It's 9AM.
It’s never going to work, she said.
I took it as a challenge.
Not to me personally, because I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Not in a specific sense anyway.
It started because of something I read.
I got hurt at work three weeks ago.
Bent to lift something using proper form and felt a sharp pain in my lower stomach/groin.
Yep, you guessed it.
Hernia.
The Nurse Practitioner who examined me said it happened a lot to guys my age.
Guys my age.
I almost cried.
Because I wanted to let her know that once up on a time, not too long ago, I was only one of about 100 guys my age who ran three 100 mile races in less than 12 months.
That once upon a time, maybe a little longer than not too long ago, I was in the one ton club at the gym, deadlifting, squatting and benching over a ton of metal.
That I carried a one hundred pound ruck sack for eighty miles.
That I piggy backed a one hundred thirty pound woman I wanted to impress up a mountain trail.
That one time, some time ago, I wouldn’t get injured lifting a 70 lb box of nothing.
Except I was.
I did.
And her doing the examine was the most action I’ve had this year!
Which might have gotten me a smile or a harassment lawsuit.
Either way, it put me on light duty for a month while we sorted out the if/then scenarios of surgery and insurance and scheduling.
You can be on the internet at least, they said as they sat me at a table in the front of the building to watch people walk in and out.
So I did.
But like most corporations, outside access to the world was limited.
Firewalls and blocks and protections.
So I did deep dives on the corporate wiki’s.
I now know more about Amazon inner workings than most of the Senior Execs.
A hundred hours of “studying” over the last several weeks will do that.
Remember when I said the robots were coming?
I was wrong.
They are not coming.
They are here.
And they will be integrated and functioning at 80% by 2027.
But you know that because you see the news headlines.
Wal Mart lays off 50,000 warehouse workers.
They can say “due to recession” or “changing consumer habits” which are both true.
We are buying more and more online and Wal Mart is changing how they do business to respond to how we are shopping.
I say this because I would rather click to add to cart than go into a store, and I’m not alone.
So would the vast majority of shoppers.
So WM is doing something different.
Robot shoppers fulfilling orders to deliver to your car.
They look like Roomba’s.
Amazon is doing the same thing.
Roomba’s with arms.
So much so that Zon bought iRobot last year.
Critics said it was so they could spy on you and map your house.
Which doesn’t make sense.
Your home blueprints are online and a simple Google Search will give anyone who wants the layout of your house.
What Zon wanted was the sensor technology so robots can sense obstacles, like people or pods or pallets and move around them.
They are here, and they are working.
Add some arms or trays or shelves and you have a fully functioning assistant that will work 24/7.
No need for salary, no need for insurance or worker’s comp or breaks or lunch.
You know, all the things you have to pay as a business owner if you want to employ workers.
I don’t have a problem with it.
I think it’s on the verge of being something big, and maybe we don’t even know the repercussions of it yet.
Some guy suggested that a 12 year old kid in Belarus is going to hack the robots and turn them against us.
I told him that’s only if they make it out of the warehouse first.
Roomba’s are defeated by simple things.
Like the sill at the bottom of a doorway.
So I’m not too worried about a droid uprising.
I am a little excited about another future though.
Something no one has made mention of yet, or maybe they have and I just haven’t seen how they connected the dots.
Amazon bought Medicine One, a medical company that can provide prescription meds to you.
A doctor writes a prescription, transmits it to Amazon, and a day later, your meds show up.
It has a robot right now you can buy for $2k that will follow you around your house and act as a personal assistant.
It’s got a Fire Tablet for a face, and can literally follow over 1000 commands.
Within a year, those robots will be a part of Medical One fleet and deployed to hospitals to solve some of the most common little things that nurses do, like deliver meds to patients, which will free them up to focus on bigger things.
A droid that rolls from room to room, answering 1000 of the most commonly asked patient questions, checking on them, and keeping them informed about the steps in their care.
And sounding the alarm if something is going wrong.
A Dr.Bot, if you will, though acting more like a CNA, minus the bedding changes.
She said people wouldn’t stand for it.
They needed human interaction, especially when they were sick.
And I thought it was the same argument I heard when pay at the pump was introduced.
“Who would use that, because they want to go in to talk to the clerk!”
Or self check out.
“I’m working for the company now, don’t I get a discount!”
Which is the same common complaints that every generation has made any time a new technology is introduced and implemented on a wide scale.
It follows a pattern anyone can look up.
Skepticism. Low scale adoption. Mass adoption. High Use. Adaptation.
Besides, the genie is out of the bottle. Those dots I’m connecting for robot doctors and robot warehouse workers are already in motion.
But then she hit me with the most awesome and incredible argument I’ve heard yet…
“Might as well have dogs for doctors instead of robots. They could wear the ipads on their collars.”
And now I’m obsessed with Doctor Dogs.
I think that’s the next big innovation!
That’s the thing I want, like a St. Bernard with a whiskey cask rescuing someone lost in the Swiss Alps.
Dr. Dogs.
Give him his medicine, Woof.
You are subscribed to the free version of 9AM.
I hope you find some inspiration out there.
If you’d like to upgrade to the paid version, you’ll get access to exclusive content, including even more free books, excerpts and snippets. Your support is awesome.
WARE THE CATS OF WAR Audiobook (Listen to the whole book free)
Check out:
Spring Fantasy and Sci Fi group promo
Coming this week: Gunsmoke Outlaw
Thank you for your version of the future. I am 77 as I told you before and it scares the heck out of me. I can see it now., Just mt luck.... I finally moved up into the confined of nursing home status. First person I meet is the head of nursing who is a robot who can change her face to whom ever. Well alrighty it is what it is.... A damn robot that is two faced....