現(xiàn)在在50家沃爾瑪超市的美國門店里，你已經(jīng)可以看到“機器人售貨員”的身影了。它們長得像大號的掃地機器人，身上背著一座瘦高的傳感器塔，井井有條地在門店的過道里巡邏，看看貨架上的衛(wèi)生紙還夠不夠，洗衣粉上的價簽是不是貼錯了。

沃爾瑪正在測試的這些機器人是由博薩諾瓦機器人公司（Bossa Nova Robotics）設(shè)計制造的。測試的目的也很明顯：如果機器人也能執(zhí)行庫存管理工作，何必再給工人發(fā)工資呢？為了與在線零售巨頭亞馬遜抗衡，包括沃爾瑪在內(nèi)的一眾大型零售商都在加緊采用新技術(shù)。而與此同時，亞馬遜也在一些倉庫里使用了機器人等先進技術(shù)。

塔吉特百貨和勞氏公司也已經(jīng)在實體店內(nèi)測試用機器人執(zhí)行掃描貨架等簡單任務(wù)。其中，塔吉特使用的是初創(chuàng)公司Simbe Robotics的機器人服務(wù)。

在上周《麻省理工科技評論》于舊金山舉辦的EmTech數(shù)字峰會上，博薩諾瓦機器人公司的首席商務(wù)官馬丁·希契介紹道，沃爾瑪?shù)臋C器人每天要在貨架過道里檢查三次，看看店內(nèi)的15萬多件商品是不是都擺在正確的位置上。機器人會對衛(wèi)生紙是否缺貨、商品是否貼錯了價簽這種問題做記錄，然后一名真人員工會根據(jù)機器人的記錄補貨或重貼價簽——畢竟以這些機器人目前的物理設(shè)計，它們還干不了這些后續(xù)工作。

在沃爾瑪?shù)臏y試過程中，人們對機器人的態(tài)度也在發(fā)生變化。比如兩年前博薩諾瓦公司剛在賓西法尼亞州的一家郊區(qū)沃爾瑪門店投放機器人時，人們都對它們非常好奇，經(jīng)常花很長時間盯著它們，而現(xiàn)在大家已經(jīng)完全忽略了它們的存在。

“人們已經(jīng)允許了它們做它們該做的事?！毕Ｆ醣硎?。

當(dāng)被問到不同類型的人對機器人有什么反應(yīng)時，希契表示，兒童特別是小學(xué)生往往“對機器人非常尊重”。而成年人有時則跟在機器人后頭問“你好嗎”或其他一些蠢問題，當(dāng)然也有人完全無視它們的存在。

青少年的“淘氣”本性，則給機器人帶來了不小的挑戰(zhàn)。

希契表示：“有時它們會遭到購物袋的毆打，有時會被故意踢上一腳?！?

希契表示，博薩諾瓦公司已經(jīng)習(xí)慣了青少年的惡作劇，公司在下一步的設(shè)計中也將把這個因素考慮在內(nèi)?？梢韵胂螅乱淮某袡C器人必須具備抵御高中生向它們丟番茄醬的能力。

博薩諾瓦公司在設(shè)計上的另一項改進是使機器看起來對人類更加“友好”。他們在機器人小小的身體上裝了一個小顯示屏和一圈發(fā)光條，機器人的電腦主機就安裝在顯示屏后面，這樣人們的注意力就不容易集中在機器人身上附著的傳感器塔上了。

希契表示，公司曾請顧客描述對機器人的看法?！敖Y(jié)果沒有人意識到它有兩米高?！币驗榇蠹业淖⒁饬Χ技性谒纳聿纳希ㄓ悬c像《星戰(zhàn)》里的圓柱型機器人R2-D2），而沒有注意到它身上固定的傳感器塔。而實際上，這個機器人的身高足有6.5英尺，這座傳感器塔占了其中的大部分，頗有點小馬拉大車的感覺。

沃爾瑪并未披露機器人是否真的節(jié)省了公司的開支，然而鑒于沃爾瑪正在越來越多的門店測試機器人，可見它對花錢購買這家創(chuàng)業(yè)公司的機器人還是挺滿意的。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：樸成奎?

Inside 50 of Walmart’s U.S. stores, robots resembling vacuum cleaners affixed with small, sleek towers, patrol the aisles, checking whether the shelves are stocked with enough toilet paper and that laundry detergent has the correct price tag.

Walmart is testing the robots, built by Bossa Nova Robotics, to see if they can monitor store inventory more cheaply than human workers. The test reflects the increasing adoption of technology by big retailers as they try to keep up with online retail giant Amazon , which uses robots in some of its warehouses in addition to other cutting-edge technology.

Target and Lowe’s are already testing robots in physical stores for handling mundane jobs like scanning shelves. Target, for example is using the robotic services of the startup Simbe Robotics to scan aisles.

Every day, one of Walmart’s robots rolls down every aisle three times to check that over 150,000 products are where they should be on store shelves, Martin Hitch, chief business officer for Bossa Nova Robotics, said Monday at the MIT Technology Review’sEmTech Digital conference in San Francisco. The robot will keep a record whether there isn’t enough toilet paper, or if an item doesn’t have the right price tag. From there, a human store clerk will either re-stock the aisle or put the right price tag on the product, because the robots are not physically capable of doing so.

Among the findings from Walmart’s test is that people’s perceptions change the longer they see the robots in action. For example, two years ago when Bossa Nova first installed a robot at a Walmart store in rural Pennsylvania, local residents were very curious about the machines and spent time gawking at them, Hitch said, but they now completely ignore them.

“It’s allowed to do its job,” Hitch said.

When asked how different types of people react to the robots, Hitch said that children, particularly school children, tend to be “very respectful of the robot.” Adults, on the other hand, sometimes either goof around with the robots by asking how they are doing or other silly questions, or ignore them.

Teenagers, however, pose a challenge for Bossa Nova’s Walmart robots because of their “mischievous” nature, Hitch said.

“We’ve been hit with shopping bags,” Hitch said about the robots. “We’ve been deliberately kicked.”

Hitch said that Bossa Nova has gotten used to teenagers playing pranks on robots, and that the company has taken that into account in its robot designs. Presumably, these robots must be built in a way that they can withstand having cans of tomato soup thrown at them by high schoolers.

Another thing Bossa Nova did was to design the robots to look more “friendly” to humans by installing a small display screen and lighting on its small body. The screen and lighting, which is also where the robot’s main computer resides, helps distract people from the larger mini-tower affixed to the robot, on which is affixed sensors that scan items on the shelf.

Hitch said that when the company asked customers to describe the robot, “nobody realized it was two meters tall” because they focused on the smaller robot body (resembling the Star Wars cylindrical robot R2-D2) and not its tower, which comprises the bulk of the robot’s height of around 6.5 feet.

Walmart hasn’t revealed if it’s saving money by using Bossa Nova’s robots, but considering it’s testing them out in more stores, the retail company appears to be pleased its spending money on the startup.