ROBOTS & AI TO TAKE OVER YOUR JOB? Is Universal Basic Income The Future?

The team who created Amazon's warehouse robots returns with a new robot named Chuck Jerome Dubois and Rylan Hamilton were executives at Kiva Systems, which Amazon bought in 2012 for its warehouse robots. They have a new start-up, 6 River Systems, which has made a robot called Chuck to help warehouse workers pick and pack orders more efficiently. Norwest Venture Partners, Eclipse VC and iRobot are investing $15 million in a Series A round for 6 River Systems. It's the competition that could save Amazon.com billions in logistics - and QUT's custom-built robot may be the winning solution. Jerome Dubois and Rylan Hamilton were two executives at Kiva Systems, a robotics company that Amazon bought for $775 million in 2012. Within a couple of years of that deal, Amazon took the Kiva robots off the market, rebranded the division as Amazon Robotics, and wielded a big competitive advantage over other logistics businesses and retailers. Now, they've got a new start-up called 6 River Systems that's bringing Amazon-grade technology to the broader warehouse and fulfillment industry. E-commerce is expected to grow 12 percent this year in the U.S., and the demand for delivery is growing with it. To help warehouse workers carry their loads, 6 River Systems built a robot called Chuck. The Chuck is essentially a self-driving cart that leads workers around a facility to the items that they need to pull off of shelves to fulfill a given order. It can also help workers quickly restock items that have been returned. A screen on the Chuck shows users information about their own productivity during a shift, "online shopping" robot robotic "robot arm" robotics warehouse logistics e-commerce work job jobs hire employment "warehouse logistics" demand order "shop online" "online store" "ecommerce store" amazon shipping "click and collect" delivery "free delivery" post postal postage "warehouse jobs" "warehouse storage" packaging "drop shipping" future tech technology sale "online sale" data pick 2017 alerting them if they're close to achieving a personal best, for example. The idea is to motivate them to work as safely and efficiently as possible. With labor costs increasing and robot costs declining, collaborative robots have become an increasingly popular alternative to human labor. More and more, robots are filling a skills and cost niche – provided you have the right robot for the right task. One of the most efficient ways to replace labor with a robot is to create the robot specifically for the job that needs to be done. In the modern world's fast-paced, customer-driven economy, the warehousing and logistics industries are looking for robotics solutions, more than ever before, to remain globally competitive. While robotics technology has already made an economic impact on the manufacturing sector, it is currently starting to transform supply chain operations to be faster, safer, and more productive. The demand for robots and the supply of matured robotic solutions for the optimization of logistics processes have created a tipping point that could lead to widespread acceptance and presence of robots in warehouses and logistics operations. This Tractica report examines the global market trends for warehousing and logistics robots and provides 6-year market sizing and forecasts for shipments and revenue during the period from 2016 through 2021. The report focuses on crucial market drivers and challenges, in addition to assessing the most important technology issues that will influence market development. In total, 75 key and emerging industry players are profiled. Market forecasts are segmented by world region and by robot type. All taxes, except a “lump-sum tax”, introduce distortions in the economy. But no government can impose a lump-sum tax – the same amount for everyone regardless of their income or expenditures – because it would fall most heavily on those with less income, and it would grind the poor, who might be unable to pay it at all. So taxes have to be related to some activity indicative of ability to pay taxes, and whatever activity it is will be discouraged as a result. Frank Ramsey published a classic paper in 1927 arguing that to minimise taxation-induced distortions, one should tax all activities, and he proposed how to set tax rates. His abstract theory has never been a fully operational principle for actual tax rates, but it provides a powerful argument against presuming that the tax should be zero for all but a few activities, or that all activities should be taxed at the same rate.



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