'I met the robots that could replace human Amazon workers - one thing surprised me'
Getting up close to Amazon's latest hi-tech robot, you're struck by how scarily slick it is.
I was among a select group of journalists chosen to see the firm's Vulcan project unveiled. It's certainly no walking talking Robocop kind of machine from the movies. But that shouldn't take away from the cleverness of the gadgetry, that draws in technology developed by NASA. Amazon is no stranger to using robots - it's got more than 750,000 busy working away. But what's different about this one is its dexterity, or sense of feeling and touch.
Watching Vulcan in action is mesmerising, the way its arm delves into totes for pick out different size products, using suction, then twists, turns and drops them onto a belt. But what's also striking is the role that humans play. No longer dashing around, the ones I saw - both here and elsewhere - seemed relegated to feeding the machines and stepping in if needed.
But then this is where much of the technology, including artificial intelligence is heading. Humans tasked with overseeing tech that has done countless others out of a job. For all Amazon's claims that the robots will create as many jobs as they will costs, the reality is surely a world where it needs fewer people.
Why employ an army of workers when they want paying, go off sick, complain, even want to join a union? And where Amazon leads, others follow. The same technology could be used by other firms, with the potential to take out whole swathes of often already low paid warehouse workers.
And it doesn't stop there. In another vast hall at Amazon's test centre was a hulking machine destined for smaller - yet still gigantic by most standards - depots, from which products are dispatched to customers. Again, it was all about the automation, with workers feeding products into the machine.
And just where will this all end? With Amazon preparing to launch drone deliveries from Darlington by the end of the year - cutting out couriers - you have to wonder how big a part humans will play in Amazon's plans.
Not that you'd have thought so, listening to its bigwigs who were on hand to explain the new technology. Maybe it's the firm's American culture, but it's not just the machinery on show that can come across as robotic.
Does any of this really matter, given the incredible success of Amazon and its awesome power? It's certainly true that the company has revolutionaised retailing, and given people access to a mind-boggling array of products - more than 400 million I learned. And its already speedy deliveries for Prime member are about to get faster. It is extending the number of cities where members can order by 6.15pm to get items the same day.
Amazon dismisses talk of a worker-free warehouses, ran entirely by robots and other machines. But the company is equally unwilling to talk of what it might have up its sleeve in five, let along 10 years, from now. Robots with a human-like sense of touch would have been unthinkable in Amazon's world just five years ago. Five years from now and who know what you'll be able to get from Amazon, or how it will be delivered.
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