Alibaba, the world largest online retailer has introduced their new robots for their 3000 m2 warehouse in July 2017. Alibaba has purchased 60 robots from Quicktron, the manufacturer of the Zhu Que. According to Quicktron these robots have helped the warehouse to threefold their output in just a few months. In addition, they already have replaced 70% of their work. (BRON – APA) The robots can lift up 500 to 600 kilos and they allocate the right products to employees, who pack them to send it to customers. The robots receive instructions via Wi-Fi and there are integrated with lasers so that they do not collide into each other (Businessinsider, 2017).
These kind of innovations bring up the discussion about machines replacing humans. According to McKinsey, there is a high risk of robot takeover if the job pays less than 20$ per hour (McKinsey, 2016). Furthermore, the researchers say that the feasibility of automation is around 78 percent for jobs which involve predictable physical activities, such as food preparation. The robots will take over the simple jobs, which are mostly time consuming and heavy jobs. Therefore, these kind of robots are very attractive to employers, because it will cost them less money. Besides that, they can make more money, because of the fact that the employer can go for higher margins or they can decide to lower their prices, which will again lead to a higher demand. That is simply the supply and demand theory (Kirzner, 2000)
Robots are not only very useful and attractive in these sectors, they are also desirable in other sectors such as the health sector. (Peng & Stumpe, 2017) According to these researchers, a robot did a better job than pathologists in detecting cancer.
All in all, the Zhu Que’s and the cancer detecting robots are very helpful for us, but there is also another side of the discussion: the people who will lose their job. What will they do afterwards? Do they need to find a new job or even in some cases a new hobby?
In dit slimme magazijn van Alibaba doen robots 70% van het werk
Anonymous (2017, September 19) In dit slimme magazijn van Alibaba doen robots 70% van het werk, retrieved from Business Insider Nederland: https://www.businessinsider.nl/inside-alibaba-smart-warehouse-robots-70-per-cent-work-technology-logistics-2017-9/?international=true&r=UK
Chui, M., Manyika, J. & Miremadi, M. (2016, July) Where machines could replace humans – and where they can’t (yet), retrieved from McKinsey & Company:
Kirzner, I.M. (2000, January 1) The law of supply and demand, retrieved from Foundation for economic education: https://fee.org/articles/the-law-of-supply-and-demand/
Peng, L. & Stumpe, M.(2017, March 3) Assisting pathologists in detecting cancer with deep learning (blog post, retrieved from Google Research blog: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/03/assisting-pathologists-in-detecting.html
Hi! Very nice article. First of all, I found it very interesting to read about the Alibaba warehouse and their robots. As we grow up, we hear a lot about the fear of machines taking over our jobs and replacing us. I remember how my dad always said “Be careful at choosing your future job, since robots may take over the world”. I thought he would always exaggerate and I couldn’t imagine how they would be able to do so. But after reading your article, Alibaba is a good example of how people can be replaced as easily.
And while I was looking up more information about it, I found that the CEO of Alibaba himself, Jack Ma, stated how this replacement also could have a good side to it. He expects that within 30 years, the average work week will be 16-hour. People will only work for 4-hour a day and just 4 days a week. It sounded crazy to me at first, but when he made the comparison with his dad, who used to work 16-hour a day and where Jack Ma now works 8 hours a day, it made it possible to think so.
Because in 30 years we will be working less, Jack Ma also stated that we will have a lot more time to travel. Instead of the average of people today, that visit 30 places in their lifetime, we would be able to visit an average of 300 places in our lifetime. Ma considers it all as a good thing, since he believes technology is also going to improve people’s lives.
As he may have some good points, like of course it would be very beneficial for us to work that little in the future and to be able to do more fun things and travel the world more often. But what kind of 4-hour jobs does he expect?
You wondered whether the people would have to go and look for a new job, I can definitely say that that will be the case. People still need to put food on the table of course. The question just still remains: ‘what kind of work’ will human be left with?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/29/jack-ma-there-are-2-benefits-to-having-more-robots-in-the-workforce.html
Interesting topic! Now I started wondering, how did and will robotics impact employment and society? According to Karsten and West (2015), Google had 55,000 employees in 2014, while AT&T had 10 times more in the 1960s. However, according to Kelly (2014), the automation of jobs has not led to lower overall employment as he claims that the main change is concerned with job quality instead of quantity. For example, high-skill jobs that require interaction with ICT has increased in demand, as well as jobs which are low-skilled but are hard to automate. Still robotics might change this even more. How can we make sure that the continuous shift to automation does not disrupt the delivery of social benefits? West (2015) has developed a set of creative solutions as for example: introducing a guaranteed base income, to ensure a reasonable living standard for people who will become unemployed by the automation economy. What do you think about this?
Karsten, J. and West, D. (2015). How robots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning will affect employment and public policy. [online] Brookings. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2015/10/26/how-robots-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-will-affect-employment-and-public-policy/ [Accessed 17 Oct. 2017].
Kelly, G. (2014). The robots are coming. Will they bring wealth or a divided society?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/04/robots-future-society-drones [Accessed 17 Oct. 2017].
West, D. (2015). What happens if robots take the jobs? The impact of emerging technologies on employment and public policy. [online] Brookings. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-happens-if-robots-take-the-jobs-the-impact-of-emerging-technologies-on-employment-and-public-policy/ [Accessed 17 Oct. 2017].
Hi Suzanne, thanks for your comment. Personally I think that it is actually quite far away that governments will introduce the guaranteed base income, because now they will probably offer new jobs to the people who lost their job. But still it would be a quite good idea to implement when it so far that people cannot find another job.