Amazon is developing AI software and testing humanoid robots to eventually assist or replace human delivery drivers, starting with indoor trials at a new obstacle course called the “humanoid park” in San Francisco.
To spearhead the efforts, Amazon launched a new team within its Lab126 hardware division to develop agentic AI for use in robotics and other applications, which unlike chatbots, can execute complex, multistep tasks autonomously. The group will create a framework to enable robots to understand and act on natural language commands, aiming to turn warehouse robots into versatile assistants.
Here's the long term goal:
- During a virtual meeting with your team, who are all located in other office parks around the country due to your company's RTO mandate, you order an item on Amazon in the comfort of your cubicle.
- A robot pulls, packs, and ships the item from an FBA warehouse.
- A self-driving van (likely a Zoox or Rivian) autonomously drives to your house without any drivers having to pee in bottles.
- A humanoid robot sprints Terminator-style from the vehicle to your front door, narrowly avoiding your chihuahua.
- Your Ring doorbell captures the delivery and sends you a photo of the package on your doorstep, minutes before your friendly neighborhood porch pirates steal it.
- You get home from work, sit your fat ass on your couch, and keep on ordering things with Prime.
Initial tests will use hardware like China’s $16K Unitree bots, while Amazon trains foundation models and multimodal AI to handle physical tasks and real-world environments. Outdoor “field trip” tests are expected later this year so that the robots can try walking on real streets and delivering packages to homes.
Right now several companies including Nvidia, Google, and Tesla are building developing software and hardware for humanoid robots, which offer a friendly sci-fi experience to consumers, but at what point will these companies simply scrap the “humanoid” part?
2040 Prediction: A drone-style robot flies to your house, drops from the sky as its propellers morph into octopus-style legs, lands on your driveway and crab-walks to your front door to deliver your package. Your 3-year-old daughter waves to the robot from the window, while your 116-year-old mother-in-law sits terrified on the porch.