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gested today’s technology could feasibly
replace 45 percent of jobs right now.
Also earlier this year at an annual meet-
ing for the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, computer sci-
ence professor Moshe Vardi proclaimed
robots could wipe out half of all jobs
currently performed by humans as early
as 2030.
A separate study conducted by the
White House Council of Economics and
introduced to Congress in President
Obama’s February economic report
examined the chances that automa-
tion could threaten jobs based on how
much they paid: either less than $20 an
hour, between $20 and $40 an hour, or
more than $40. The results showed that
those making less than $20 per hour
were far and away the most threatened.
In other words, 62 percent of American
jobs may be at risk, according to Bu-
reau of Labor Statistic counts.
Seem farfetched or far away in the
future? Well, if someone told you five
years ago that driverless cars would
soon be on the road, you’d likely say
the same thing. And much of the tech-
nology that is being used to develop
driverless cars is now being applied to
the in-store experience.
Meet OSHbot, for example, a 5-foot-
tall retail service robot developed by
Lowe’s Innovation Lab in partnership
with Fellow Robots. OSHbot has been
roaming the aisles of Lowe’s-owned
Orchard Supply Hardware in San Jose,
Calif., for about a year now. Armed
with facial-recognition and the same
navigational technology found in driver-
less cars, OSHbot’s primary functions
are to help customers find items on
the shelves and help store managers
manage inventory. As for the former,
the rolling robot will greet a customer in
one of seven languages, and sports two
informational screens that display upsell
opportunities and promotions. Just tell
OSHbot what you are looking for, and it
will lead you to the location of that item
in the store. Don’t know the name of the
piece or part you are looking for? Soon
OSHbot will be able to take a visual
scan of that part and tell the customer
if and where it is in the store. All the
while, OSHbot can track inventory in
real-time, able to tell employees when
an item is out of stock, misplaced or
has possibly been stolen.
Several organizations, in fact, are
marketing data-crunching, machine-
learning roving robotic workers to the
retail vertical. Bossa Nova Robots,
which just scored $14 million in series A
funding, says it is ready to immediately
deploy robots that collect terabytes of
in-store data to help employees keep
track of everything on the shelves and
can even re-stock them.
“Bossa Nova addresses a multi-
billion dollar opportunity within the retail
marketplace, and is a technology that
can be immediately deployed by major
retail chains,” said Nic Brathwaite of
WRV, which led the round of funding.
“The product has already proven suc-
cessful in stores and integrates seam-
lessly with existing inventory manage-
ment systems.”
4D Retail Technology Corp., for its
part, recently unveiled its 4D Space
Genius, a robotic imaging platform pow-
ered by Segway that can scan an entire
Pepper presents Pizza Hut options to patrons.
OSHbot was developed with Fellow Robots, which offers this Navii “autonomous
retail robot assistance.”
Inside
Outdoor
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Summer
2016
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