"Interviews and leaked documents reveal that the company is planning to replace more than 600,000 jobs with robots, The New York Times reports. By the end, Amazon's robotics team aims to automate 75 percent of the company's entire operations. Seemingly, the calculus putting this into action is that it would save 30 cents on each item that it processes and delivers."
"Amazon's reported plans are an alarming wake-up call, as the rise of AI technology has already led to a slew of firings and raised the specter of widespread job destruction, especially among knowledge workers. As the second largest private employer in the US, Amazon has the resources to set a sea-changing precedent that could see manual labor jobs threatened, too."
Amazon has deployed more than one million warehouse robots, approaching parity with its roughly 1.56 million human workforce and poised to outnumber employees. The company states that automation raises productivity and creates higher-paying roles, and some workers report relief from repetitive, backbreaking tasks. Internal materials indicate plans to replace over 600,000 jobs and to automate about 75 percent of operations, aiming to save roughly $0.30 per processed item. Strategies include slowing hiring and relying on attrition while sales grow, a shift that could accelerate job displacement across manual-labor and knowledge-worker roles and influence other employers.
Read at Futurism
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