Once the preserve of science fiction, US tech giant Amazon is working hard to herald the age of robots. What do these latest innovations mean for the future of fulfilment and the people who work in it?

Inside a metal cage in a featureless room 30 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, a marvel of modern technology whirs to life. Surrounding it, with pens, dictaphones and phone cameras poised, 100 journalists from every corner of the globe wait for their first glimpse of the future.

Sparrow, a yellow robotic arm fitted with a many-pronged, Amazon-designed ‘hand’, suddenly stirs with a loud hiss, using its suction-cupped ‘fingers’ and advanced AI to select products from one yellow box into several, different grey ones. 

Within minutes, protein powder, a box of napkins and a tube of topical cream are placed into different tubs. Pens scribble, shutters snap and interpreters interpret as an Amazon employee explains cheerfully that the more the Sparrow sorts, the more it learns. The more it learns, the better it gets at sorting. 

Sparrow is just one of several new robotic weapons unveiled by Amazon during its Delivering the Future conference, all joining in its fight for more efficient customer fulfilment. The job for which Sparrow has been designed – sorting inventory and packing it into orders to be shipped – is currently done entirely by humans. 

While each new innovation represents an astounding feat of engineering, in a week where the tech giant has failed to deny reports it is planning to cut 10,000 jobs across the business, it has also raised deeper questions about where humans fit into Amazon’s endless pursuit of efficiency. 

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Sparrow has been designed to sort inventory and pack it into orders – a job currently performed entirely by humans

 

Robot wars

The 2020s will be the “age of applied robotics”, says Amazon Robotics chief technologist Tye Brady.

Already, 75% of Amazon’s 5 billion annual orders are handled at some point by a robot and Brady says that will only increase. “Robots will be doing meaningful tasks and extending human capability. I feel it’s taken 50 years to get here. It’s exciting.” 

It is easy, in Amazon’s sprawling BOS27 warehouse, to believe him. As knee-high Hercules and Pegasus bots move autonomously along invisible grids on the warehouse floor marked out by QR ‘fiducials’, new robots roll off the production lines. 

While it has been half a century of struggle for Brady, the real beginning of Amazon’s autonomous robot story started in 2012 when it purchased robotics company Kiva. The acquisition was the driving force behind Amazon’s push to automate fulfilment centres and improve supply chain productivity. 

 

BOS27 – and its neighbouring site in North Reading, Massachusetts – are the only two places in the world where Amazon builds its robots; more than 520,000 machines are already operating around the world and the next wave is to come.

While Sparrow is Amazon’s crowning technological achievement, it is not the only innovation it is keen to show off. There are also Robin and Cardinal – other autonomous arms for larger boxes. Proteus, the new and improved Hercules – a bot that autonomously carries heavy loads around its warehouses – is powered by AI rather than QR codes, so it can recognise humans and avoid collisions.

“We’ve also given it a little face,” says one of the Amazon technicians, pointing to two eyes at the front of the Proteus’ drive. “It’s cute, don’t you think?”

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Proteus autonomously carries heavy loads around the warehouse

Safety first

In another part of the cavernous warehouse, we find the next generation of Amazon delivery: the Rivian all-electric delivery van and an MK27-2 delivery drone. 

Vice president of Prime Air David Carbon insists that by the end of the decade Amazon will be making over 500 million package deliveries annually around the world with its next-gen MK30 drone, due to launch in 2024. 

While the idea of autonomous drone flight may fill people with dread, Carbon insists Amazon is shooting for “a demonstrated, targeted level of safety that is validated by regulators and a magnitude safer than driving to the store”.

He continues: “[We will be] delivering 500 million packages by drone annually by the end of this decade. Servicing millions of customers, operating in highly populated, suburban areas such as Seattle, Boston and Atlanta. Flying in an uncontrolled space autonomously.”

MX27-2 Drone at Delivering the Future

Amazon predicts that by the end of the decade the next-gen MK30 drone will be making more than 500 million deliveries annually

This idea of safety is revisited throughout the conference. Even the Rivian vans are packed with new safety features, such as 360-degree visibility cameras, sensor detection, highway and traffic-assist breaks, and adaptive cruise control. 

“These sites have delivered the largest fleet of industrial robots in the world,” boasts Amazon’s vice president of robotics fulfilment and IT Joe Quinlivan. “But why have we taken on this challenge? Number one is safety.” 

Critics, however, suggest the prime reason is to ultimately replace one of the costliest parts of any business’s balance sheet: its employees. 

Stay human 

The Sparrow arm alone could replace hundreds of thousands of jobs at Amazon over the next few years. As drones increasingly take to the sky, fewer drivers will likely be needed. The potential list of affected jobs goes on and on. 

At a sub-same-day fulfilment centre in nearby Bridgewater, this potential is laid bare. The 155,000 sq ft centre stocks a reduced assortment of between 120,000 and 150,000 ‘need it now’ SKUs – including household items such as toothpaste and washing-up liquid – which it aims to deliver to customers within hours of ordering. 

Between 80 and 100 employees work rolling 10-hour shifts at a site that stays open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The vast majority of human jobs involve picking orders from colour-coded shelves, packaging them up and scanning barcodes to check the zip codes are correct. 

 

“Oh yeah, we’re working on automating different parts of the process,” the sub-same-day manager for that region said nonchalantly. Humans make mistakes, after all. 

Amazon has also battled tooth and nail against its staff unionising and is viewed by some as the epitome of modern-day Dickensian working conditions. Now, as it unveils its latest robotic innovations, it is under fire for looking to replace humans entirely. 

Amazon strongly denies this – Brady says Amazon created 700 new job ‘categories’ in the past decade alone. 

“I just don’t see that at all,” he says when asked about job cuts as a result of increased automation. “We made our first serious investment in robotics over 10 years ago and in those 10 years, we created more than 1 million jobs.

“The need for people to solve problems and use common sense will always be there,” he said. “We are nowhere near that with robotics. It’s not even close.”

“We will react and we will obsess about what the customer wants and if they want their toothpaste faster, we will help them get their toothpaste faster”

Tye Brady, Amazon Robotics

Brady instead argues that robots will replace more mundane jobs, freeing up humans to be more productive, but also happier and more fulfilled. But it is hard to imagine how Amazon can globally support thousands of people in the move from scanning barcodes to fixing or designing barcode-scanning robots. 

When asked whether any of the programmes or teams we were invited to see would be affected by the announcement of job cuts, Amazon responded curtly: “We have nothing to share on this.” 

If Brady is to be believed, this is all driven by the consumer. Using a tube of toothpaste as an example, he says: “We will react and we will obsess about what the customer wants and if they want their toothpaste faster, we will help them get their toothpaste faster.”

The future is now and according to Quinlivan, it is only accelerating towards us faster. “I really think what we’re going to do in the next five years is going to dwarf anything we’ve done in the last 10 years,” he says.

While progress is always good for the consumer, it may prove less so for Amazon’s warehouse staff.