AI Robotics Revolution: Intelligent Warehouse Machine
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Today on the podcast, we're talking about AI and robotics and the future of where this goes. We're going to be looking at essentially some case studies, some announcements, and some things out of Amazon, what we're seeing there. I think it's pretty indicative of what's going to happen in the future in a lot of different industries. I think this has

massive implications for the entire workforce for maybe jobs that don't require college degrees. There's a lot of really interesting things here. And of course, I feel like we already have AI that has replaced most jobs that do require college degrees or is smart enough that eventually it will be. Some people might be mad at me, yelling at me, listening. I think, you know, skilled labor, or I'm sorry, you know,

knowledge workers, that kind of stuff. AI has done a lot of that. So in any case, we're going to talk about robotics today. I think this is going to have some big implications for a massive chunk of the workforce. And there's two visions we're going to cover, two ideas of what the future might look like. I'll paint them both and you can decide what you think is going to happen.

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All right, let's get into what Amazon's doing. So the first thing I think I want to talk about is the fact that we have kind of these two different pathways that people are predicting are going to happen. So one of them is where essentially all jobs are getting replaced by AI and essentially AI-powered robots. Some people think that all jobs except for their own, the venture capitalists Mark and

Doesn't think that AI could ever replace his work as an investor or that could be automated. So that's kind of interesting.

And so, you know, some people think it's going to essentially do everything maybe except for a handful of things. And there's another group of people that think that robots are essentially going to do kind of all of the boring, more mundane, heavy lifting tasks. And they'll kind of be like a human companion, kind of the way when, you know, we use ChatGPT. It's not like ChatGPT has replaced our job, but it's kind of augmented us. We use it alongside that. So some people feel like, you know, a robot will be kind of like what ChatGPT is for us right now, where it's kind of helping us, but it's not like it

has replaced everything it's not like chai chappati does everything we still just use it so um some people a lot of people think that this is going to be more of what actually happens in the future so the world economic forum predicted that about 92 million roles are going to be displaced by the current technology trends that's ai and robotics but they predict that 170 million new jobs are going to be created so you know net we have almost 80 million new jobs coming out of that if they're accurate

Now, TechCrunch wrote a whole article on this, and I just feel like they're...

I don't know, it just feels so condescending, sort of, their phrase when they refer to this all. But they say, for those who don't have the economic power or the intellectual interest to get a master's degree in AI and machine learning, especially the people who now occupy unskilled labor roles like warehouse workers, what does the bot-filled future look like for them? I don't know, it just feels like for all the dumb people doing menial labor, unlike us writers at TechCrunch who are super cool and

college educated master's degrees, what are the poor schlobs going to do? Okay. I know that's not what they're saying, but I just really get that feeling from a lot of journalists and a lot of people writing about this. So I just have to put my beef out there. I think it's dumb. I think that, um,

Amazon has given a clear path for a lot of people that are currently warehouse workers and it's not a terrible one. I think there's a lot of exciting things that are gonna go on in the future. And like, honestly, warehouse workers at like Amazon or anywhere else, for example, it's like this, not all of them are there for life. I have lots of friends that do,

you know, work in Amazon warehouses. They go work there for a couple of years as they're saving up for college or doing things or working on their career. Or maybe they want to be a forklift driver and be there forever and it pays great. I don't know. I don't think this is a career to look down on. So whatever. But robots are replacing a lot of this. So I do think that we're making some, obviously some big shifts. What are those people going to do? The reason I bring up the, I don't know, the other stuff is because like,

just because someone's working in a warehouse that doesn't mean they're dumb like like tech crunches like for those that don't have the intellectual desire i'm like come on these aren't dumb people it's just what they're just doing a job it probably pays good for what they need and it's that phase of their life whatever so they're not dumb people they can do lots of other things they're smart people and what other things could they do amazon says that they can work on the robots that are coming so

When Amazon revealed their big new Vulcan robot, which is apparently doing like 70% of everything happening in the warehouses, it says, quote, Vulcan is helping make work safer by handling ergonomically challenging tasks while creating opportunities for our teammates to grow their skills in robotic maintenance. So that was the CEO, Andy Jacey. He posted it over on X. That was his Twitter post.

So on the one hand, Vulcan is replacing a ton of people. And on the other hand, they said that there is a lot that

a lot of new jobs that are gonna be created. So the robots, they're able to get lower shelves than humans can. They're making it so humans don't have to climb ladders or bend down all day long, hurt their backs. I just think at the end of the day, this is probably a great thing. And then they also talk about how they're going to be training warehouse workers to become robot technicians.

And essentially the robot is going to be more picking stuff out and people are going to be working on the robots because the robots, like if we're being honest, it's they're doing about 75% of all the customer order fulfillment. So they're capable of doing virtually everything. They also said that they're, they're self educating and improving, but thanks to AI embedded in them. And so they're getting better and better. You can imagine that eventually these things are just gonna be able to get everything. And, but we're going to need a lot of people to work on these robots to fix them. And,

TechCrunch writers seem to think that the warehouse workers won't be smart enough to do it. Amazon seems to think that the warehouse workers will be. I'm going to side with Amazon here since they're their current employers. So Amazon, the one thing that they do get criticism on is that it's obviously not going to be a one-to-one conversion, right? It's not like everyone that works at a warehouse is going to get a job there. I mean, I think that's just...

the future. Also, not every warehouse in America has is Amazon with like a million robots. And so I think that, well, eventually we will have a lot of warehouse work automated by robots. If someone got laid off today, they could go somewhere else at a different warehouse that doesn't have this. So I think in the short term, we'll just the jobs will move around a little bit. I don't think it's going to be the end of the world in the long term.

Of course, everyone on the whole planet has to get re-skilled thanks to AI and robotics. So I think everyone needs to start focusing on that. I don't think that's a big scary thing. Now, I personally think, like if we're looking at the numbers from the World Economic Forum, 80 million new jobs are going to be created. I think that there's a lot to do. I think that there's a lot of new things that are going to be needed. And so

People should start working on upskilling themselves and going to take classes and courses and all this kind of stuff. And I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity there. But some people would disagree with me. There is one particular founder at a startup company that thinks everybody's going to get laid off. Robots are going to do everything. And

um everyone's just going to live off of government welfare i don't think this is going to happen i don't think this is a future we want people find fulfillment in their jobs and in their work and in creative processes if you get laid off and you don't want to go work on being a robot mechanic maybe you do art or whatever else music whatever else inspires you so i think that there'll be a lot of and they'll i think there's going to be value and a demand for stuff so i think people will be fine i think the world is going to be fine

One thing I wanted to mention is that Amazon is obviously very bullish on this. And I think we have to take everything with a bit of a grain of salt. I personally think it's only a matter of time before robotics. And I think it's evident that robotics will replace a lot, AI will replace a lot. But it doesn't mean it's happening tomorrow because Amazon, if you remember, was super bullish on their Amazon Go technology, which was essentially you walk into a store, grab whatever you want, you walk out and it just bills you to your Amazon account.

And they were trying to sell it to a bunch of other retailers. No one else really wanted to buy it. I think a lot of people just felt like Amazon was their big competitor. They didn't want to give them another, like, I don't know, more revenue pretty much.

Amazon itself scaled that back once everyone found out that mostly it was literally just people in India watching cameras to see what you grab and they were self-labeling the items. So it still required people to be working. It wasn't like AI was doing it all. It wasn't perfect. I think we see a lot from self-driving car companies where some self-driving robo companies, I can't remember if it was Cruiser or Waymo, but kind of got...

Not exposed, but they found out that like if the car can't figure out what to do, someone in India or in another country is essentially watching and like takes over control of the car and drives it. And so it's not like completely AI autonomous self-driving. So anyways, I think we're not like 100% there on a lot of this technology. Evidently, it's getting there, but we have a moment. But it's not like mass job displacement is coming for the entire world tomorrow.

So I think it's going to be interesting. I will keep you up to date on everything going on in this space as people do start making these kind of job and career shifts, as robots do start taking over. I think this is a very fascinating area. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure to go check out AIbox.ai.

If you want a playground where essentially you have access to all of the top models, all in one account for $20 a month. So you don't have to have subscriptions to 50 different platforms. Thanks so much for tuning in and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.