Army of Robots Cut Chinese Firm's Worker Costs In HALF! Coming Soon!

Shentong Express (STO), a Chinese delivery powerhouse has replaced half of it's warehouse workforce with little orange sorting robots. The machines can sort up to 200,000 packages a day and are self-charging, meaning they can operate 24/7.

Efficiency has also been improved by 30% and sorting accuracy has been maximized. According to a STO spokesman, the robots are being used in two of their centers. They will start using them across China, especially in their bigger centers.

The output of industrial robots in China grew 30.4% last year. In China's 5 year plan, they have set a target for annual production of these robots to 100,000 by 2020.

I hate hearing people losing their jobs, but these little robots are pretty cool to watch. Not really what I was expecting when you hear that robots are taking jobs. I guess the next generation of the workforce will be specializing in robotics, coding, etc...

One thing is clear, the robot apocalypse is snowballing into an avalanche.

We talking about automation here in the US, but other countries are just as susceptible as will. What will all those people do without jobs? embrace a military culture, like the US?

Sucks to have that happen but automation is the future. The correct question is, "How is the economy going to adjust to the change?"

Robotics/Automation - it is here to stay.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

...and once again more human jobs are lost to machines.

The climb of technology is a wondrous thing to behold, the stuff of science fiction fantasy, and yet as the technology becomes more and more advanced and there is less and less need for human employees- what will people do for a living? For now they need people to build and program most of the machines, but as technology (AI) advances eventually the machines will be able to do these things for themselves- then what? Will we all just live the "Life of Riley"? I think not. Only those who own stock in the companies will have income, and even then not for long as people with no income cannot pay for goods and services provided by the machines.

Store clerks are already being replaced with self check-out kiosks, fast food workers replaced with self-serve kiosks, delivery drivers slowly being replaced with robots and drones, manufacturing workers replaced by machines, farm workers replaced by machines, customer service reps replaced with computerized voice recognition software, bankers replaced with online banks with computerized tellers, etc. When machines have finally taken over all of the jobs how will we survive? With a provided basic income? How? machines don't pay income tax or property tax or school taxes. And Lord forbid the day AI becomes self-aware and decides that humans are a burden to the system...

I'm sure that all sounds a bit paranoid, but watching the advance of technology through the decades was exciting at first, but quickly becoming downright scary when you look at the big future picture.

Wow our lives are going to get easier and better well time to feed the unicorn