Recycling Industry Deploys Robots to Help Workers Social Distance

A 2017 McKinsey Global Institute report said 75 million to 375 million workers may need to switch their occupations by 2030 as “digitization, automation and artificial intelligence” disrupt the way we work. In the same report, 62% of executives said they believe they will need to retrain or replace more than a quarter of their workforce by 2023.

The pandemic gave companies the cover they needed to make huge, unprecedented strides in automation without risking a backlash. So they automated, and automated, and automated some more. Tyson Foods, the meat producer, brought in robotics experts to develop an automatic deboning system that could help it keep up with demand for chicken and other me... See more

• Human labor will be in the "Safe Zone" in the social, unstructured environments where it will be hard to train an AI to train pets, offer physical therapy, and style someone's hair and face.


• Meanwhile, structured, asocial work is most easily replaced, such as fast food cooks, garment factory workers, and cashiers, he calls this the "Danger Zone"


• The

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Even before COVID-19, many parts of the manufacturing industry were experiencing detrimental labor shortages. The use of automation and other systems that allow for distributed manufacturing would permit greater flexibility in where manufacturing sites were located.