Cathy Wood has stated that robots could replace human workers at Amazon warehouses by 2030, and I believe her. Here's why:

The Dawn of the Robotics Age

We are just entering the dawn of the robotics age. Tesla has unveiled a humanoid robot and the company, Boston Dynamics, has robots that can jump around and carry things. Eventually, robots are going to get excellent at doing these kinds of tasks - so good, that workers whose job is to move things around in warehouses, will be out of a job.

Amazon has about 1.6 million workers at the end of 2021, according to its latest annual report. There is going to be growth in automation in the workplace that will accelerate this decade until the 2030s, and robot workers will possibly surpass human employees at one of the world's biggest companies.

Amazon will most likely make use of automated robots in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency. And, they won't be the only company to do this. Any company which makes use of simple manual labor is going to be the first to employ humanoid robots.

Amazon is adding about a thousand robots a day and if you compare the number of robots Amazon has to the number of employees, it is about 1/3. By 2030, Amazon could have more robots than employees - we are at the dawn of a new age.

Cost Declines and Efficiencies

Artificial intelligence and battery technology are also part of new technologies that are accelerating the advancement of humanity. Both of these will be useful, especially for humanoid robots. A humanoid robot with a sophisticated artificial intelligence and a powerful battery will do the work of many people in a warehouse without needed to rest - just occasional maintenance and repairs.

Cost declines, which drive a lot of the models that Cathie Wood looks at, say that for every cumulative doubling in the number of robots produced, the cost declines are about 50% to 60%. This is also known as Wright's Law.

Like many tech companies, Amazon has begun to lay off workers in recent months and announced more than 18,000 job cuts in January, through that leaves the company still well above its pre-pandemic level.

Cathie Wood bets on new technologies and that made her a star investor because most of her companies are growth companies and those companies had their stock price go way up when interest rates went near 0% in response to the pandemic. They went back down once rates started to go up, however, if you believe in the growth of companies, they should eventually outpace regular interest rates.

What do you think of the advancement of robotics? Are humanoid robots going to replace human workers by 2030?