Apptronik
- Many workers may fear their role will be replaced by robots as AI continues to rapidly advance.
- "It's definitely not robots or workers," Agility Robotics' CEO Damion Shelton told Business Insider.
- Apptronik's CEO shared why they won't replace humans but will free us from unwanted tasks.
Humanoid robots are already beginning to enter the workforce.
Many people may not be too concerned about whether the machines threaten their jobs. For example, PwC's 2022 global workforce survey found that only a third of participants said they were concerned about their jobs being replaced by technology by 2025.
Still, the findings indicate that a significant number of workers are fearful about AI's potential threat. That fear probably hasn't been helped by predictions like the one from the World Economic Forum, which found that AI is expected to replace about 85 million jobs by 2025.
Reports that robots are being deployed in warehouses to help with labor shortages may have also prompted anxiety. Amazon announced in October that it's testing humanoid robots called Digit in its warehouses.
Agility Robotics, the company Amazon is partnering with for the pilot, told Business Insider that the machines are designed to help humans, not supersede us.
Digit can handle bulk material handling within warehouses and distribution centers, and potentially help ease the labor shortage. There are projected to be about one million openings for hand laborers and material movers over the next decade, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.
"There aren't enough workers for these jobs, so what's far more dire than any perceived fears about job replacement is the fact that the health of these businesses is at stake," Damion Shelton, CEO of Agility Robotics, told Business Insider.
Deploying robots in warehouses to plug the labor gaps doesn't necessarily mean they will replace humans.
"There's a long history of technological anxiety about automation and jobs, but it's definitely not robots or workers," Shelton said. "Our robot is meant to complement people and let workers be more productive by taking on dangerous, repetitive tasks so people can focus on the more interesting, creative aspects."
Texas-based Apptronik launched its humanoid robot, Apollo, in August. It signed a deal to partner with NASA last year and hopes to use them in space exploration.
CEO Jeff Cardenas told BI that the "first step for Apollo is to help out there" with the big labor shortage. In his view, robots can do only a fraction of what humans can, but often the unfavorable tasks.
"You'll hear people used the term 'the 3 Ds': the dull, the dirty, and the dangerous," he said. "If you pair people with machines — man and machine — as opposed to man versus machine, then you can really amplify what people are capable of doing."
The Apptronik cofounder said robots can free up human workers from dangerous tasks and allow people to spend their time in better ways. He likened the era of work-based humanoid robotics to computing advances in the 1980s.
"I think this is like the early '80s of the personal computer where the early adopters are basically making their bets," he said. "Some of the companies that we are working with have entire teams that are dedicated to general purpose robots because it has the potential to really transform the way that they do work."
He added that humanoid robots are relatively limited in functionality, but he predicts the technology will advance quickly over the next five years.
"The robots will do the things that we don't want to do, that injure us, that drive people out of these industries, and it'll allow people to gain new skills and do work in new ways," Cardenas said. "It'll start in the supply chain and start in these activities where we have the technology today. The sky's the limit for where it goes from there."