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Amazon Says New Warehouse Robot Can 'Feel' Items, But Won't Replace Workers (cnbc.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the we'll-see-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: There's a new warehouse robot at Amazon that has a sense of touch, allowing it to handle a job previously only done by humans. Amazon unveiled the robot, called Vulcan, Wednesday at an event in Germany. CNBC got an exclusive first look at Vulcan in April, as it stowed items into tall, yellow bins at a warehouse in Spokane, Washington. An up-close look at the "hand" of the robot reveals how it can feel the items it touches using an AI-powered sensor to determine the precise pressure and torque each object needs. This innovative gripper helps give Vulcan the ability to manipulate 75% of the 1 million unique items in inventory at the Spokane warehouse. Amazon has used other robotic arms inside its warehouses since 2021, but those rely on cameras for detection and suction for grasp, limiting what types of objects they can handle.

Vulcan can also operate 20 hours a day, according to Aaron Parness, who heads up the Amazon Robotics team that developed the machine. Still, Parness told CNBC that instead of replacing people in its warehouses, Vulcan will create new, higher skilled jobs that involve maintaining, operating, installing and building the robots. When asked if Amazon will fully automate warehouses in the future, Parness said, "not at all." "I don't believe in 100% automation," he said. "If we had to get Vulcan to do 100% of the stows and picks, it would never happen. You would wait your entire life. Amazon understands this." The goal is for Vulcan to handle 100% of the stowing that happens in the top rows of bins, which are difficult for people to reach, Parness said. [...] Amazon said Vulcan is operating at about the same speed as a human worker and can handle items up to 8 pounds. It operates behind a fence, sequestered from human workers to reduce the risk of accidents.

Amazon Says New Warehouse Robot Can 'Feel' Items, But Won't Replace Workers More | Reply

Amazon Says New Warehouse Robot Can 'Feel' Items, But Won't Replace Workers

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  • Despite what Amazon says, this will eliminate some warehouse worker jobs. This is great because many of those people bitching and moaning about their Amazon warehouse jobs will have their futures freed up to find jobs that they like much better.

    • Or no job at all. We can all just sit back and collect UBI on our fully automated economy.

      Of course we'll have to overthrow the bourgeoisie first, because if they own the factors and the robots they certainly aren't going to be keen on paying non-workers a portion of their profits.

      (insert: Marxism Intensifies meme)

      • If half the population was on UBI, would there still be enough demand (for other than food, clothing, and shelter I suppose) to support the capitalist economy producing goods and services that only half the population could possibly afford?

        And if the capitalist consumer-driven economy is floundering on lack of demand, where will the taxation revenue to support the UBI come from?

        How does that economic math work out?

        • Capitalism is a system supported by government institutions, such as the ability to form private companies and sell shares or bonds. You can have this type of system in parallel with another, even if only a portion of your population participates in the production or consumption side. This is known as mixed economy.

          And if the capitalist consumer-driven economy is floundering on lack of demand, where will the taxation revenue to support the UBI come from?

          If anyone is making money, you can tax them. Ultimately the government's revenues are going to be limited by the economic output of the nation. If your GDP is crashing, then you will not likely b

        • How does that economic math work out?

          It will have basically the same problem that minimum wage has: No matter how high you raise it, it will never feel like it's enough. And each time you do, you increase the velocity of money, which further accelerates inflation, which brings you back to step 1.

          It's kind of funny that because progressives have an incredibly distorted view of how Nordic countries work. Among other things, they don't realize that those countries don't have a minimum wage, and by and large their economy is far more market driven

          • And each time you do, you increase the velocity of money, which further accelerates inflation

            The problem with this logic is that you need to argue the reverse too: that reducing inflation would be best done by taxing people so they can't spend as much money.

            That very clearly shows the flaw in the logic. It implies that if you raise income by 10% for people with little money that all their costs will also rise with 10% or more. That is nonsense as it assumes that all additional income is spent and that all that spending converts directly into price hikes of things they buy.

            The truth is that inflatio

      • and they're building killer robots for it.

        • The whole "AI" sentry gun industry is a huge liability. But perhaps the billionaires will find the Trump administration and DOJ willing to shield them from the liability. I mean if you can force people on a plane to a foreign prison without any pesky judge looking over your shoulder, then anything should be possible.

          • This is a good time to practice building battlebots out of scrapped equipment.

            I remember there were some young programmers who built a paintball sentry gun that went viral, I seem to recall that they became defense contractors. And before them, some other folks had made a 1/4 scale predator drone you could buy for around three grand that could fly waypoints and "take photographs".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Despite what Amazon says, this will eliminate some warehouse worker jobs.

      Not necessarily. It could just end up being used to reduce worker hours below the level where they have to pay for health insurance. :-D

      Or, slightly less cynically, it could allow them to scale up operations without hiring any additional people. For example, every warehouse could add Amazon Fresh support, and the human workers could be moved to produce packing duty while the robots do what the humans used to do. That technically wouldn't be replacing the humans, because they humans would still have jobs

  • Great, now the robots can squeeze the Charmin (Score:4, Funny)

    by SubmergedInTech ( 7710960 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2025 @06:20PM (#65360047)

    Mr. Whipple can be replaced. We have the technology.

  • Online retailers should have done a better job forcing their suppliers to ship them items in standardized boxes that a robot can handle instead of retail packaging. They have leverage, they should have used it. Instead of trying to make their robot adapt to the input they should have made the input come in a format they can use.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Online retailers should have done a better job forcing their suppliers to ship them items in standardized boxes that a robot can handle instead of retail packaging. They have leverage, they should have used it. Instead of trying to make their robot adapt to the input they should have made the input come in a format they can use.

      This works for Amazon because they push the cost and hassle of dealing with package fillings (paper, foam, plastic bags, peanuts, et al) onto the end user. It's peanuts for the end user as the total cost is distributed across millions but if an Amazon warehouse had to deal with that from their suppliers it would cost them. Plus a lot of the savings for Amazon come from shipping multiple items in one box. If I order a carton of soft drink, book and bottle of shampoo fulfilled by Amazon it often comes in the

  • If they say it's going to replace workers, it doesn't work and won't replace anyone. If they say it won't replace workers, it works and will replace workers.

  • ... a robot that can 'feel' workers but won't replace items.

  • disappointing.

  • We need those workers to put tiny screws in tiny holes 10 hours a day.

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