If you thought the idea of a 100% human-free Ship-Store logistics network was some far-off sci-fi future, think again. It’s almost here.

Several ports around the world are almost fully automated with minimal human intervention. Shanghai, Busan (South Korea), and Rotterdam in particular. Fully self-driving trucks that can do highway journeys are a thing too. Now robots have mastered unloading the trucks. Warehouse operations are moving closer to being human-free too.

What’s left for humans? Self-driving is still at Level 4, and Level 5 is some way off. That means robo-vehicles can master predetermined routes they are trained on. But more and more they will get trained on highway exit-warehouse and highway exit-store routes. Even with just Level 4 driving this could be almost fully automated.

This all brings closer the day topics like Universal Basic Income go mainstream.

The Holy Grail of Automation: Now a Robot Can Unload a Truck