Boston Dynamics’s first purpose-built robot can unload 350 boxes per hour.

For all their forklifts and conveyor belts and automatic sorting systems, many warehouses around the world could not operate without a person at a loading bay pulling boxes out of the back of a truck. The hand loading and unloading of boxes, as antiquated as it sounds, is commonplace in shipping for industries ranging from groceries to apparel, to the return operations for most consumer goods.