• I stayed in 2 different treehouses during my Washington trip, and the stays reminded me of camping.
• Most treehouse accommodations can be difficult to get in and out of with luggage.
• Treehouses often have less-than-ideal bathroom situations, and stays come with nature-related risks.

When I decided to road trip through Washington state, staying in a treehouse was high on my list of priorities.

The Pacific Northwest is known for its lush scenery and treetop rentals, and I planned to take full advantage of the stellar views.

I booked two very different treehouse Airbnbs: one in Mukilteo that looked out over Puget Sound and a remote two-story house in the woods near Olympia.

Both stays felt oddly similar to camping. Although I was technically indoors, way up high in a tree, I felt immersed in nature and had limited modern conveniences.

My first treehouse was in the backyard of a stunning, million-dollar house in a beautiful neighborhood that looked out over the water.

I booked one night at a bargain price of around $100 and slept with the shades wide open to take in the amazing water views. It was small — the bed was pushed against a wall with barely any room to walk, but worth the drive (it was an hour off my route).

The other treetop villa was a splurge that had been featured in travel blogs. It required a two-night booking (which was a bit more time in a tree than I wanted) and didn't have WiFi, but it had multiple decks and was surrounded by forest.

After having stayed in two different treehouse rentals, though, I feel that they're better in theory than reality for three reasons.

It can be difficult to lug belongings up and down the stairs

Although some extra-fancy treehouses have elevators, I'd argue most will require a bit of a workout to enjoy.

My waterside cabin had very steep stairs, and I was traveling alone with a heavy suitcase, a small cooler, and a backpack. I didn't want to leave my belongings or devices in the car, so everything came up with me, requiring multiple trips.

At the other treehouse, there were three staircases up to the bedroom loft. It was quite a workout for a short stay.

Bathroom options in a treehouse are often less than ideal

Using the bathroom in a treehouse can require thought and planning. However, I don't want to think so hard on vacation when I just need to pee.

In many cases, treehouse accommodations have toilets designed for campers or bathrooms that must be accessed by leaving the treehouse.

In Mukilteo, the bathroom was downstairs, attached to the main house, and it required a key. To me, this felt like a lot to remember when I woke up in the middle of the night after drinking too much water.

At the larger treehouse, the facility was in the tree but had an RV toilet with a flush pedal. It didn't feel very luxurious, and, to be honest, I struggled to fully understand how to operate it.

Given how tricky it can be to install plumbing up a tree, I'd suggest checking the listing before you book and making sure you're OK with whatever the bathroom situation may be.

You're at the mercy of weather and wildlife

Treehouses often come with unmatched views, but the wildlife immersion may have drawbacks.

Although it might feel nice and cozy in a treehouse during a rain or snowstorm, it can become treacherous if you need to leave and the steps are icy or slippery.

Plus, in a treehouse, you're more exposed to the elements, drafts, rain leaks, and wind than you would be at a hotel.

During my stay at the treetop villa, the owner told me that if the wind started blowing, the house would creak and sway. If it got really bad, he warned, I'd need to evacuate, possibly in the middle of the night.

This was a bit more than I'd bargained for, and I ended up leaving a night early.

A treehouse stay also means keeping an eye out for nearby wildlife — owls and bears are prevalent in Washington state — and possums, raccoons, and mice can climb.

Overall, I'm glad I stayed in treehouses — but I wouldn't do it again

My trip to Washington was great, and I have no regrets.

Thankfully, I had no animal run-ins, and the weather was beautiful during both of my stays. Sleeping in the air was kind of fun and peaceful, and I was as close to nature as I'll possibly ever get.

Treehouse stays are cool to try at least once, but I can't say I'd want to regularly incorporate them into my travels. The cons don't quite outweigh the pros for me.

• After years of living in Miami, I bought a house in Florida. I realized there's a lot I don't know.
• I didn't realize my home-insurance options would be somewhat limited in Florida.
• Shortly into homeownership, pest control and tree removal became unexpected expenses.

Recently, I made one of the biggest personal and financial decisions of my life: buying a house in Florida.

I'm a millennial from West Virginia, and I'd been living in Miami for seven years. I was excited to officially put down roots in the area I'd fallen in love with.

I felt pretty prepared to purchase my property since my parents owned our house when I was a teenager, and I grew up hearing about the general costs, burdens, and benefits that come with being a homeowner.

However, I quickly discovered just how much I really didn't know. Here are five things I wish I'd done before buying my house in Florida.

I wish I'd researched how few companies insure homes in Florida

I've lived in Florida for the better part of a decade, so I've seen how volatile the weather can be.

However, I never thought that would (or even could) stop well-known insurance companies from offering new policies to Florida homeowners.

Because of my state, big names like Progressive and Costco Insurance Agency weren't even options when I was looking to insure my property.

I ended up getting an incredible insurance deal from a smaller company that still operates in South Florida. Still, I wish I'd known how few options I'd really have when it came to protecting my property.

I should've checked how much my new ZIP code would impact my car-insurance rate

I didn't research my ZIP code as well as I should have when I bought my house.

After all, I had a lot of other things to worry about, and I'd lived in different parts of Miami-Dade County before. However, this area alone has 34 incorporated municipalities and various unincorporated neighborhoods.

Different parts of Dade have their own ZIP codes, and car-insurance premiums can vary based on which you live in. This isn't only the case in Florida, either.

I should've taken more time to research exactly how my new ZIP code would impact my car insurance — especially because I'll be living here for a while.

I wish I'd researched how expensive tree removal can be before buying the property

Once I'd moved in, some tree branches started falling from a massive banyan in my yard — and I started researching how much it would cost to remove the tree.

The best quote I got was $12,000 due to the scope of the project.

Had I also known how expensive tree removal can be in South Florida (and in general), I may have paid extra to have the trees examined before closing or even considered a different property.

It would've been helpful to visit my new neighborhood after a rainstorm to see how much it floods

There's really no way to totally avoid minor flooding in South Florida.

A lot of places flood Miami — even during day-to-day rain showers. It doesn't matter if you're on Miami Beach or a few miles inland.

However, it would've been nice to know how it would impact me on a regular basis before I bought my home.

Although the street I live on doesn't flood too much, the main streets I use to get to my house do. I wish I'd thought to come by after a storm one day to see where flooding impacts my neighborhood the most.

I wish I'd known more about pest control before purchasing a home here

Unfortunately, Florida's climate is a favorable one for a lot of creatures I don't want in my home.

When I was a renter, my landlords were in charge of pest control — and, thankfully, they were quick to resolve any insect-related issues at the properties where I used to live.

Because it had never been my responsibility before, I didn't know how to keep my property free of termites, palmetto bugs, snakes, and iguanas.

This was something I had to learn very quickly from friends who have lived in Florida all their lives.

Pest-control services are an expense I was not expecting at first, but I'm very grateful the pros have taught me how to protect my home before any full-blown infestations could begin.

• Amazon invests billions of dollars in robots to boost e-commerce efficiency and profitability.
• Back in 2015, the Amazon Picking Challenge tried to spur more research into warehouse automation.
• The competition inspired some of the company's most advanced robots, including Sparrow and Robin.

Amazon is investing billions of dollars in robots to make its e-commerce business more efficient and profitable. This huge initiative started out a lot smaller.

A decade ago, the company launched a competition for university engineering teams called the Amazon Picking Challenge. It called on researchers to design robots for a common warehouse task: Grabbing products from a shelf and putting them in a box.

As a tech reporter, this quirky project intrigued me. At the time in early 2015, Google was testing self-driving cars, a technology that emerged from a similar academic competition known as the DARPA Grand Challenge. What if Amazon was trying to replicate this magic, but with robots rather than automobiles?

Then, a funny thing happened. The Amazon Picking Challenge faded away. It was renamed and only lasted a few years. I chalked this up to another bad call and moved on.

I only thought about this challenge again late last year. That's when Amazon unveiled a next-generation warehouse in Louisiana that has 10 times more robots moving products around and, yes, picking them up with dexterity. The facility processes orders 25% faster and 25% more efficiently, and it will likely be the future of the company's e-commerce operation.

Ten years after the Amazon Picking Challenge, the fruits of this nerdy competition have finally emerged. It follows an uncannily similar timeline to the DARPA Grand Challenge, which started in 2004 and resulted in Google's driverless cars hitting the road roughly a decade later.

So, with the help of Business Insider reporter Eugene Kim, I investigated how Amazon's huge new fleet of picking robots came to be, and how this competition laid the foundation for a new wave of automation that's about to crash over the warehouse and logistics industry.

From pallets to picking

It started with an acquisition. In 2012, Amazon paid $775 million for Kiva Systems, which designed flat robots that zip around warehouse floors. 

This helped move pallets of goods around, but humans still needed to pick items. Getting a robot to spot the correct product in a box, then grab it just hard enough to pick it up, but not damage it — that's incredibly difficult.

This is where the Amazon Picking Challenge came in. Instead of hacking away at this problem itself, the company wanted to focus the broader academic community on the task.

The risk was that any valuable inventions would be out in the public sphere, and Amazon might not directly benefit from them. But the potential gains were much bigger, according to executives and roboticists.

"Amazon doesn't compete with robotics companies," said former Amazon Robotics chief Brad Porter, who runs robotics startup Cobot now. "When facing an unsolved research problem in robotics AI like bin picking, Amazon benefits if anyone solves that problem as long as Amazon can get access to the technology to improve their operations."

"The challenge Amazon was trying to solve was how to motivate researchers to focus on this problem," Porter added. "The Picking Challenge very much succeeded in doing that."

Oreos, Sharpies, and dog toys

The first competition took place over two days in late May 2015 in Seattle, with more than 25 teams from colleges including MIT, Duke, Rutgers, and Georgia Tech.

The contestants had to design a robot that could pick products from a typical shelf found on a Kiva Systems warehouse pod, and then put those items into containers. The picker had to be fully autonomous, and each robot was given 20 minutes to pick 12 target items from the shelves. Contestants had to open-source their creations.

Companies, including ABB, Fanuc, and Rethink Robotics, founded by industry pioneer Rodney Brooks, provided hardware for contestants to repurpose and tinker with.

The products were a preselected set of 25 items commonly sold on Amazon.com, including packs of Oreo cookies, boxes of Sharpie pens, and dog toys.

Some were easier to pick. There were simple cuboids, like a box of coffee stirrers or a whiteboard eraser. Others were trickier. For instance, a box of Cheez-Its could not be removed from the bin without first tilting it, adding another complex step for the robots. Smaller items, such as an individual spark plug, were more difficult to detect and properly grasp.

Vacuum arms and 'catastrophic failure'

Among all 26 teams, a total of 36 correct items were picked, versus seven incorrect items. Another four products were dropped by robots in the competition.

About half of the teams scored zero points, and two teams couldn't get their robots working well enough to even attempt the challenge, according to a research paper analyzing the results.

Problems ranged from the highly technical to the mundane. Some of the same items came packed differently, which made them even more difficult to pick. One team's machine had a vacuum hose that got accidentally wound around the robotic arm.

With each system having hundreds of components, the failure of any one of these could lead to "catastrophic failure of the overall system — as witnessed during the competition," the researchers wrote. 

The main finding from this first Amazon Picking Challenge was that human warehouse workers were a lot better than machines at picking products.

"A human is capable of performing a more complex version of the same task at a rate of ∼400 sorts/hour with minimal errors," the researchers wrote. "While the best robot in the APC achieved a rate of ∼30 sorts/hour with a 16% failure rate."

But the conclusion was hopeful, too: The contest showed that robotics could substantially increase warehouse automation and order fulfillment in the near future.

The competition was renamed the following year as the Amazon Robotics Challenge, and the tasks evolved to be more complex.

Suction and other benefits

Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, was involved in those later Amazon Robotics Challenges. 

In a recent interview with Business Insider, he said research on robotic manipulation exploded from 2016 through 2018, with many institutions publishing their results and insights. This helped spread valuable knowledge across the industry, speeding up progress. 

At least two professors started graduate-level classes related to Amazon's challenge, and these programs are still churning out experts with valuable practical applied knowledge in robotics, Brady explained. 

"When you get a whole bunch of smart people together in a room and think about focused problems, some great things are going to happen, and that's really what happened," he said. "It inspired a lot of the work that we have today that we see in, for example, our Sparrow and Robin manipulation systems that are real-world products delivering packages inside of our fulfillment centers."

In that first competition in 2015, some robotics teams used grippers that mimicked the way a human hand picks things up. Other teams tried suction instead, with some researchers even strapping off-the-shelf vacuum cleaners to their robots.

Gripping proved more problematic because the robots didn't receive enough information to know when to release or add pressure at the right times. This could result in squashed or crushed products or dropped items.

Sucking the items up so they stuck to the end of robot arms was a more successful approach.

"The idea of high flow suction was novel. Bring your favorite vacuum cleaner and start picking up objects. That was kind of clever," Brady said. "This idea, we used suction inside of our Robin and our Sparrow arms. It's very good."

The boss has noticed

Amazon unveiled Robin, its first robotic arm, in 2021. This machine picks up packages from conveyor belts and places them on other mobile robots called Pegasus.

Sparrow followed in 2023. This was Amazon's first robotic arm to handle individual items rather than packages. It uses computer vision and AI to pick more than 200 million different items from containers and place them into totes.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has taken notice. At the AWS re:Invent conference in December, he should have been talking about cloud computing. But he took time away from that subject to wax lyrical about Sparrow. 

"It has to discern which item is which. It has to know how to grasp that item, given the size of it and the materials and the flexibility of that material. And then it has to know where in the receiving bin it can put it," Jassy said. "These are all inventions that are critical to us changing the processing time and the cost to serve our customers."

Wall Street has noticed, too. Morgan Stanley recently estimated that Amazon's warehouse robots could save the company as much as $10 billion a year.

"The big story is we're just getting started," said Brady.

• Amazon invests billions in warehouse robotics, deploying more than 750,000 robots globally.
• Tye Brady, Amazon Robotics's chief technologist, believes robots help people work more efficiently.
• AI significantly boosts the potential of robotics in warehouses, he told BI in a recent interview.

Amazon has long been a leader in warehouse robotics, investing billions of dollars to automate some of the picking and sorting jobs at its fulfillment centers.

But its work in robotics is just getting started, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist Tye Brady told Business Insider in a recent wide-ranging interview.

Amazon now has at least 750,000 robots roaming around its sprawling network of warehouses. It has been deploying robotic arm systems called Sparrow and Robin that can quickly lift and move millions of products and boxes.

This wave of automation is helping Amazon deliver packages faster, and it could make the company more profitable. Morgan Stanley recently estimated this robotics push could save Amazon up to $10 billion a year by 2030.

According to Brady, the goal is to help Amazon's frontline workers do their jobs more safely and efficiently.

"We do technology with a purpose. And if that purpose makes sense in e-commerce and our material handling fulfillment systems, then we will do that as long as it improves the safety of our employees and their performance," he said.

Brady, who has been at Amazon for almost a decade, saw the potential for robots in the logistics industry early on. He was part of a group that formalized the Amazon Picking Challenge, a grassroots competition that helped bring together a community of robotics experts. Before that, he worked at MIT and Draper Laboratory.

Brady said breakthroughs in artificial intelligence give Amazon more reason to invest in this space. In 2022, the company launched a $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund focused on supply chains and logistics. In August, Amazon hired the founders of startup Covariant, a robotics AI startup last valued at $625 million.

"The physical AI part is hugely important," Brady said. "AI has really revolutionized and transformed robotics because it allows us to have the mind and body as one."

Brady doesn't dispute these advancements will change jobs in the future. But he argues that it will benefit the workforce, creating more skilled jobs and giving people more time to focus on things that "really matter."

"Our future is in people and technology working together," Brady said. "If we have technology that allows us to be more capable in our jobs, that's a win."

This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.

BI: Amazon has more than 750,000 warehouse robots? Will all these be Amazon's own designs or a mixture of internal and external machines and systems that you get from other places?

"What's really awesome is that 750,000 is for our drive units alone. And I'm very proud that those have not only been designed inside Amazon but also manufactured by Amazon. So we manufacture every one of those drive units in Massachusetts in one of our two facilities.

We have our own manufacturing lines where we actually build those locally, and we ship those globally. And we've created a lot of jobs because of that manufacturing capability. We have a great talent pool around here. We actually source a lot of material even locally as well, proving that you can do this cost efficiently and very performantly here in the United States, which is great. And that's the world's largest fleet of industrial mobile robots out there."

BI: Any sense of where that number's going in the future?

"I would imagine it's only going north. I can't share the number yet.

If you went into a large fulfillment building, you'd see 3,000 to 4,000 different drive units working in coordination with each other. You would see 10, 20, 30 Sparrow arms working in coordination, picking up things. You'd see tens of Robin work cells picking up boxes. You'd see a couple hundred Proteus drives moving what we call go-karts around. They're everywhere. And you're also going to see a lot of people as well. So it's the idea of people and machines working together because when we do our robotics, we're extending and augmenting human capability."

BI: Why name your robots after birds?

"The designers get to pick whatever names they want, but it started with the first bird, which was Robin, which stands for 'robotic induct.' So our team said, hey, we're going to call this Robin. And then a whole bunch of birds started to come on."

BI: How much resources and money is Amazon putting into automating warehousing and logistics? Is it all focused on the kind of e-commerce operation, by which I mean warehousing and logistics, or also delivery and other parts of Amazon that we haven't thought of?

"To put a figure on it, would be nearly impossible for me to do. You could see the scale is if we're going to open an industrial fund of $1 billion, then we're serious about this. And we're seeing the real-world benefits for our employees today.

AI has changed the game of what products need to go where. We start even before the customer makes their order on Amazon.com. And then we offer a delivery promise that's backed by our amazing people and our robotic systems. And that delivery promise is a function of what we call 'first mile,' where we store our goods, our 'middle mile,' where we help sort those goods to get them to the right locations. And then our 'last mile' deliveries. And robotics is affecting all three of those phases significantly. And AI has changed the game for us and the robotic systems that we have continue to introduce more and more efficiencies in that process."

BI: Is there any task inside the warehouse and logistics process that will never be automated because they are too complex or something?

"Just plain old, simple common sense will never be automated. Humans have an amazing ability to adapt and understand what's going on and an amazing ability to use tools as long as they're available. As long as they're intuitive and natural and actually provide value, we'll use tools to do the job better and more efficiently. And for our case, it's safer.

I'm a systems engineer, and what we want to do is we want to leverage what people are good at. We're good at problem-solving, using common sense and reasoning, generalization, and creative thinking. We're amazing at that. I don't want to throw that away. Machines are really good at crunching numbers, assessing databases, and moving with precision. Let's bring those together in order to do the task at hand. And for us, that's moving our packages for our customers."

BI: Any thoughts on the resurgence of investment in robotics lately?

"The 'physical AI' part is hugely important. I think we've done a pretty good job of building the body in robotics. But let's think about the mind and the body, and AI has really revolutionized and transformed robotics because it allows us to have the mind and body as one.

We're doing things not in the digital world. We're doing real-world things applied in the analog world, the world that we live in. And there's no better example of that than what we're doing in Shreveport, Louisiana. We have 10 times the amount of robotics under that roof. The processing time is 25% faster. We can reduce what we call the cost to serve by 25% as well. We can pass those cost savings along to our customers and we're creating brand new jobs. That's a win all the way around because it's great for customers first and foremost, and it helps people do their jobs better. So, it's not a replacement strategy; it's an augmentation strategy.

We do technology with a purpose. And if that purpose makes sense in e-commerce and our material-handling fulfillment systems, then we will do that as long as it improves the safety of our employees and their performance.

That's what we want to do, and we've done that. I can give you lots of examples, whether it's in our Sequoia system, our Proteus system, our Sparrow system, or our Robin system. All those systems allow for safer employees and more efficiency in our fulfillment processes."

BI: What's the next challenge? What's the next frontier specifically in your e-commerce logistics world?

"First of all, physical AI is here and proving very useful, but we're just getting started. And I am really excited about the scale at which we operate, which is mind-boggling. And that scale allows us to advance the technologies of physical AI. That's really exciting. When we ship billions and billions of packages every year, that makes you have to do it right because you can't be 99% good because a 1% exception rate over billions of items is quite a lot of things that you would then have to specially handle."

BI: Would Amazon ever consider providing a lot of this physical AI robotic technology as a service to other companies? Or are you already doing that?

"We are doing that in a sense through AWS. Our physical AI systems have the same toolkits that hundreds of thousands of our customers have available to them, and they're using them, so we're seeing a lot of growth there. So it's an incredible system, how AWS has structured it and made it available to all [through Bedrock].

We're always finding ways to evolve retail. That's what we do. That innovation mindset, that experimentalist mindset, allows us to achieve what we have. Whether it's helping our productivity, this idea of mind and body being unified inside our robotic systems is really exciting. These advancements that we're seeing, especially with Covariant, helping drive the mind, that is really exciting. How automation is empowering people. Our mission continues to be, I want to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive. I want to eliminate those tasks and allow people to focus more on what matters."

BI: Tell us more about Covariant.

"It's a really broad brush approach to foundation models and how they should be applied, but with specific needs. Whether it's path planning or perception systems for robots to understand their world, we're seeing some significant advancements in those areas.

Generative AI is fueled by data and we have lots and lots of data from our objects. We offer the world's largest selection of goods to our customers out there and are the generative AI models that really changed the game when it comes to efficient planning. The movement of robots when it comes to understanding the scenes that the robots are in. And systems like Proteus, for example, these are 'in the wild.' They are around people, they're not behind fences, they're moving in concert with people, and understanding the environment is really important in a quick manner. And their generative AI systems are changing the game for us."

BI: And that example for Proteus, that's in a warehouse, not following a preordained path, it's just out there?

"That's right. It's out there around people. People move around it. It moves around people. It's really, really cool to see, and I can show you just one example of how state-of-the-art it is. Typically a robot, when it sees maybe three, four, or five people gathered together, it'll just stop and wait for the folks to kind of disband. Or if you're at a cocktail party, when you're trying to navigate from one side of the room to the other, you know how hard that can be. The Proteus system actually is capable of that. So it doesn't just stop. What it does is it kind of nudges its way, never run into anything, but it has its way of signaling to people 'I would like to get through,' and then it can kind of navigate its way through that cocktail party in a very safe manner. That's really hard to do.

It's all about intent. We need to build in our models ways for people to understand the intent of the robot. I want to take a left turn, I want to move. So we have eyes and lights that allow a person to understand the robot's intent. But we also program the robotics to understand the person's intent. If they're walking, are they going to take a left turn, so we want to make sure that we keep the right buffer around them? Maybe they're going to stop really quickly. We have to be mindful of that as well. And our physical AI systems that are doing that today have really changed the game. When it comes to understanding and perceiving those scenes that are immediately around it."

BI: And Covariant helps with all these things?

"Absolutely. So it's a balance between what we call edge computing. So that's the software that we run directly on the machine itself, and then also our cloud computing that we have through AWS where we have these foundation models that are helping us extract what's a door and what's a fence and what's the dock look like and what's a truck, and all that knowledge we are assembling.

They're great. I mean, they're a leading robotics company for sure. Really excited about it. The way that they have done their models is kind of unique and we think that they can really help assist people. So that's a great partnership."

BI: Do you think robotics will at least slow down the massive growth of this human warehouse workforce from the past 10, 15 years or not?

"Inside our Shreveport building, we have 35% more skilled jobs. So the labor force is changing. We have also committed more than $1.2 billion in our upskilling pledge. We offer things like career choices. We offer things like apprenticeships and prepaid tuition programs for our employees inside our fulfillment centers for upskilling. That's really important.

It is really important for us to do this because we know jobs will change, and we want to keep those skills local in the community where we're creating those jobs. Our future is in people and technology working together.

And the perception of technology really matters. It really matters to people because if you are more willing to adopt technology and use it, then you get the benefits of technology.

And people, when they have technology, can do really amazing things. When you're in India, if technology allows you to have cleaner water, that's a win. That's a loss for nobody. That is a win. If you have technology that makes you healthier and safer, that is a win. Let's embrace that. If we have technology that allows us to be more capable in our jobs, that's a win.

It's exactly the way I feel about robotics. But instead of being in the digital world, it's in the physical world. Let's allow people to do great things to be more efficient. It's why I got into robotics. When you do robotics right, it allows us to be more human. And I mean physical AI, I mean smart, capable technology systems that allow us to be more human, more capable. If I can have a robot do my dishes for me, which I do, it's called a dishwasher, and that's great. It's such a good robot that we don't really talk about the robot, but what it does is very simple. It allows me more time to connect with my loved ones. The menial and mundane, go ahead and do it. Mow my lawn, do my pool, whatever it is, give me more time to be more human.

I'm not going to run out of things to do on the weekend. I can guarantee you that. There's no replacing me over the weekend. But if I can have machinery and physical AI systems doing these tasks for me that allow me to focus more on what matters at home, that's my loved ones, that's a total win.

I definitely believe that what we're doing inside Amazon, applying robotics and physical AI in many, many systems, is helping master the fundamentals of robotics, whether it's a movement system, a manipulation system, a sortation system, a storage system, an identification system, or a packaging system.

That's what we're focusing on. When we achieve those things, what's going to happen is that the world will see in this particular industry that robotics can really help people do their jobs, and that will start to transform other industries. You're going to see the healthcare industry pick up on physical AI. You're going to see agriculture pick up on physical AI.

And we are pioneering that field, which is as simple as storing goods, picking goods, moving goods, and bringing them to customers. But that context allows us to accelerate the development of robotics."

Do you work at Amazon? Got a tip?

Contact the reporter Eugene Kim via the encrypted messaging apps Signal or Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email ([email protected]). Reach out using a nonwork device. Check out Insider's source guide for other tips on sharing information securely.

• A billionaire couple won a refund for a moth-infested London mansion they bought in 2019.
• The buyers accused the seller of concealing the moth infestation.
• A High Court judge ordered the seller to refund much of the cost of the house as well as damages.

A judge ordered a refund for a billionaire couple who paid £32.5 million (about $40 million) for a mansion with a "severe moth infestation."

A UK High Court judge ruled that Iya Patarkatsishvili, daughter of the Georgian billionaire tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, and her husband Yevhen Hunyak, can hand the home back to the seller, the property developer William Woodward-Fisher.

Patarkatsishvili and Hunyak purchased Horbury Villa in Notting Hill, west London, in May 2019. However, the judgment states that within days of moving in, they started noticing moths flying around and landing on their cutlery.

The couple found moths in clothes, wine glasses, and toothbrushes and swatted away hundreds a day, the judgment stated.

Pest control companies found that insulation in the ceiling was the source of the issue. The works to replace the insulation cost £270,000, the hearing heard.

The claimants accused Woodward-Fisher of knowingly selling the house with the moth infestation. He was found to have known about the issue since early 2018 but failed to inform Patarkatsishvili and Hunyak.

Woodward-Fisher told the court he had been informed that moths were not vermin and "therefore not relevant to this inquiry."

The judge ruled that Patarkatsishvili and Hunyak should be refunded much of the house's cost, minus £6 million for the time they lived there, plus substantial damages. Woodward-Fisher was ordered to pay the couple £4 million in damages, including £15,000 for their moth-damaged clothes and £3.7 million they paid in stamp duty.

Chris Webber, an attorney at the firm Squire Patton Boggs who represented Patarkatsishvili and Hunyak, said the couple "hope the case will serve as a warning to unscrupulous property developers who might seek to take advantage of buyer beware to sell properties by concealing known defects," The Guardian reported.

Patarkatsishvili is a theater director. Her father, who died in the UK in 2008, was once Georgia's richest man worth $12 billion, per Forbes. Some of his assets passed to Patarkatsishvili.

Woodward-Fisher is a former rower who competed for the UK in the 1970s.

Horbury Villa was built in the mid-1800s and spanned 2,800 sq ft. After being extended, the property covered 11,000 sq ft and featured a pool, spa, cinema and gym in the newly created basement, according to the website of architect Anthony Paine.

• Amazon's warehouse robots have come a long way since it acquired Kiva Systems in 2012.
• Robots can now perform a variety of tasks alongside employees in fulfillment centers.
• They can transport packages, sort individual items, and lift heavy objects.

Amazon's fleet of warehouse robots has swelled to more than 750,000 — and it continues to grow both in size and complexity.

Robots now perform a variety of tasks in Amazon's fulfillment centers, transporting packages around busy workspaces, sorting and consolidating items into storage systems, and making fit-to-size packaging.

The company's robotics efforts started when it acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012. Kiva's automated guided vehicles navigated by following barcode stickers placed on the floor of a warehouse. More than a decade later, Amazon now has more than 16,000 people working on robotics as its technology has become more sophisticated, including Proteus, a mobile robot that can move autonomously.

Investing in robotics helps Amazon accomplish its goal of getting packages to customers as quickly as possible, Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said in a recent interview with Business Insider. Robots also create efficiencies that will help Amazon save money — some $10 billion a year by 2030, Morgan Stanley estimated in a recent research note.

"We can have faster delivery times because of the work that we've done in robotics," Brady said. "We can also pass on a lower cost. And we're creating thousands and thousands of jobs because of the work that we've done in robotics."

In August, Amazon hired three of the robotics startup Covariant's founders and licensed some of its foundation models to bring flexibility and fluidity to its robotics. The company also launched the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund in 2022, investing in companies innovating in emerging tech like robots. That includes an investment in Agility Robotics, which makes a bipedal robot called Digit that Amazon is testing in fulfillment centers.

"We have a commitment for more than $1 billion for our startups, in order to help the startups and the community raise the capital that they need in order to do some of these great ideas that we think are going to help our customers," Brady said.

Here are some examples of the most advanced robots working in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and a bit about what they do:

Proteus

Unlike Amazon's earlier mobile robots, Proteus is fully autonomous. It uses sensors to navigate around objects in its path. It works more closely alongside Amazon employees and is not restricted to fenced-in areas.

Proteus travels under package carts and then transports them to the fulfillment center's loading dock. Brady compared its skills to how humans make their way around a crowded cocktail party.

"Typically a robot, when it sees maybe three, four, or five people gathered together, maybe they're all talking in a circle or something like that, it'll just stop and wait for the folks to kind of disband," he said. "When you're trying to navigate from one side of the room to the other — the Proteus system actually is capable of that. It doesn't just stop."

It launched in a Nashville fulfillment center in 2022.

Sparrow

Sparrow is Amazon's first robotic arm to handle individual items rather than packages. It uses computer vision and AI to pick items from containers and place them into totes. It's roughly the size of an elephant trunk and capable of picking up more than 200 million different items, Brady said.

It was first introduced in a fulfillment center in Richmond, Texas, in 2023.

Sequoia

Sequoia combines AI, robotics, and computer vision into one storage solution. Totes containing items are stored in a vertical platform system called a gantry. Robots then move those totes to ergonomic workstations where employees pick products to be shipped to customers. Once an employee picks items from the totes, Amazon's robotic arm, Sparrow, retrieves any remaining items and then consolidates them so that full totes can be returned to storage.

Amazon says Sequoia allows the company to identify and store products as much as 75% more quickly than before. It was first introduced in a Houston fulfillment center in 2023 and is at the center of Amazon's "next-generation" fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana, where it can handle more than 30 million items.

Hercules

Introduced in Sumner, Washington, in 2017, Hercules is one of Amazon's earlier mobile robots. It moves pods of items around a fenced area of the fulfillment center by using its 3D camera to reference markers on the floor. That camera also helps it differentiate between the various things that may be in its way, like people, pods, or other robots.

It can lift pods that weigh up to 1,250 pounds.

Titan

Titan operates similarly to Hercules but can lift double the weight, up to 2,500 pounds. It made its debut in San Antonio in 2017 and is typically used for bigger items.

Pegasus

First introduced in 2018, Pegasus is a cousin to the Hercules robot that incorporates a conveyor belt on top of the drive unit.

It takes finished packages from employees to a sorting area that's determined by the recipient's ZIP code. Using a route provided by Amazon's centralized planning system, it navigates until it finds the correct location, then drops packages through a chute in the floor to a loading dock below.

Pegasus works in conjunction with Amazon's robotic arm Robin.

Robin

Robin was Amazon's first robotic arm, introduced in Lakeland, Florida, in 2022. It works in tandem with other robotic systems, picking up packages from conveyor belts and placing them on Pegasus mobile robots that bring them elsewhere in the fulfillment center. It also handles damaged packages.

Cardinal

Cardinal, a robotic arm that was introduced in Nashville in 2022, lifts packages and sorts them into the appropriate cart before they are brought out to be loaded onto a truck. Robin and Cardinal both use suction to handle packages weighing up to 50 pounds.

Xanthus

Xanthus is essentially a lighter version of Pegasus. It also has upgraded sensors that allow it to navigate obstacles from further away than Pegasus can.

Also called "X-bot," Xanthus is less expensive to produce than its previous iterations.

Xanthus was initially used for sorting in 2019, but Brady has previously said the company sees it being used elsewhere due to its flexibility.

Packaging Automation

The packaging automation system uses sensors to measure an item and then create packaging that is properly sized for that item, eliminating excess materials. It previously made plastic bags but now makes paper bags. It was first introduced in Euclid, Ohio, in 2023.

• I've visited many major US steakhouse chains with my husband and two teenagers.
• From a value standpoint, we liked Outback Steakhouse best — we got lots of food (and wine) for $165.
• The most memorable steakhouse was The Capital Grille, where our extravagant meal cost nearly $500.

My family never ate at chain restaurants until recently when we started trying ones my teens had heard about on TikTok or from friends.

We've now eaten everywhere from Olive Garden to Bahama Breeze, but our favorite chains to try have been steakhouses.

Forever a fan of a great glass of cabernet with a steak and some classic sides, I've taken my husband and kids to places like LongHorn Steakhouse, Ruth's Chris Steak House, Outback Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse, and The Capital Grille.

Although one has been a clear favorite for me so far, almost every meal has been top-notch and has made me a believer in the consistency and predictability of a good steakhouse chain.

We felt we got the best bang for our buck at Outback Steakhouse.

Chains like Texas Roadhouse, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Outback Steakhouse felt similar in price point.

On average, it cost my party of four around $160 to eat at each, but the food at Outback was the hands-down favorite for everyone in my party.

Its complimentary brown bread was the best we've had, our steaks were melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and we loved the classic Bloomin' Onion appetizer.

My family of four got an appetizer, entreés, two glasses of wine, and two desserts for $165. At the time, we ordered more than we'd normally eat, so I know we could return and spend even less while still getting a really good meal.

Ruth's Chris had the best classic steakhouse sides.

Although Ruth's Chris was one of the more pricey steakhouses we've visited, our $500 meal felt worth it for the classy atmosphere, delicious food, and impressive wine list.

The chain's side dishes were particularly impressive. My favorite steakhouse side dish is creamed spinach, and the tasty version at Ruth's Chris was everything I could hope for.

The mashed potatoes we had there were also superb, as were the sauteéd mushrooms — another steakhouse staple.

We'd absolutely return here for a special occasion.

Eating at LongHorn Steakhouse changed the way we order ribeye.

Our dinner at LongHorn felt like a great value because we enjoyed our generously-portioned meals so much — but a highlight of our dinner was a valuable tip.

LongHorn serves a $30 ribeye, and when my husband ordered his medium rare, the server took a moment to educate us about that particular cut of meat.

Because of the fat in a ribeye, he explained, the meat becomes more buttery and tender when it's cooked to a medium temperature.

My husband switched his order, and the resulting ribeye was delicious. Although we still order cuts like filet cooked medium rare, his tip stuck with us and we now cook and order our ribeyes medium.

I think Texas Roadhouse would be best for loud groups or families with young kids.

Of the steakhouse chains I've been to, Texas Roadhouse had my least-favorite overall atmosphere. When we visited, it felt loud, crowded, and chaotic.

Several times during our meal, our conversation was interrupted by servers loudly clapping and singing to people who were there for a birthday dinner. We were also surrounded by many families with young children, who could understandably get a bit noisy.

Texas Roadhouse doesn't have a high-end atmosphere like Ruth's Chris or The Capital Grille, but I'd go a step further and say it's in a class below Outback and LongHorn.

Although the chain had a nicely varied menu, our group found the food to be just OK.

Overall, I think Texas Roadhouse is better suited for families with kids and groups who don't mind a noisier dining experience.

The Capital Grille is the steakhouse I'd visit every weekend if I could.

Of all the steakhouse chains I've visited, The Capital Grille was my favorite with its delicious food, extremely attentive staff, and relaxing-but-elegant ambiance.

From the moment we walked into the restaurant, my family felt relaxed and taken care of.

Through several courses — which included some of the best calamari I've ever eaten and a few perfect wine pairings — we kept chatting about what a wonderful experience we were having.

The service and atmosphere alone made this steakhouse my favorite, and the food only sealed the deal.

We tried everything from surf and turf to filet au poivre and loved every bite. My son, who always orders burgers at steakhouses, said The Capital Grille served the best he's had.

Our meal cost over $500 after tax and tip, so going here wouldn't fit into our weekly dining out budget. Still, I'd request dinner at The Capital Grille for a special occasion or return for date night with just my husband to save a few hundred dollars.

• Mike Cavanagh bought a 10-foot-wide skinny house in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in 2024
• It's a spite house because its developer decided to build what he could given city restrictions.
• Cavanagh said he's glad he bought the skinny house even though it attracts some curious onlookers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mike Cavanagh, a 51-year-old regional manager for a medical device company, who purchased a skinny house built out of spite in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in 2024. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I realized it was time to downsize once my kids got older and moved out.

In 2020, I sold my 3,700-square-foot home and moved into a townhouse. I spent about four years renting, hoping the market would adjust, but it never did. I eventually decided it was time to buy something.

In June, I called a real-estate agent friend in Jacksonville Beach and said, "Hey, I'd like to see a few properties." We toured three homes — one was a townhouse, and the other two were three-bedroom houses. None of them felt right.

Later, they called and said, "I've got something you need to see. It's really unique."

The moment I walked into the house, I turned to my real-estate agent and said, "I'll take it."

The home is 10 feet wide and 1,547 square feet, with two bedrooms and 2½ baths. Despite its narrow layout, the exterior has great curb appeal. Inside, it has a modern feel, with beautiful flooring and tile work throughout.

The same day I toured the home, I made an offer. It was accepted, and we closed in just 30 days. I purchased it in early June for just over $600,000.

The home feels like the right size for me

At first, I didn't know much about the home's history. What drew me in was the neighborhood — it was quiet and peaceful, which I liked. The house is also the perfect size for me since I'm single. If I were 40 with young kids, it wouldn't have worked.

Eventually, I met with the home's builder. He explained that he had owned the lot for a long time, and while neighbors wanted to buy it, he wasn't willing to sell.

Originally, he wanted to build a 15-foot-wide home, but the city said no. So, he decided to do it his way and make the home 10 feet wide. That's how its unique design came to be.

I've definitely acclimated to the home. It doesn't feel small; its bumped-out walls give the house an almost container-like feel, reminiscent of an RV from the outside.

One of the home's unique features is its built-in nooks. The upstairs bedroom has a built-in platform where my mattress sits, so I don't need a bed frame.

Another important feature of the home is its natural light. The builder did an excellent job positioning the windows to create a bright, inviting atmosphere.

I hired a local designer, and together we developed a vision for the space.

I do entertain sometimes, but I don't have massive dinner parties. I just wanted to create a great environment for working from home.

We added a built-in white oak couch in the living room with custom cushions. It was a bit pricey but totally worth it because it's incredibly comfortable and has an artsy vibe. By the TV, we also installed built-in shelving and cabinets made from white oak.

I think the skinny house is a good investment

I think the fact that my home was featured on Zillow Gone Wild and that there used to be a "For Sale" sign in the yard both drew a lot of attention.

It's more subdued now, but I occasionally notice random people driving by or walking past and making comments.

I still get jokes, too. Some friends introduce me socially as "the guy who bought the skinny house."

Sometimes, when I meet my neighbors, they mention that they thought the house would be bought and turned into an Airbnb since there are plenty around Jacksonville Beach.

Compared to other cities in Florida, Jacksonville Beach has been slow to develop, which helps keep it affordable — especially relative to other beach towns.

As more people discover it's a fantastic place to live, there's been an influx of movers from the Northeast, some from California, and many from the Midwest.

My real-estate agent and I agreed that the house wouldn't lose equity with Jacksonville Beach's population growing.

If I change jobs or decide to move, I'm confident my home will attract enough interest to sell quickly. I could also rent it out on Airbnb. So I have plenty of options for the home in the long term.

But I plan to continue living in the home. It's my only property, and my job is based in the area, for now at least.

Overall, I do think buying the home was a good decision. Smart people just don't buy real estate to make money; they buy to have a great place to live — and to avoid losing money.

This home was definitely a solid investment.

• My husband and I left our stresses of living in Seattle behind by moving to the suburbs.
• The tech boom raised Seattle's cost of living, making it hard for us to afford a home in the city.
• Now we enjoy having a close-knit community — and easy access to the city.

Growing up in a small town, I always thought the city was where I belonged. I moved to Seattle for college and loved the energy, the culture, and the endless entertainment opportunities.

But after a few years of struggling with some realities of city living — constant traffic, astronomical rent, and the never-ending search for a parking spot — I started to feel burned out.

Although I enjoyed living in Seattle, I decided to move about an hour away to the suburbs of Washington.

Now, I have the best of both worlds: I'm close enough to enjoy the perks of the city but far enough to escape its headaches.

Seattle's tech boom has made it even more expensive to live there

Seattle's population has grown by about 20% in the past decade, in part thanks to companies like Amazon and Microsoft setting up headquarters in the area.

Unfortunately, the influx of high-paying tech jobs has also driven up the cost of living.

When I lived in Seattle, rental costs ate up a lot of my income — sometimes up to 50%. Plus, online rental marketplace Apartments.com suggests the average rent in Seattle is about 30% higher than the national average.

Since renting in Seattle was already expensive, buying a house in the city felt like a far-off dream for me and my husband.

One of the biggest advantages of moving an hour away from Seattle has been our ability to find nice places to live within our budget.

Once we left, we were able to buy a renovated single-family home on almost half an acre outside the city for about half the price something similar might have cost in Seattle.

I love dealing with less traffic — and finding parking is much easier now

The Seattle metro area has some of the worst congestion in the US — and the busy, crowded streets made living in the city stressful for me.

I regularly spent hours of my day creeping down the freeway at 5 mph.

Sometimes, I'd lose track of time circling the block to find a parking spot near my destination — and if I had to park in a garage or lot, I'd pay upward of $20 for just a couple of hours.

In my town east of the city, I can pull right into my driveway, and I never worry about finding a spot at the grocery store, which is only 10 minutes from my house during rush hour.

Life outside the city offered tranquility my younger self didn't know I'd need

My gripes with living in Seattle may seem small, but they've had a big impact on my life.

Now, we live on a quiet street where the towns of Covington and Maple Valley meet, and suburban life blends with nature. We have ample space for a garden and hiking and biking trails minutes away.

The sound of nonstop city traffic has been replaced by birds and the occasional neighbor mowing their lawn. When we take our dogs for a walk, we cross paths with more families and fellow dog walkers than cars.

Our close-knit community is a welcome change from the anonymity I often felt in Seattle. I like that we know our neighbors and often chat with each other, which felt tough to do in a big city.

Although we don't have as many restaurants and events in the burbs, I'm still close enough to Seattle to attend concerts and sporting events, visit museums, or meet up with friends for dinner and a show.

I miss the city sometimes, but I'm happy I've found what matters to me most at this stage of my life.

• Dani and Evan Benton moved to Japan on a startup business visa in 2023.
• They bought an abandoned house for $6,500 and turned it into a guesthouse.
• The couple has also started a homestead with a farm and a beekeeping business.

After six years of running an urban farm and renting an Airbnb in New Orleans, followed by 15 months of travel and house-sitting around Mexico, Dani and Evan Benton were ready for their next adventure.

They knew they wanted to live a simple, rural life but still have access to modern amenities. Ideally, they would also be in an area with a nice climate where they could grow as much of their own food as possible.

Their goal had always been to start a homestead similar to what they had back in the US, and doing this in Japan seemed feasible, especially considering that the country has 8.5 million akiya, or abandoned houses, in rural areas for sale.

It helped that Evan also speaks Japanese, having studied the language in college.

Since they always loved old homes and were keen on the idea of renovating an akiya, they decided to take the plunge.

Applying for the startup business visa

In early 2023, the couple started working toward getting a startup business visa in Japan.

Their visa application required them to submit a proposal detailing their business plans.

In addition to their homestead — which would include honey production and a small-scale farming business — the couple also wanted to open a guesthouse. On the side, Dani, 40, was also planning to offer photography services.

They were drawn to Omishima island, which is over an hour away from Hiroshima airport, partially because it's one of the few areas where the startup business visa is offered.

"What the startup visa does is it encourages foreign people to move to Japan specifically to start small businesses," Dani, a professional photographer, told Business Insider. "You get residency, and you have six months to do things like open your bank account, incorporate your business, get everything funded, and obtain whatever licenses you may need."

One of the main visa requirements is that the couple invest at least 5 million Japanese yen, or around $32,450, into their business bank account or hire a minimum of two employees.

Their proposal was approved after a few revisions, and they were granted their startup business visas by the end of June 2023.

Transforming an akiya into a guesthouse

While they were sorting out their visa applications, the couple also purchased their first akiya, which would be turned into the guesthouse.

Their property-hunting process was smooth because they had been looking at listings even before they left the US. Their eventual plan was to have two akiya — one for the guesthouse and one as their own residence.

"We had a list of houses on Omishima that we wanted to check out in person when we finally made it here," Evan, 41, told BI.

While viewing an akiya — which they would eventually purchase as their residence — their real-estate agent showed them another akiya nearby that hadn't been listed online yet.

The latter was owned by a 75-year-old Japanese man who still lived in the neighborhood. His parents used to live in the house, but they died a decade ago. The house has been untouched ever since, and there were even pieces of furniture left behind.

"That ended up being the guesthouse that we bought," Evan, a former massage therapist, said. "We found our house first, but then we bought the guesthouse first."

They paid 1 million Japanese yen, or about $6,500, for their guesthouse.

"It's like the ultimate recycling project," Dani said. "It's literally saving a whole house and as much of the contents as we could."

Thankfully, the akiya was in pretty good condition, and they were able to live in it during the renovation.

"It was mainly cosmetic, so it was just a lot of things that took so much time to clean," Evan said.

The akiya even had a modern toilet that was already connected to the city sewage system.

"But we didn't have hot water for a long time, so while we were doing the renovation, we would have to go down to the public bath," Dani said.

The couple did the bulk of the work themselves and even documented the renovation process on their YouTube channel.

However, they did hire some contractors for assistance since they had a six-month deadline to get their guesthouse up and running.

"If we had had a whole year to do it, we could have done it ourselves," Dani said.

The couple says they spent about $19,000 on the akiya renovation and $5,000 on furniture, appliances, and other household items.

Guesthouse for rent on Airbnb

Dani and Evan aren't alone in being drawn to these old, vacant homes in the Japanese countryside. Due to the shrinking population and internal migration, Japan has millions of unoccupied houses in rural areas.

However, thanks to the low prices and the lack of restrictions on foreigners purchasing property, more and more foreigners are choosing to buy these old homes and breathe new life into them.

The couple's guesthouse is available for rent on Airbnb from 20,000 Japanese yen a night.

They hosted their first guests in November last year, and when their six-month startup business visa was due the following month, the couple obtained a business manager visa.

Omishima is in the middle of a series of six islands that are connected by a long suspension bridge known as the Shimanami Kaido, a famous biking route and tourist attraction.

There is a grocery store and a few local restaurants nearby, as well as a popular shrine and a samurai museum on the island, Dani said.

Like many places in Japan, Omishima is also very safe, Dani said: "We never lock our doors."

Now that the couple has gotten their guesthouse up and running, they'll be focusing their energy on turning the other akiya they bought — which is two minutes away — into their home.

"It was abandoned for 40 years, so it has a lot of work needed," Dani said.

In addition, they're working to establish their farm and honey production business.

"We enjoyed Mexican food and really missed it in Japan, so essentially, we're focusing on Mexican vegetables, growing tomatoes, tomatillos, and all kinds of hot peppers," Evan said.

As for honey production, the couple just harvested their first batch of honey from their 12 bee colonies, he added.

The couple has been living in Japan for almost two years, and the biggest lifestyle change they've noticed is that they're more connected with their local community than they were back in the US.

Not only do they know more of their neighbors, the couple also has closer relationships with them.

"Everyone lives in the same sort of concentrated area, and then they all go out to their fields and meet each other on the way," Evan said. "So we're always having saying hi to people in the street."

Have you recently relocated to a new country and found your dream home? If you have a story to share, contact this reporter at [email protected].