Doubtless the number of human workers may seem excessive to business owners looking to save money by [...]]]>
Doubtless the number of human workers may seem excessive to business owners looking to save money by installing robots, which conveniently don’t require lunch breaks, healthcare or paychecks. Of course, disemployed workers are not dependable shoppers, a fact that automation implementers tend to ignore.
And the thousands of unskilled illegal aliens amassing on the US southern border will not be employable in a few years whenever machines can replace them at less cost.
The writer of the article below seems to find the robot future to be a neato prospect judging by his writing style, although the associated job loss will be anything but cool — except for employers. For example, the World Economic Forum predicted a few years ago that 30 to 50 percent of retail jobs are at risk once known automation technologies are fully incorporated which will result in six million positions lost.
Below, the LoweBot retail machine can direct customers to the items they wish to buy.
It would be nice if someone in Washington were paying attention to this severe threat to our economic future.
]]>Retail Robots Are on the Rise — at Every Level of the Industry, SingularityHub.com, December 20, 2019
The robots are coming! The robots are coming! On our sidewalks, in our skies, in our every store… Over the next decade, robots will enter the mainstream of retail.
As countless robots work behind the scenes to stock shelves, serve customers, and deliver products to our doorstep, the speed of retail will accelerate.
These changes are already underway. In this blog, we’ll elaborate on how robots are entering the retail ecosystem.
Let’s dive in.
Robot Delivery
On August 3rd, 2016, Domino’s Pizza introduced the Domino’s Robotic Unit, or “DRU” for short. The first home delivery pizza robot, the DRU looks like a cross between R2-D2 and an oversized microwave.
LIDAR and GPS sensors help it navigate, while temperature sensors keep hot food hot and cold food cold. Already, it’s been rolled out in ten countries, including New Zealand, France, and Germany, but its August 2016 debut was critical—as it was the first time we’d seen robotic home delivery.
And it won’t be the last.
A dozen or so different delivery bots are fast entering the market. Starship Technologies, for instance, a startup created by Skype founders Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla, has a general-purpose home delivery robot. Right now, the system is an array of cameras and GPS sensors, but upcoming models will include microphones, speakers, and even the ability—via AI-driven natural language processing—to communicate with customers. Since 2016, Starship has already carried out 50,000 deliveries in over 100 cities across 20 countries.
Along similar lines, Nuro—co-founded by Jiajun Zhu, one of the engineers who helped develop Google’s self-driving car—has a miniature self-driving car of its own. Half the size of a sedan, the Nuro looks like a toaster on wheels, except with a mission. This toaster has been designed to carry cargo—about 12 bags of groceries (version 2.0 will carry 20)—which it’s been doing for select Kroger stores since 2018. Domino’s also partnered with Nuro in 2019.
As these delivery bots take to our streets, others are streaking across the sky.
Back in 2016, Amazon came first, announcing Prime Air—the e-commerce giant’s promise of drone delivery in 30 minutes or less. Almost immediately, companies ranging from 7-Eleven and Walmart to Google and Alibaba jumped on the bandwagon.
While critics remain doubtful, the head of the FAA’s drone integration department recently said that drone deliveries may be “a lot closer than […] the skeptics think. [Companies are] getting ready for full-blown operations. We’re processing their applications. I would like to move as quickly as I can.”
In-Store Robots
While delivery bots start to spare us trips to the store, those who prefer shopping the old-fashioned way—i.e., in person—also have plenty of human-robot interaction in store. In fact, these robotics solutions have been around for a while.
In 2010, SoftBank introduced Pepper, a humanoid robot capable of understanding human emotion. Pepper is cute: 4 feet tall, with a white plastic body, two black eyes, a dark slash of a mouth, and a base shaped like a mermaid’s tail. Across her chest is a touch screen to aid in communication. And there’s been a lot of communication. Pepper’s cuteness is intentional, as it matches its mission: help humans enjoy life as much as possible.
Over 12,000 Peppers have been sold. She serves ice cream in Japan, greets diners at a Pizza Hut in Singapore, and dances with customers at a Palo Alto electronics store. More importantly, Pepper’s got company.
Walmart uses shelf-stocking robots for inventory control. Best Buy uses a robo-cashier, allowing select locations to operate 24-7. And Lowe’s Home Improvement employs the LoweBot—a giant iPad on wheels—to help customers find the items they need while tracking inventory along the way. (Continues)
Lowe’s likes how the machine can function for 24/7 with no lunch breaks or paychecks required. Plus, the LoweBot also performs inventory [...]]]>
Lowe’s likes how the machine can function for 24/7 with no lunch breaks or paychecks required. Plus, the LoweBot also performs inventory tracking as it cruises around the aisles — no need to hire a human for that task either.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the number of retail sales workers in 2014 at 4,859,600. Many of those jobs are threatened by retail robots — not immediately, but as the price of the bots go down, more businesses will add them to save labor costs.
The LoweBot, an updated version of the OSHbot, will be rolled out in San Francisco Bay Area Lowe’s stores this fall.
The profound changes in the workplace due to automation are likely to undermine the basic economic cycle of humans getting paid for performing work and purchasing manufactured goods in the stores using their wages. How is the economy supposed to work without shoppers?
In light of the automated future, it makes no sense for the government to continue importing millions of foreign workers to do jobs that are disappearing. Expert predictions are sobering: In 2013, an Oxford University study (“The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?”) was published that concluded nearly half of US employment is at risk of being replaced by smart machines. The respected Gartner tech consultants predicted in 2014 that one-third of jobs will be taken by smart machines and software by 2025.
In short, automation makes immigration obsolete. Let’s just stop, for a less chaotic future.
]]>Lowe’s introduces LoweBot, a new autonomous in-store robot, CNBC, August 30, 2016
“Hello, I’m NAVii. How can I help you?” This is how the store associate of the future may greet you.
Starting in the fall, Lowe’s shoppers in the San Francisco Bay Area will be greeted by autonomous robots. The LoweBot speaks multiple languages, and will be deployed to 11 stores to help guide home improvers to find items in store.
“This is a response to things people wanted since retail began, but up until now there just wasn’t the technology to be able to make that happen,” said Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs.
The robots, made by Fellow Robots, use a 3-D scanner to detect people as they into stores. Shoppers can search for items by asking the bot what they want or typing items into a touch screen. The bot can guide them to those items using smart laser sensors, similar to the technology used in autonomous vehicles, said Marco Mascorro, chief executive officer of Fellow Robots.
As customers follow the bots to find items on store shelves, location-based special offers show up on a second screen on the back of the LoweBot.
The LoweBot is the younger sibling of the OSHBot, an earlier version which Lowe’s tested in Orchard Supply Hardware stores over the past two years. The most surprising query OSHBot had to deal with? “Where are the restrooms?” said Nel.
The LoweBot is not a fancy looking device with a lot of bells and whistles. Its role is to find solutions to consumers’ most basic problems, said Nel.
“The LoweBot solves and serves our common cold problems,” he said. “When I walk into a store and I want to know where something is I want to know right then — I don’t want to have to download an app — a robot can really help with that.”
The LoweBot also scans shelves using computer vision to send up-to-date information to store associates, even while it is showing people around the store. Inventory tracking may seem mundane and boring, but is incredibly important to a retailer, said Nel.
It never calls out sick and doesn’t need to take coffee breaks. That said, the goal is to augment the work of store associates and free them up to work on advising customers on products and delivering a more personalized service overall, not replace them, said Nel. For example, the LoweBot can serve as a translator, since it is impossible to find store workers who understand every customer, he said.
Could the LoweBot one day eliminate jobs? “Most definitely not — my phone doesn’t make me obsolete,” said Nel.
“Having had this in stores for two years, I was shocked at how fast customers and store associates got used to it,” he said.