A huge supermarket chain fires all its human workers and replaces them with robots. The robots are far more efficient, overall cheaper and easier to manage than their human counterparts, but hundreds of people are now out of jobs. Think we’re talking about a new futuristic scifi hit? You thought wrong. Walmart is actually, legitimately, replacing its warehouse workers with drones.
These high-tech drones will replace inventory quality assurance workers, and although Walmart assures that these people will be offered other positions within the company, it feels a bit too iRobot for our liking.
Walmart is working with the FAA and NASA to develop this new tech, with a recent demonstration showing a drone moving up and down the aisles of a distribution centre and taking up to 30 photos a second. It’s estimated that this technology will be able to streamline the distribution from a month to a day. Look, there’s no denying the efficiency level there.
Walmart is facing fierce competition from low-cost online options like Amazon, so they’ve pledged $2.7 billion on labour, technology and other important investments, some of which is clearly going to this new drone machinery. The drones could be rolling out as quickly as within the next 6-9 months, so keep an eye out.
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