The drone that is replacing workers

And he is not the only one.

While the world discusses whether artificial intelligence and robots are going to replace all jobs, researchers and companies are already making that happen, MIT, for example, developed a technology that slowly begins to eliminate a specific type of human work, the so-called invisible jobs, those operational jobs that keep supply chains running, but that rarely appear in discussions about the future of the economy.

One of the companies that emerged from this environment is Corvus Robotics, the startup created a drone called Corvus One designed to carry out automated inventory within warehouses using artificial intelligence and advanced computer vision and perhaps the most impressive detail is that it operates practically alone, the system uses multiple cameras and deep neural networks to navigate narrow aisles, avoid obstacles and scan merchandise and depend on GPS, sensors distributed in the environment or constant human supervision.

In practice, the drone learns space almost like an animal, learning new territory. This changes the economic model of automation quite a bit, for years the cost was so high that many companies simply continued to depend on human workers, now that barrier begins to disappear, according to the developers, a gigantic warehouse can be completely mapped by the system in a few days using only computer vision based on AI, the drone navigates even in dark environments and updates inventory systems in real time while moving between the shelves.

And perhaps that is precisely where this story becomes uncomfortable, because tasks that previously required entire teams of employees walking through hallways, climbing industrial elevators and manually verifying barcodes, are beginning to be replaced by machines operating continuously 24 hours a day, without pause, without fatigue and without salary. The most curious thing is that this happens almost without attracting public attention. Traditional industrial automation was visible, huge robotic arms or robots inside factories, automated belts, machines replacing workers on assembly lines, but now artificial intelligence is also beginning to reach the invisible layers of global logistics.

The goal goes far beyond just scanning shelves.

Corvus' vision includes accompanying goods from the moment they leave trucks until final distribution, connecting drones, robots and autonomous systems in a logistics chain practically independent of human presence. This means automated factories producing goods, autonomous vehicles transporting products, robotic arms unloading loads, and drones continuously organizing inventories.

An entire economic infrastructure functioning almost without direct human intervention, except that drones are just the beginning because companies are now beginning to replace human workers with entire fleets of humanoids connected by artificial intelligence.