Amazon and its warehouses continue to be a contentious issue, whether it be the frequency of injuries, how staff are pushed to inhuman work rates or where the company plans to build infrastructure.

Now another contentious issue is likely to come to the fore as Amazon has revealed its first ever range of fully automated warehouse robots.

There are two new models of autonomous robot – Proteus and Cardinal – with each designed to perform specific tasks within a warehouse environment.

“Proteus autonomously moves through our facilities using advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology developed by Amazon. The robot was built to be automatically directed to perform its work and move around employees—meaning it has no need to be confined to restricted areas,” explained Amazon in a blog post.

“Cardinal, the robotic workcell that uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to nimbly and quickly select one package out of a pile of packages, lift it, read the label, and precisely place it in a GoCart to send the package on the next step of its journey,” it added.

This push for automation has also seen the company working on AI-enabled technology that is able to scam packages, potentially eliminating the need for warehouse workers to manual scan barcodes on packages.

While still in the early phases, it is clear that Amazon wants to integrate more robots at its facilities in a bid to increase productivity and output, which of course begs the question as to what will happen to current workers.

With many at warehouses trying to unionise, is the rollout of new autonomous robots a pre-emptive move to replace large swathes of a human workforce?

For no the answer is no according to Amazon, with a representative of its robot division telling Forbes (paywall) that, “replacing people with machines is just a fallacy.”

Whether that is indeed the case remains to be seen, but given the fact that Amazon is only expanding its number of facilities across the globe, not to mention increased pressure over working conditions and demand for quicker turnaround times from customers, robots will likely play a key role moving forward.

It is simply a matter of knowing where and how the current human workforce falls in the mix.

“Our facilities are safer and more collaborative than ever, and they play an integral role in delivering the products our customers want, when and where they want them. And what’s really exciting is that some of our most innovative work is yet to come—our next decade of discovery is just beginning,” the blog post concluded.