Mercedes Replacing Low Skill Workers With Humanoid Robot

If you’re reading this, you’ve lived long enough to watch bipedal robots replace part of the human workforce.

This is where we meet Apollo, a remarkable creation engineered by Apptronik in collaboration with NASA. Apollo represents the cutting edge of robotics, it not only walks on twof feet but also has the capability to execute fundamental tasks. According to its creators, Apollo’s primary objective is to augment human labor by assuming responsibilities deemed hazardous or undesirable – the ugly jobs.

Currently, Apollo has found its inaugural deployment in Mercedes-Benz factories. As reported by The Financial Times, Mercedes-Benz is conducting trials with an undisclosed number of these robots at one of its facilities in Hungary. Hungary, grappling with labor shortages, serves as an ideal testing ground for such innovative solutions.

The emergence of robots like Apollo, along with BMW’s Figure 01, heralds a potential paradigm shift in the labor market. These machines not only excel at basic tasks but also exhibit their own reasoning abilities. Yet, it’s crucial to acknowledge their predominant use in tasks with low skill requirements, physical demands, or manual labor. These include item picking, pallet loading, inspection, and delivery to human workers.

While Apollo, standing at five feet eight inches and weighing 55 pounds, is presently tasked with roles that humans either shun or find challenging, it’s foreseeable that advancements in robotics will blur the distinction between menial and skilled labor for these machines. Indeed, with competitors like Tesla’s Optimus, Figure 01, and Agility Robotics’ “Digit” (currently undergoing testing in Amazon facilities), the trajectory seems clear.

Currently, humans portray these robots as assistants in the workforce. Yet, there’s a lingering apprehension that, driven by the allure of cost savings and heightened efficiency, companies may progressively replace their human workforce with these technologically advanced counterparts.