Amazon has unveiled its new warehouse robot, Vulcan, which is capable of performing tasks previously only available to humans. The company emphasizes that this development is not intended to fully replace workers but rather to make work processes safer and open up new opportunities in the field of robotics.
This is reported by Finway
Vulcan can pick items from both upper and lower shelves, reducing the risk of injury for staff. In this regard, Amazon has announced retraining programs for its employees to focus them on tasks that artificial intelligence cannot yet perform. Specifically, there is an emphasis on training specialists for the maintenance of such systems.
“These robots, which are involved in fulfilling 75% of customer orders, have created hundreds of new job categories at Amazon,” the company claims.
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, notes that the company offers retraining programs that will allow employees to transition from simple positions to engineering roles. Although these new positions will not fully replace the previous ones, a significant number of new jobs have already been created within the company.
However, experts emphasize that even with full automation, significant job growth should not be expected. Not all workers will want or be able to become robotics specialists, and the number of new vacancies may turn out to be less than the jobs displaced by automation. Some specialists predict the emergence of new professions, such as “automation controller,” replacing salespeople and cooks, which will require digital literacy even from unskilled workers.
It is worth noting that Microsoft experts assert that artificial intelligence is still not capable of replacing programmers.