In the tech industry, there are two perspectives on the role of human workers in an AI-driven world they've created. One suggests that robots will handle everything except their own jobs, while the other believes robots will take over mundane tasks, acting as assistants to human workers who will move on to new roles created by the robot revolution. The latter view is historically well-supported. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen seems to think his investment work can never be automated.
The World Economic Forum predicts current technology trends will replace 92 million jobs but also create 170 million new ones. For those without the financial means or intellectual interest to pursue a master's degree in AI and machine learning—especially those currently in unskilled labor like warehouse workers—what does a robot-filled future look like for them?
Amazon offered a potential path on Wednesday, announcing significant progress in replacing warehouse workers with robots. They introduced their new Vulcan robot, which has "perception" capabilities.
"Vulcan helps improve workplace safety by handling ergonomically challenging tasks, while creating upskilling opportunities for our team members in robot maintenance," CEO Andy Jassy posted on X.
Amazon's blog post about Vulcan describes how the robot collaborates with humans, collecting items from the highest and lowest warehouse shelves so humans don't have to climb ladders or bend all day. Humans will then handle items stored in the middle or those the new "perceptive" robot still can't pick up.
Next, Amazon discussed training some warehouse workers to become robotics technicians as it increasingly uses robots in warehouse picking roles.
"These robots—which play a role in fulfilling 75% of customer orders—have created hundreds of new job categories at Amazon, from robot floor monitors to site reliability maintenance engineers," the blog post stated, adding that it offers reskilling programs for some workers to gain these robot maintenance skills.
Although Amazon didn't explicitly say so, this clearly won't be a 1:1 transition. It doesn't need a large number of humans to supervise robots as it does for directly completing warehouse orders. Nor does everyone have the capability or desire to become a robotics technician.
However, it makes sense for Amazon to include information about its reskilling programs in its Vulcan announcement.
This is because, so far, there's little evidence showing what the late stage of robots doing all jobs means for working-class humans. (One AI startup founder even suggested that in a world where AI does everything, humans would somehow live solely on government-provided welfare.)
But perhaps grocery store clerks will be replaced by "automation monitors," similar to how we have a clerk supervising each row of self-checkouts today. Fast-food cooks will be replaced by workers overseeing cooking robots, and so on. Operating robots will become as essential as operating computers: almost everyone will need to know how to do it to get a job.
Still, this fully robot-dominated future may never truly materialize. Robots might remain a domain only accessible to the largest and wealthiest companies—like Amazon or their use in fields such as automobile manufacturing—while the vast majority of retail, food service, and driving jobs will continue to be performed by humans. At least for the next few decades.
Amazon is a company attempting to sell its Just Walk Out automated Amazon Go technology to a broader retail/grocery industry. Retailers have shown little interest in this technology from their biggest competitor, Amazon. It was later discovered that the technology used human workers in India to watch and tag videos, and even Amazon eventually reduced its usage. Such technologies (whether from Amazon or others) are rarely seen in today's real world.
