Amazon reveals revolutionary AI, robotics revolution as chief technologist says Australia won’t be left behind
Amazon’s chief technologist says Australia will not be left behind in developing skills or delivering technology as the future of warehouse management at the tech giant emerges.
Two key AI-powered products — Blue Jay and Project Eluna — were unveiled this week at Amazon’s Delivering the Future event in Milpitas, Calif., as part of the company’s ambitious vision to revolutionize the delivery and warehouse packaging industry.
At Amazon’s Delivering the Future event in the US, NewsWire tried out the company’s Slip, Trip, Fall simulator and got first-hand experience of the dangerous conditions delivery drivers face every day.
While the event is largely focused on the US, it serves as a preview of how Amazon plans to roll out the technology globally, including Australia, in the medium term.
The company’s prioritization of AI has already sparked backlash in Australia, with questions about how AI itself will be regulated and recent issues around upskilling staff in critical AI and robotics retraining.
Down Under, just 50 people took part in the company’s skills development programme, Career Choice.
Although Blue Jay is currently in the testing phase, Amazon Robotics chief technologist Tye Brady did not rule out suggestions that the technology could make its way to Australian shores.
“Our strategy does not actually change from country to country,” he said.
Mr Brady said the company had a firm policy on how different projects went from ideas on the drawing board to reality, and it all started in the laboratory.
“We’re not doing technology for technology’s sake,” he told NewsWire.
“We say: ‘What is the problem we’re trying to solve? Is it beneficial? Will it be better for our employees? Will it be better for our customers?’
“Next, we will invest in a team to see what is possible – we call it a two-pizza team.”
Mr Brady said the transition from the laboratory to the “environment of interest” was always more difficult because of the need to work with high confidence figures.
For deployments in Australia and the rest of the world, this means eliminating even the 1 per cent error that might occur, Mr Brady said.
“So remember, 99 percent is not good enough (for us),” he said.
“When you send billions of packets – billions with an ‘S’ – even if it’s just a billion, a one percent error is ten million exceptions.
“That’s only one percent. So we have to do better than that… we improved the quality of the robotic system.”
“It’s a big process from the way we trialled it to a real product for our final employees.”
Amazon reveals the future of artificial intelligence and robotics in warehouses
Amazon’s newest operations technologies include Blue Jay, a robotic system that coordinates multiple arms, and Project Eluna, an agency AI model that helps streamline warehouse operations.
Both projects were unveiled at the tech giant’s Delivering to the Future event held at the DUR3 Delivery Station outside the City of San Francisco.
Amazon has launched Blue Jay, a new robotic operating system that coordinates multiple robot arms to create safer, more efficient workspaces.
Blue Jay is described by Amazon as “extra hands” that assist workers with reaching and lifting tasks.
Using multiple robotic arms, it can perform multiple tasks simultaneously and streamline warehouse processes by picking, stacking and combining items weighing up to 12 pounds (about 5 kg).
“Visually, Blue Jay works like a juggler who never drops the ball – only here, the ‘balls’ are made up of tens of thousands of elements moving at high speed. It’s also like a conductor conducting an orchestra whose every move is in unison,” Amazon said in a statement.
It’s currently being tested at an Amazon headquarters in South Carolina; Approximately 75 percent of the various items stored here can be picked, stacked and combined.
Amazon also unveiled Project Eluna, described as an “extra teammate” to reduce the cognitive load of operations managers in warehouses.
The program is designed to act with a degree of autonomy by reasoning through complex operational situations and recommending actions to operators using historical and real-time data across centers.
This allows it to anticipate bottlenecks and ensure operations run smoothly.
Project Eluna will be piloted at an Amazon fulfillment center in Tennessee.
In Australia, Amazon has signaled a $20 billion investment over four years to accelerate and expand its data infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne.
Three new solar farms are also being built in Victoria and Queensland to support local cloud infrastructure.
These projects are in addition to eight already operational projects powering Amazon Australia’s operations in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.
It is estimated that all 11 projects will generate enough electricity to power 290,000 Australian homes per year.
More than half of Australian businesses use AI
A recent report by Strand Partners and Amazon Web Services (AWS) found that at least half of Australian businesses are using some form of AI, recording 16 per cent year-on-year growth.
But 61 percent of large businesses surveyed reported that their adoption of AI remains “at the most basic level,” focusing on incremental gains such as “improving efficiency” and “streamlining” processes.
The report said there is an “emerging two-tier economy” between startups and large corporations due to the skills gap in the adoption of AI technologies.
“If left unaddressed, this ‘two-tier’ AI economy, where technology-driven start-ups are outpacing larger, established businesses in AI innovation, could have a lasting impact on Australia’s AI-led growth and innovation,” the report states.
Only 37 percent of businesses reported feeling comfortable with their existing digital capabilities to adopt AI.
72 percent of survey respondents said government support in the form of tax incentives or grants was important in their decision to implement AI technologies.
The federal government currently doesn’t have any regulations solely for monitoring AI, but it is working on guardrails for the “safe and responsible” use of such programs.
This includes whether they adapt existing frameworks to include such guardrails or introduce a new inter-economic Law.
One of the guardrails includes determining whether an AI system is considered “high risk”, meaning it affects a person’s rights under Australian human rights law, their physical or mental health and safety, and whether the system poses other significant legal, social, economic and environmental risks.
The federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources has published guidance for organizations to develop and deploy AI in Australia.
Another proposed guardrail would require providing information to other organizations in the supply chain so they can understand their data, modeling and systems.
*NewsWire’s travel and accommodation in San Francisco was provided by Amazon
