Amazon drivers have a hard gig. They’ve struggled for years against long hours with limited breaks, unreasonable delivery quotas, and wage theft — not to mention repressive union-busting efforts to make sure none of that changes.
Those are the conditions that led the Teamsters to launch the largest labor strike against Amazon in US history just days before Christmas of last year.
But as calls grow to stop treating its workers like robots, Amazon has decided to cut out the middle man — and just use actual robots instead.
That seems to be the goal, at least, behind a new robotics facility meant to test humanoid robots in a real-world delivery environment, a development first reported by The Information.
Dubbed a “humanoid park,” an anonymous source described the site as an indoor obstacle course located at an Amazon facility in San Francisco. The retail giant is seemingly testing bipedal bots to work with its fleet of Rivian electric vans to deliver packages to homes, which were reportedly part of the simulated delivery habitat.
At the core of it all — as with just about anything these days — is a nebulous commitment to AI.
“Amazon has no choice but to build software that will allow it to communicate with and leverage robots,” harped Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon executive. “The primary impact of AI is that it accelerates velocity across an enterprise or an ecosystem. This means that Amazon has to be able to work 24/7 365 days per year to meet the increased demand AI will generate.”
How AI will actually factor into the robotics program is unclear. The company has also recently formed a new hardware research unit, focused on shoehorning “agentic AI” into warehouse robots.
Ladd, the bigwig responsible for the company’s harebrained “micro-fulfillment“ concept, calls AI-powered humanoid robots and autonomous vehicles a “must have for Amazon.”
But the robots aren’t ready to take over just yet.
“Will Amazon be able to leverage humanoid robots to make package deliveries anytime soon? No,” says Ladd. “A lot of work has to be done first. Is it likely that by 2030 the company will be utilizing robots in conjunction with Rivian vans? Yes, that’s certainly possible.”
In the meantime, the tech company is developing screen-embedded eyeglasses — again crammed with generative AI, apparently — to squeeze a little bit more out of delivery workers. Or, as an Amazon official told Reuters, “making it easier for Amazon drivers to find the right delivery spot.”
That migraine-inducing system is getting an “experimental deployment” after Amazon inked a $36.5 million partnership with Finnish augmented reality company IXI.
With all that extra time saved navigating deliveries, maybe Amazon can finally let its workers stop peeing in bottles.
More on robotics: Engineers Reveal Robot That Takes Care of Old People So You Don’t Have to
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