These days, it can be pretty hard to tell what’s true and what’s something out of a dystopian, futuristic thriller.
Burgers made from plants are virtually impossible to distinguish from traditional ground beef.
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More retailers are deploying cameras and artificial intelligence to combat theft and make the checkout process almost nonexistent.
Many of us wear fitness trackers that measure dozens of biological data points, track everywhere we go, and tell us more about our bodies than we ever thought possible.
And it’s becoming less uncommon to see self-driving cars on the road.
Just a few decades ago, all of these advances and many more would have seemed like pages torn out of a sci-fi novel. Now, though, they’re just a part of our daily lives. We’ve integrated and accepted so many of these new technologies with little friction.
Many of us are so willing to accept the latest, greatest gadget that we barely even consider the consequences.
An Amazon delivery driver unloads a truck full of packages.
Image source: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Amazon is always iterating
It was Elon Musk, both a champion and critic of artificial intelligence, who famously said that “there will come a point where no job is needed,” thanks to the new technology’s abilities.
While that certainly isn’t the case now, many tech giants are trying to make it a more realistic part of the future.
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Amazon’s (AMZN) Alexa, a voice-activated personal assistant, for example, has already been adopted by millions.
It’s estimated that Amazon has sold over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices, which is always listening for its wake word.
But the tech giant continuously evolves its technology and comes up with new solutions to replace old ones. Some of them are customer-facing technologies, and others are simply intended to make our lives easier without being noticed.
Amazon works on new tech
Since Amazon has over 100 giant fulfillment centers across the U.S., there’s a lot of room for improvement in the logistics area.
Its latest technology is its warehouse assistant, called Vulcan.
Vulcan is a robot that contains both tactile and visual sensors, which allow it to perceive and categorize different items and pack them accordingly.
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This saves time and manual labor required from human workers, and it’s far more efficient. Vulcan robots are able to pull 20-hour shifts each day and can manage three quarters of Amazon’s warehouse inventory.
Even though these robots have a “sense of touch,” per Amazon, the tech giant maintains that they are intended to work alongside humans and enhance their jobs, rather than replace them.
The Vulcan robots are already hard at work in Amazon’s Spokane, Washington and Hamburg, Germany centers.
As it learns and improves, Amazon hopes to roll the robots out more broadly to make package fulfillment quicker and easier.
