Guaranteed to be “three times more effective” than humans

Automation is a reality in Amazon fulfillment centers. Although machines do not control the entirety of operations, and obviously will not do so in the short term, little by little They are gaining ground. The e-commerce giant has started using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect damaged products, According to the WSJ.

For a long time, this kind of task has been the responsibility of humans. Amazon workers check products for defects or damage before they are packaged and shipped to customers. All this in the most efficient way with the aim of handling a large number of orders in a short time.

Artificial intelligence plays its part

The company founded by Jeff Bezos has found a new way to detect damaged products, and it’s an alternative the stars are making artificial intelligence. Instead of humans, a series of algorithms handle the analysis of the articles and, according to Amazon’s own admission, can be up to three times more efficient than humans.

The new system is not an idea in the experimental stage, it is a completely real project that has passed its first stage and has even begun to be deployed in various logistics centers of the company. It is currently operating at full capacity in two facilities, but it is expected to launch ten more in North America and Europe soon as well.

With this new dynamism, products move along the conveyor belts of the respective distribution center and pass through “imaging stationWith cameras that were originally designed to check if the correct items were identified. Now, this terminal is powered by AI and is responsible for assessing the integrity of articles.

If the system detects that the item does not meet the minimum requirements for shipment to the customer, it will forward the item and send it to an Amazon employee, who will review it again. If it is already damaged, he will proceed to replace it. Otherwise, it will be returned to the conveyor belt for later packaging and shipment to the customer.

The heart of this system works thanks to the company’s skills in the world of artificial intelligence (which has the computational resources to develop its own projects). It was Amazon itself that did it Algorithm trail With pictures of the damaged items compared to the damaged items. Thus, the system has learned to differentiate one from the other in order to do its job.

However, it should be noted that this scenario is taking place amid growing concerns about the potential negative impact of artificial intelligence on the labor sector. Some companies like Domestika have started cutting staff for this technology and others like IBM have stopped hiring and are preparing layoffs.

In Amazon’s own case, though not publicly associated with AI, it has begun a restructuring plan that includes terminating more than 25,000 employees. In terms of automating product review, the company says it’s a “knowledge” task and that the technology will reduce the number of damaged products shipped, though it doesn’t provide details on the impact it will have on its workforce.

the pictures: Adrian Soluk | Hannes Agler | This is Engineering RAEng

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