Robots are learning to think like humans. Can they meet Amazon's demands for speed?

In a lab at the University of Washington, robots are playing air hockey. As the robots play, the researchers who built them are learning more about how they work, how they think and where they have room to grow, said Xu Chen, one of those researchers and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW. "From a robot's viewpoint, artificial intelligence is getting more and more mature," Chen said, referring to the software and algorithms that help a robot take in its surroundings and make decisions. "But if we want a full-scale robot to be able to think very quickly and cleverly, and then be able to do things in the physical space, I don't think we're there yet." The games are a way to get one step closer to taking the robots out of the air hockey arena and into the workforce, asking machines to shoulder tasks like lifting and moving heavy boxes for hours at a time. Robots are already working in warehouses, helping Amazon and Walmart customers get their orders faster, but e-commerce and retail leaders want them to do more.