Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, Radio News Emily. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw this earlier, but Amazon is reportedly developing
Speaker 1: smart eyeglasses to guide its delivery drivers around and within buildings.
Speaker 1: This according to Reuters, who cited five people familiar with
Speaker 1: the matter. If these work, glasses would navigate drivers on
Speaker 1: a small embedded screen along routes and at each stop.
Speaker 1: The ideas that it aims to reduce delivery time.
Speaker 2: What do you think so because you see it in
Speaker 2: your vision field instead of having a look onto the
Speaker 2: dashboard of the truck runder or.
Speaker 1: No, or when you're walking around holding a package, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is exactly the house it needs to be delivered to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kind of a cool little USh for I should note.
Speaker 1: An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters it is continuously innovating to
Speaker 1: create an even safer and better delivery experience for its drivers,
Speaker 1: but it would not compliment comment on its product roadmap.
Speaker 2: I want to see, like a prototype, what they would
Speaker 2: look like.
Speaker 1: I think this is a real use case for smart
Speaker 1: you know, for like the Google glass type thing. They've
Speaker 1: been used for quite a while. They never caught on
Speaker 1: with consumers. They're trying to make that happen at Snap
Speaker 1: and at Meta. Still we'll see if it happens, but
Speaker 1: the industrial use case is certainly interesting. We got with
Speaker 1: us Ty Brady's chief technologist for robotics at Amazon.
Speaker 2: Tie.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put you on the spot and ask
Speaker 1: you to comment about this report because we already got
Speaker 1: a comment from an Amazon spokesperson, but it does talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about innovation happening at Amazon. I know
Speaker 1: you guys did this interesting survey with MIT on what
Speaker 1: AI could mean for workers. Before we get to that,
Speaker 1: just give our viewers our listeners an idea of the
Speaker 1: role that robotics play right now at Amazon.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here,
Speaker 3: and thank you for having me onre I really appreciate it. Boy.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you the age of physical AI is here
Speaker 3: and it is really proving useful for our customers. We
Speaker 3: have our robotic systems inside of our fulfillment centers. We
Speaker 3: actually just roll our next generation fulfillment center down in
Speaker 3: Louisiana and we're seeing a lot of returns and gains
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 1: Is this the Kiva system that Amazon bought over a
Speaker 1: decade ago.
Speaker 3: Wait, it's based on that. That is part of it.
Speaker 3: What we do is that we have robotics that can
Speaker 3: move goods, that's part of the Kiva systems, but also
Speaker 3: robotics to store goods and sword goods and identify all
Speaker 3: the various goods. And we have this in this next
Speaker 3: generation fulfillment center where we have ten times the amount
Speaker 3: of robotics that we've ever had under one roof, and
Speaker 3: we're already seeing that we can process those orders twenty
Speaker 3: five percent faster and also pass along to a lower
Speaker 3: cost to our customers.
Speaker 1: Just proving just so we understand when when we order
Speaker 1: something on Amazon using the app or using the browser,
Speaker 1: does a robot now pick that item at fulfillment center?
Speaker 1: Is it still a human being?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's It's an amazing, amazing series of events that
Speaker 3: actually happens. When you go on Amazon dot com. You're
Speaker 3: getting your holiday order redder ready. Of course, want to
Speaker 3: have the world's the largest selection of good for our
Speaker 3: goods for our customers. We want to process that at
Speaker 3: a low cost and then have the ultimate customer convenience,
Speaker 3: and robotics is helping all along that way. Right, people
Speaker 3: and machines working together, we have AI systems that source
Speaker 3: that put the right products in the right area so
Speaker 3: that can be closer to our customers. That helps on
Speaker 3: our delivery times. We have robots that move safely around people,
Speaker 3: that we inbound those goods into our buildings where it
Speaker 3: can take on more goods, put more goods in the
Speaker 3: same footprint as we've had as compared to our manual buildings.
Speaker 3: We can store actually forty percent more goods, and then
Speaker 3: we have robotic systems that help sort and even package
Speaker 3: those items for our customers. All this is so that
Speaker 3: we can just have the ultimate in customer convenience and
Speaker 3: get the right good to right to the customer's door.
Speaker 2: Ty, what is a twenty twenty four robotics system and
Speaker 2: how is that different than the systems that we saw
Speaker 2: ten fifteen years ago. I'm just thinking about how you
Speaker 2: to watch that show how it's made, and it would
Speaker 2: show factories and there were always robots working in the
Speaker 2: factories and moving things along conveyor about So what is
Speaker 2: so different about, you know, the twenty twenty four robotics.
Speaker 3: That's such a great question. We have really seen just
Speaker 3: just huge advancements over the last few years when it
Speaker 3: comes to robotics. This is why we call it physical AI.
Speaker 3: It's really the embodiment of adaptive behavior in our robotic systems.
Speaker 3: But our robotics systems shouldn't be viewed as singular and
Speaker 3: as alone as just machines. Instead, what we do is
Speaker 3: we build our machines to extend human capability. We build
Speaker 3: our machines to augment folks to do their jobs better
Speaker 3: and create a safer environment for them. We've seen those
Speaker 3: benefits in the last four years with regards to safety
Speaker 3: and also in regards to the efficiencies and the productivities.
Speaker 3: But the big you know, I could talk about more
Speaker 3: and more of the robotics that we've seen, but we
Speaker 3: also have to I think the big mindset is when
Speaker 3: you reframe your relationship with machines. Yeah, people first attitude
Speaker 3: towards of how we build those machines that allows people
Speaker 3: to do more. And now we are upscaling. We put
Speaker 3: one point two billion dollars into an upscaling pledge for
Speaker 3: our employees. And then we, as Tim said, we funded
Speaker 3: this independent study with MIT in order to understand the
Speaker 3: perception of technology and how people adopt machines and AI
Speaker 3: into their work environment.
Speaker 1: So Let's talk a little bit about that, because I
Speaker 1: think you hit on a really important point here, and
Speaker 1: it's the idea that and I was kind of joking
Speaker 1: about this a little while ago. I was like, can
Speaker 1: these robots be programmed to love? But the fact is
Speaker 1: is you do have to be comfortable being around automated
Speaker 1: things that could look like humanoids. They might not look
Speaker 1: like humanoid robots. What did you find through this collaboration
Speaker 1: with MIT about how people want to interact or need
Speaker 1: to learn how to interact with machines.
Speaker 3: It was a fascinating study. It was actually groundbreaking. MIT
Speaker 3: enlisted to IPSOS to survey more than nine thousand people
Speaker 3: across nine different countries to understand how they perceive technology,
Speaker 3: because perception is really important to adoption, even to innovation. Right,
Speaker 3: as I said, we put people at the center of
Speaker 3: the robotics universe. We really want to understand how people
Speaker 3: and if they will adopt technologies. And broadly we found
Speaker 3: the study found that a majority of people see robots
Speaker 3: having a positive impact on their pay and on their career.
Speaker 3: And there's three key three key findings that came along
Speaker 3: with that. First of all, if people are asked to
Speaker 3: work at a higher level and can focus on higher
Speaker 3: order tasking. Then they're more keen to adopt technology, and
Speaker 3: they're more optimistic when it comes to the use of
Speaker 3: the technology for their own career goals in their own pay.
Speaker 3: The second is if they felt valued by their employer. Right,
Speaker 3: So being valued is both are you working in a
Speaker 3: safe environment and do you have a great benefits in
Speaker 3: pay And Amazon we're really proud of the benefits and
Speaker 3: pay that we offer our employees, and also through automation,
Speaker 3: we're actually reducing the number of recordable injuries significantly over
Speaker 3: the past four years. And then the last part is
Speaker 3: really those that want to learn more and take control
Speaker 3: of their career. So if they want to learn and
Speaker 3: grow in their career, they're more optimistic for technologies. And
Speaker 3: that was really good good news for us as we
Speaker 3: put in one point two billion dollars into upskilling our employees.
Speaker 3: So they're good signals. But we're not done yet because
Speaker 3: this is across many many workers, across many industries, and
Speaker 3: we're going to follow on the study actually a survey
Speaker 3: of our Amazon employees directly because we're always interested in
Speaker 3: the voice of our customer, the voice of our employees,
Speaker 3: and we always want to make this safe for more
Speaker 3: productive environment.
Speaker 1: What's a takeaway that you had from the survey about
Speaker 1: how you're going to either design or implement robotics across Amazon, Like,
Speaker 1: what's one actionable thing you took away from this?
Speaker 3: Well, the first action that we had is that we
Speaker 3: actually want to fund more studies. We want to fund
Speaker 3: the study, particularly for Amazon employees, so we can hear
Speaker 3: directly for them of their perception and how robotics is
Speaker 3: really augmenting and extending the capability. So we are the
Speaker 3: voice of the customers. Our first actual takeaway that we
Speaker 3: have from the study. The second is really validation of
Speaker 3: our philosophy that of putting people the center of the
Speaker 3: robotics universe. Right, It's this validation of augmentation and extension
Speaker 3: and allowing people to do what they do well, thinking
Speaker 3: with common sense and reasoning and really understanding the problem
Speaker 3: at hand. People do this amazingly well. So our job
Speaker 3: as roboticist is to complement that amazing skill that our
Speaker 3: employees have that people have with machines that can be
Speaker 3: better designed. So very concretely, for example, we have a
Speaker 3: robot called Proteus that is free roaming inside of our
Speaker 3: fulfillment centers that moves goods on demand, and it understands
Speaker 3: where people want to be, and people can look at
Speaker 3: the robot and understand what the intent of that robot is.
Speaker 3: So its job is to move these vessels of goods
Speaker 3: to our dock doors safely, and it's fully around people. Right.
Speaker 3: So the concrete actual thing is here is that we
Speaker 3: are getting this really strong validation that by extending and
Speaker 3: augmenting human capability, not only can we and more productive,
Speaker 3: but we can also create a safer environment.
Speaker 2: We don't have a ton of time left, but I'm
Speaker 2: curious when you talk to Amazon employees, what are some
Speaker 2: of the biggest concerns that they have when it comes
Speaker 2: to robotics in action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we always think about the voice of the
Speaker 3: customer first and foremost. It is one thing in order
Speaker 3: to do like a robotic system in your lab and
Speaker 3: convince yourself that it's going to work in the lab.
Speaker 3: But when we roll out what we call our alpha
Speaker 3: and beta employments with our customers, we get first hand
Speaker 3: their quotes of what is working and what is not working.
Speaker 3: We should build our machines too that you can reasonably
Speaker 3: and tangibly use the machine in very intuitive ways. Right,
Speaker 3: You shouldn't have to have eighteen degrees in order to
Speaker 3: figure out how to use the machines, And we get
Speaker 3: that feedback quite often to say, it needs to be simpler,
Speaker 3: it needs to be less complex, and it needs to
Speaker 3: have the utility in order to extend and complement human creativity.
Speaker 1: We're going to have to We're going to have to
Speaker 1: leave it there. Ty, do appreciate you joining us. Ty Brady,
Speaker 1: chief technologist for robotics over at Amazon, joining us this
Speaker 1: afternoon from Boston