A mesmerizing video out of a factory in China shows just how fast automation might be coming for labour jobs.
These small, yellow robots work at Shentong Express, a delivery company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
The bots, which are manufactured by Hikvision, are self-charging, can sort 200,000 packages per day and are more accurate than human workers.
“We want to start using these across the country, especially in our bigger centres," a Shentong spokesperson told the South China Morning Post, adding that the robots improved efficiency by 30 per cent.
Humans have one job — handing the robot each parcel, then the robot delivers it to the correct chute in the warehouse floor.
"Our working process starts with the scanning of a bar code which matches the geographical information. Then it automatically calculates the path to find the corresponding drop," operational director Gao Peng told Ruptly in a video (you can watch it above).
China has been rushing to increase production automation. In its five-year-plan, the country announced it would triple its annual production of industrial robots to 100,000 each year by 2020.
On Tuesday, a senior Bank of Canada official warned Canadians should brace for potential side effects of automation like job loss and income inequality.
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