Who doesn't want their deliveries delivered even faster? Well, you might not if that means a bipedal humanoid robot is going to show up at your doorstep.
TL;DR: Amazon is building a "humanoid park" in order to test package delivery by bipedal robots. Meanwhile China’s robots are running half-marathons and already integrated in parts of distribution chains.
Amazon has announced that they're building a "humanoid park" in the US to test out bipedal delivery robots that will be driven around in their Amazon’s electric vans. Assuming the tests are successful, Amazon will start taking their new friends out on field trips.
What could go wrong?
It turns out, the last mile of delivery can be the most difficult logistically and the most expensive--accounting for up to 28% of the total shipment cost. The hope seems to be that removing humans from the equation will cut costs.
Amazon actually already has a shocking 750k robots deployed within their delivery network, all within the warehouse portion of their delivery network. These robots do repetitive things like unloading carts, managing package flow, scanning and sorting packages, bringing packages to humans.
While we wait for this in the US, China’s driverless robots made 10 million deliveries in China - all the way back in 2022. While these aren't humanoid robots (they're just rolling carts), China has a massive humanoid robot industry.
They're even starting to run half-marathons. In April, 21 of them participated in a half marathon, with only six completing the race. Don’t fret for now though, only one robot managed to finish the race in a passable human time, clocking in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. All robots running the race fell down at least once and needed battery changes.
Why does any of this matter? Going crazy with robots is going to replace important jobs, and normalize robots in public settings. These robots come with a level of inherent surveillance and EMF pollution as they conduct their business.
Solutions:
Minimize your use of Amazon
If you see a bipedal humanoid robot, run the other way (unless you're running a half marathon)
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