The world鈥檚 largest manufacturer of robots is a company you have probably heard of. As of last year, Amazon had installed more than 750,000 robots in its warehouses, and it is investing hundreds of millions of pounds on developing and building more. Many of these robots perform tasks that were once carried out by people, such as packing, sorting and labelling. Are we seeing the beginning of a new wave of automation replacing human workers across many industries?
To find out, I visited Amazon鈥檚 Operations Innovation Lab, where it聽develops and tests new robots. Located a stone鈥檚 throw from the Italian Alps in the town of Vercelli, the聽robotic lab was opening to the聽press聽and the public for the first聽time in an effort to聽assuage fears about job losses.
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I had seen some of the robots that聽make up Amazon鈥檚 packaging line in videos, but seeing their speed聽and complexity up close was astounding. Snaking around a vast warehouse set up like聽an exhibition space, they were聽twisting and writhing in constant motion.
Rubber suction cups guided by computer vision AI placed packages on conveyor belts, while a robotic arm the size of a double-decker bus聽fastened boxes onto pallets. Occupying a central location was Amazon鈥檚 shiny new robot it calls the聽Universal Robotic Labeller (URL), a spider-like device that can print and stick a label to any package, regardless of shape or size.
, Amazon鈥檚 director of global robotics, says that聽the URL will mean warehouse workers will no longer have to perform the repetitive motions of fixing labels to unusually shaped packages, freeing them up to work on other tasks like operating or maintaining the URL machine.
鈥淭he important thing is that every time we develop the technology, we聽also create a new training package for the employees to learn聽new skills,鈥� says La Rovere.
But it is unclear whether creating new jobs and retraining staff can happen quickly enough to prevent job losses, says at the University of Oxford. While new jobs, like robot technicians and software engineers, were created when roles in the manufacturing industry were automated away, there is no guarantee that this will happen at a sufficient pace in the future, he says. 鈥淭here is no law of economics that suggests that those employment opportunities must counterbalance those jobs that are聽being displaced,鈥� says Frey.
I heard from multiple Amazon employees at the event that the goal聽is for the machines to work alongside humans. According to La聽Rovere, more than 鈥�50,000 jobs have been enhanced by the use of robotics and technology鈥�, though he聽didn鈥檛 go into specifics.
Amazon has over 1.5 million full-time and part-time employees, many of whom carry out tasks I saw聽being performed by robots. If聽its聽拢600 million investment in robotic equipment isn鈥檛 going to put聽some people out of work, it will聽need a vast programme of retraining and legions of new jobs.
鈥淎utomation is good, but it鈥檚 an illusion to think that automation automatically means more employment opportunities and more interesting work for the people聽affected by it,鈥� says Frey. 鈥淭hat has certainly not been the historical experience.鈥�
Amazon鈥檚 vision of a human-robot love-in is also hard to square with the company鈥檚 recent testing of humanoid robots in its warehouses. Last year, it created by firm Agility Robotics, in one of its Seattle warehouses. When I asked Sarah Rhoads, who oversees Amazon鈥檚 global workplace safety, what role these robots might play in the near future, she said that they were 鈥渟o new and emerging it鈥檚 too early to speculate on鈥�.
Even if Amazon doesn鈥檛 place humanoid robots at the centre of its聽automated vision, there is huge interest in them, not least from ex-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos has invested $100 million in Figure AI, a聽company with the stated goal of聽bringing 鈥渁 general purpose humanoid to life鈥�.
Last week, robotics company Boston Dynamics also unveiled its聽sleek and nimble fully electric Atlas robot, a replacement for the previous hydraulic model. The company says it is 鈥渄esigned for real-world applications鈥�, and will be first tested in Hyundai鈥檚 car factories.
The extent to which robotic technology will affect human jobs is highly uncertain, says at the London School of Economics, and it will take time for full automation to take place.
However, recent studies have estimated that repetitive, low-skilled work, as well as data collection and data processing tasks, will fall by 12 per cent as a share of all work by 2030 due to automation, he says.
Alex Wilkins鈥檚 trip was paid for by Amazon.
