Communications of the ACM
Robots Alone Can't Solve Amazon's Labor Woes
Existing robot arms and grippers aren't deft enough to handle the diversity of objects that Amazon sells and pop them into boxes.
Amazon warehouse employees in Minnesota plan to strike on Monday, Amazon Prime Day, demanding better working conditions and less intense productivity quotas. In a photo published by Bloomberg last week, the workers held a sign reading: "We Are Humans, Not Robots!"
Which raises an uncomfortable question in this era of robotic automation: If human workers are working like robots, why can't they just be robots? Can't Amazon replace everyone with machines and wave goodbye to its labor woes?
That question doesn't give workers enough credit for how smart and versatile and dexterous they are, and forgets just how inept robots still are. As Amazon scrambles to automate its warehouses to boost its efficiency, it's creating a new human-robot hybrid workforce.
What's actually happening right now, in automation generally as well as in Amazon's own warehouses, is robots performing parts of jobs. "The human element is not going away anytime soon," says John Santagate, research director of service robotics at IDC, a research firm.
From Wired
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