The Dangerous Economist: Amazon’s New Robotic Warehouse Will Rely Heavily on Human Workers

The 3 million-square-foot distribution center in Shreveport, La., demonstrates the limits of automation in big logistics operations

By Liz Young of The WSJ.

Yes, robots and machines can replace workers. But sometimes robots and machines lead to new types of jobs and also the increase in output they might generate will lead to even more workers being needed. Some of the related posts below are examples of this.

Excerpts from The WSJ article:

"Amazon just opened its most-automated warehouse yet. But underneath the robotics and artificial-intelligence technology at the site, the facility will still rely on thousands of employees.
The e-commerce behemoth said its 3 million-square-foot building in Shreveport, La., is its first warehouse to use automation and artificial intelligence at every step of the fulfillment process."
"Amazon has hired more than 1,400 people at the Shreveport distribution center in recent months and plans to eventually employ 2,500 workers picking orders, loading and unloading trucks and managing the robotics systems."
"The idea is to speed up operations, save on labor costs and make warehouses safer for the workers that remain."
"Some traditional warehouse roles have proved too difficult for Amazon to fully automate, however, partly because the company sells more than 400 million widely varied products that range in size, weight and fragility, from dog toys to toaster ovens"
"If you don’t know what items you’re going to be handling, it makes it very difficult to create an automated system that’s flexible enough to handle the various items"
"Humans can easily look into a storage container packed full of goods, identify a particular item and know how to pick it up and handle it, whether it is a bottle of shampoo or a sweater.
“The tactile grasp that the human hand has, and the situational awareness and the perception of the human brain, is unmatched,” said Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics."
"robots at the facility carry storage containers full of merchandise to human employees who look inside and pick out the item a customer ordered, then place that item into a tote box that goes onto a conveyor belt and is taken to be packaged.
Human workers also load and unload trucks at the Shreveport facility, and pack orders that are an unusual size or shape.
The company said many of the roles at its new building involve managing and working with robots"
"Amazon warehouses using its latest automation will be able to handle one million orders a day, creating many opportunities for issues that require a human touch"

Two recent articles on robots and human workers (2024)

"The Battle Over Robots at U.S. Ports Is On: Striking dockworkers are back to work—but disagreement over automation stands in the way of lasting peace"

"At a Brooklyn Warehouse, Robots Are Reshaping the Grocery-Delivery Business: A discount grocer’s pilot program is using robots to help complete orders—and keep prices down"

Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s are not reducing employment (2024)

The AI-Generated Population Is Here, and They’re Ready to Work: AI that can predict how specific humans will look, act and feel could do the jobs of fashion models, focus group members and clinical trial participants (2024)

Meet the Robots Slicing Your Barbecue Ribs (2024)

Robots writing science fiction (2024)

Robots Are Looking Better to Detroit as Labor Costs Rise (2024)

Are robot vehicles replacing workers in freight yards, warehouses and seaports or are they being used because it is hard to find workers? (2023)

Sweetgreen Hires Kale-Shooting Robots to Speed Up Service (2023)

“Why did the human stare at the glass of orange juice?” “They were trying to concentrate.” (2023) (this post it partly about jokes written by ChatGPT)

Will technology cost artists their job? (2023)

Rent a robot for Christmas? Makes sense if you are a logistics company (2022)

Walgreens Turns to Prescription-Filling Robots to Free Up Pharmacists (2022)

Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to the Mechanization of Telephone Operation (2022)

Warehouses Look to Robots to Fill Labor Gaps, Speed Deliveries (2021)

Is unemployment still high because of structural unemployment? (2021)