New Amazon robots could enable 'safer' exploitation of warehouse staff

Weeks after a study revealed that Amazon warehouse workers are injured at higher rates than staff at rival firms, the company has revealed it's testing new robots designed to improve employee safety. The e-commerce giant has ingratiatingly named two of the bots after Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie. Bert is an Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) that's built to navigate through Amazon facilities. In the future, the company envisions the bot carrying large and heavy items or carts across a site, reducing the strain on its human coworkers. Ernie, meanwhile, is a workstation system that removes totes from robotic shelves and then deliveries them to employees.