A worker sorts parcels on the intelligent delivery line at a transfer station of SF-Express in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Photo: IC PHOTO

At present, artificial intelligence (AI), a strategic technology driving ongoing sci-tech and industrial revolutions, is advancing at an unprecedented rate, reshaping the ecosystems of various professions and vocations. Parcel delivery, a quintessential labor-intensive industry, is among the first to be affected by AI. Current data reveals that nearly 4.9 million people work in the parcel delivery sector in China, and this number continues to rise.

Benefits

With the support of AI, intelligentization and digitalization are accelerating within the delivery industry. Smart systems, such as robotic scheduling and intelligent warehouse management, have become instrumental, while drones, autonomous vehicles, and smart lockers have become everyday conveniences.

The integration of AI with parcel delivery has greatly improved work efficiency and effectively reduced logistic costs, meeting the demands of modern societal development. As AI continues to accelerate its integration into the industry, the labor patterns of employees, including their working hours, tasks, locations, and methodologies, have undergone profound changes. Most tasks previously handled by workers, such as warehousing, packaging, sorting, loading, and distribution, can now be performed largely with the help of intelligent robots. This has led to the emergence of new roles for workers, such as intelligent robot interpreters, operators, and maintenance specialists, unlocking their new skills. Accordingly, human-machine collaboration and integration will become a new trend for the future development of the parcel delivery industry.

Threats and challenges

However, the application and development of AI in this sector has also introduced new hidden shackles on the career development of delivery workers, presenting both threats and challenges.

First, “technological alienation” has increased work intensity. While AI has significantly improved production efficiency in the parcel delivery industry, it has not lightened the burden on delivery workers or increased their free time. Manipulated by capital, AI is also severely alienating laborers, much like previous technologies. In the pursuit of maximizing profits, it has blurred the boundaries between work and life in a more subtle way, through both online and offline, flexible and diverse work models. This forces delivery workers to be on call at all hours and everywhere, with their personal time being absorbed into the cycle of capital accumulation. As a result, long working hours will become a norm within the delivery sector. Even when workers feel dispirited and attempt to rise up proactively, AI will take measures such as persuasion, point ranking, and prioritized assignment to “drive” them to continue working. Nowadays, factors such as working hours, order volume, and customer ratings are used to evaluate workers’ performance. To earn more, they must often double their efforts and devote more labor hours, which will inevitably lead to extended shifts, increased intensity, a deteriorating work environment, and, ultimately, deterioration in their physical and mental wellbeing.

Second, “digital surveillance” has eroded delivery workers’ autonomous space. Through the advanced implementation of AI, the express delivery industry has developed a highly intelligent and digitized working environment where all resources and information are integrated into a centralized intelligent system. This enables comprehensive, real-time monitoring of workers’ activities, creating what some describe as a “panoramic prison.” Every aspect of the labor processes, from delivery routes to estimated completion times, is predesigned by the intelligent system based on the principles of efficiency and convenience. Under this pervasive supervision, workers have little choice but to comply, completing tasks within tight timeframes. Consequently, their autonomous space is being drastically diminished and eroded, while their creativity and freedom are considerably undermined.

Third, algorithmic discrimination has weakened the professional identity of delivery workers. This form of bias arises from flawed or incomplete data analysis in AI applications, leading to systemic unfair worker treatment. In AI-driven recruitment, algorithmic discrimination manifests in biases and discrimination related to age, gender, education, and other factors, which prevent some job seekers from competing fairly for positions. Such practices compromise employment fairness and contribute to mismatched job placements and distorted labor structures. Within the labor process, algorithmic discrimination surfaces in the management and evaluation of employees, often unfairly reflecting the interests of companies rather than workers’ realities. This can result in unjust decisions, pushing workers to violate traffic rules to meet algorithm-driven targets, thereby endangering their safety and social development in general. The existence of algorithmic discrimination may deprive the express delivery sector of humanistic concern as well as fairness and justice, consequently undermining the professionalism of its workers.

Fourth, data abuse has become a serious threat to the privacy and security of delivery workers. In order to achieve lean management and provide customized services, the express delivery industry has increasingly relied on AI for data collection, processing, and analysis. In this process, workers’ personal information, such as identity and family background, is digitized and integrated into intelligent systems. However, this creates vulnerabilities to hacker attacks, data abuse, and leaks, which jeopardize the workers’ privacy and security. Moreover, once this information is acquired by criminals, it is likely to breed various new forms of fraud. Additionally, the flawed or biased analysis of large datasets by intelligent systems may lead to deviations from human ethics in decision-making and management, which will exacerbate social divisions and contradictions while disrupting the established moral frameworks of workers.

Furthermore, the application of AI in the express delivery industry may pose new risks and challenges, such as deteriorating business environments and a potential social trust crisis, which may exacerbate the alienation of its workers.

Despite these concerns, there is no need for undue pessimism. AI is not an uncontrollable beast; it is essentially an objectified product created by humans—a tool to meet people’s diverse survival and development needs. Moreover, the development of highly intelligent, strong AI remains a distant goal. For the foreseeable future, AI will continue to complement rather than substantially replace human labor. While AI has remarkable advantages, it also has limitations when compared to humans.

Wu Yulong is from the School of Marxism at Southwest University.