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The robots are coming for the last human warehouse jobs.

Loading and unloading a truck is backbreaking, mind-numbing work that retailers and parcel carriers have tried to solve for years. Workers may not stay long in these jobs. Summers and winters are particularly grueling for anyone stuck in a metal trailer, slinging heavy boxes. Injuries are common.

Automating this process has long been the holy grail of warehouse logistics. When loaded, packages must be fitted together to fill the available space and be sorted by weight—with the heaviest items on the bottom—so they don’t topple or break. Unloading them is challenging, too, because the unloader must move in and out of a trailer, ferrying packages of different sizes and weights.

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