TX Scara the future shelf filler.

jsmoke

jsmoke

jsmoke

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I expect this will take off in the next few years putting hundreds of thousands out of work. I'm also surprised it seems to take so long to develop these robots, it seems to be a very slow progress.

It will be interesting to see how the Gov respond to the huge number of jobs lost if these bots do indeed replace humans in stacking shelves.

 
I've always said that technology will wipe out most humans. I don't mean in a human vs robot war. But they will simply out compete us to the point where our population drops over the years. I think that technology is one of the gates int he Fermi Paradox. We need technology to escape the planet and survive long term. But technology will out compete the host species and prevent us escaping the planet.
 
It can only do cans and bottles and only puts out 1000 items per day, very slow. It's got a while to go before it's going to replace humans.
 
Longbow said:
It can only do cans and bottles and only puts out 1000 items per day, very slow. It's got a while to go before it's going to replace humans.
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Oh I dunno, I've seen how some shelf stackers work.

Apart from the Aldi ones obvs, they need to slow down before someone gets hurt :eek:
 
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Looks too slow as some have mentioned already. It seems that it would fit in a very specific niche, but is probably too expensive for the shops that fit that niche.
 
It will happen one day but require a lot of investment from the current market leaders.

Might be a new entry to the market that takes the lead, could build the store around the automated refill as I haven't seen any uk stores with rear shelf access. Maybe in those walk out checkout type stores that amazon were trying.
 
Maybe one day we will reach a point where automation puts the vast majority of adults out of employment, but we clearly haven't reached that point yet - we have significant staffing problems in many industries. If we ever do get to the point we're we simply have an excess workforce there are all sorts of useful jobs that could be created by government...

If this robot can make running supermarkets cheaper and frees up a shelf stacker to go and do a different job then I'm all for it.
 
Rear access is one problem, so is how the stock gets unboxed and stacked for the robot too. Might be a good idea for say the ready to go aisles that need refilling for the morning, lunch and evening rush but I can't see it taking off anytime soon.

For such a repetitive job im surprised how little automation there is in supermarkets and how many humans are still required. Self checkouts helped, scan and go shopping might make a dent, but even Amazon Fresh stores with no tills/scanning have similar staff levels to express supermarkets (not that they ever seem to be doing much).
 
So who or what is replenishing the shelves at the back its taking them from? Just appears to go from A to B...judging from the colour of one of the bottles it appears to be taking the pee :D
 
Hardly something new (robots in automotive manufacture for example) and is still cheaper to employ a human to restock the shelfs in a supermarket/warehouse compared to the costs of a robot replacement.

I think it was around 10 years ago a warehouse in Dubai employed nothing but robots from door to shelf to loading, with only a handful of humans controlling them.
 
In the short term there will always be a need for human engineers to fix all these "designed by a human" robots when they break. However with AI designing new robots (i.e. robots designing robots) even that requirement will eventually fade as engineer robots take that role. All this will take probably a century or more (if there's no catastrophic event like WW3 etc) but it's inevitable I'd say.
 
Electronic Dave said:
So who or what is replenishing the shelves at the back its taking them from? Just appears to go from A to B...judging from the colour of one of the bottles it appears to be taking the pee :D
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:D It's actually hilarious watching it at the end - it's like a prototype from the 80s - 'after one day the robot had succesfully replenished 3 full shelfs of identical bottles in the store'

 
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