future, most would have robotic arm to pick up
and blue tag
imagined human-like items before they are
machines helping out with
clashing, reduce packed in crates
incredibly hi-tech tasks pic box width • The company says that
around the home. slightly, thank u within five years every
Few would have thought of >>> delivery will involve robots
gigantic robotic arms doing at some point
something as menial as • Nearly 1.3 million people
picking up a book and placing work for Amazon
it in a crate. What’s exciting worldwide, more than
about that? But such double the number in 2017
machines might have greater
consequences for humans
than a smiling cyborg that whom do the kind of job that
cooks you dinner every Sparrow will now carry out.
evening. When the BBC raised this
It’s actually extremely with Tye Brady, chief
hard to build a robot that’s pass through its warehouses. will benefit our employees”. technologist at Amazon
versatile enough to pick up a What’s crucial is that it can More significant though is Robotics, he admitted that
range of items. This is why pick up items before they’re the point that Sparrow will “jobs will change for sure, but
Amazon is so thrilled about packed into crates. Performing “help us drive efficiency by the need for humans will
Sparrow (pictured), which it such repetitive tasks allows automating a critical part of always be there”.
demonstrated recently to the “our employees to focus their our fulfillment process so we While that may not have
press at its robotics hub near time and energy on other can continue to deliver for reassured many workers, the
Boston, Massachusetts. things”, Amazon says. And customers”. facts back him up. Amazon
And it’s this emphasis on already uses thousands of
automation that has prompted robots in its warehouses, yet it
Sparrow has vacuum-based some to ask whether now employs more than twice
innovations like Sparrow the number of people it did
suction pads to pick up products of could lead to mass job losses. just five years ago.
different shapes and sizes Amazon is acutely sensitive to
this fear, and tried to preempt
However, perhaps the
previous robots just weren’t
concerns by claiming that it good enough to replace
Unlike previous arms, with 13 million packages sent will help staff “transition and humans. Might Sparrow prove
Sparrow has vacuum-based worldwide every day, that’s a advance their career” so they a turning point? Amazon says
suction pads to pick up lot of repetitive tasks that can can work with the new that currently about three
products of different now be offloaded to Sparrow. technology. quarters of its packages have
shapes and sizes. Amazon Working smarter, not harder, It also said that building been touched by a robotic
programmed it with AI is the goal. robots has created over 700 system. It predicts that
technology and computer Amazon naturally wants to new categories of job, though machines like Sparrow will
vision to become the company’s stress the positive impact of it didn’t specify how many help to increase that to 100
first machine that can “detect, Sparrow, writing online people that meant. Whatever per cent in the next five years.
select and handle” individual (www.snipca.com/44080) the amount, it’ll be a tiny The key question is whether
goods. Bosses claim it can that “what we’re truly excited fraction of the 1.3 million any of those items will also
handle around 65 per cent of about are the implications the people Amazon employs need to be touched by a
the 100 million products that technology has and the ways it around the world – many of human.

10 23 November – 6 December 2022 • Issue 645