Amazon has deployed a series of humanoid robots called Digit in a U.S. warehouse trial that supposedly aims to free up employees' time.
As reported by the BBC, Amazon said the addition of the automated robots, which walk around on two legs, pick up large trays and move them elsewhere, is for "freeing employees up to better deliver for our customers".
The move is still a trial, of course, and the robots a prototype, as Amazon seeks to see if they can work safely alongside human employees. "It's an experiment that we're running to learn a little bit more about how we can use mobile robots and manipulators in our environment here at Amazon," Scott Dresser of Amazon Robotics told the BBC.
Amazon has already been criticised from workers' unions. "Amazon's automation is [a] head-first race to job losses," said Stuart Richards, an organiser at UK trade union GMB. "We've already seen hundreds of jobs disappear to it in fulfilment centres."
Dresser refuted this, however. "Our experience has been these new technologies actually create jobs, they allow us to grow and expand," he said. "And we've seen multiple examples of this through the robots that we have today."
Amazon has been using robots in its warehouses for years, of course, though these humanoid ones, which look more like something from a sci-fi film than the Roombas and drones we're more familiar with, is another step forward, literally.
Image Credit: Jason Redmond / AFP via Getty Images.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
