we sent danny vincent toa will not so.hinese online retailer

we sent danny vincent to a warehouse owned by the giant chinese online retailer alibaba.f an operation that sorts and delivers 55 million packages a day that are shipped to over 200 countries around the world. products are packed and sorted here, usually by dozens of workers. but recently, they had some new recruits. 148 automated guided vehicles navigate the floors of this warehouse. these agile bots can communicate with each other to avoid collisions and distribute the work amongst themselves — a bit like their human counterparts, who still take on the final stages of processing. li yan is a 28—year—old worker from south—western china. herjob now is, in part, done by these machines. she followed a family tradition of migrating thousands of miles to find better—paid work. translation: it saves me from walking to every shelf to pick up the goods. now ijust need to stand at the pick—up platform to wait for the robots to send me the goods. i don't have to constantly walk here and there. they are part of a data system collecting information notjust about their environments,