Amazon has unveiled a smart robot picker that it believes will revolutionize the warehouse workspace. The Amazon Sparrow uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify objects in the warehouse. The new robotic system portends significant improvements in efficiency and safety in the workspace. Amazon’s Sparrow can detect, select, and handle products in the inventory with finesse.

Sparrow uses computer vision and AI that makes it capable of identifying and handling millions of items in the warehouse. It will take on repetitive tasks, thus freeing employees to focus their time on other tasks. Because Sparrow will help drive automation, Amazon says it will improve efficiency in its service delivery. Amazon also says that by employing robots, it has created more than 700 new job categories.

However, Amazon seems to have a sticky record of workplace safety in locations where humans work alongside such robots. A 2020 report by the Center for Investigative Reporting indicated a damning performance in robot-human workplaces. In three years (2016-2019), there was a 50% higher rate of serious injuries for Amazon employees in automated facilities than at facilities not using robots.

There had been previous claims by Amazon warehouse workers that the company used the robots to ratchet up production quotas to an extremely high level that humans cannot keep pace anymore without hurting themselves. This heightened work profile for employees in automated warehouses seems to be corroborated by the investigative report. This suspicion of unfair work practices has made US regulatory agencies beam their search light on the logistics giant. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration carried out long-awaited inspections last July to ascertain Amazon’s safety rating.

The unveiling of Sparrow falls in line with Amazon’s broader objectives of fully automating its workspaces. Amazon continues to battle agitations from its staff to unionize.

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