Hard on the heals of robots getting “bullied” …
… are humans now “stealing” robot’s jobs?
No.
As Forbes notes, it is more an evolution of robotics within the auto industry. Big clunky first generation industrial robots are being replaced by smaller more agile machines which can work more safely and efficiently alongside human workers. A couple of years ago Toyota also started changing how people and robots work in their assembly plants, putting greater emphasis on human craftsmanship in some areas.
I noted this collaborative robot trend several years ago, and it is now hitting the factory floor. People are better, at the moment, doing a broader range and more delicate tasks.
As the International Federation of Robotics points out there is still a steady stream of robots entering industrial service.
This video about robotics in a BMW factory (ignoring the PR) illustrates how production lines are now operating.
And here is a nice demonstration of an even more “collaborative” industrial robot under development
This evolving relationship is likely to accelerate as systems improving the ability of robots to learn improves.
Robots that attempt to read your emotions, and respond appropriately seem just creepy at the moment. But that too will change. At the same time we too will evolve in how we think, feel about, and interact with them.
2 Responses to “Poor robots?”
Atlas the next generation video very interesting. This is obviously testing. But it disturbingly reminds me of parts of ‘the second renaissance’ in the Animatrix (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix). Are we heading there, or somewhere near there? Will robots of this kind will be militarised? Will robots of this kind be the target of real human hatred? Will robots of this kind come to possess something akin to hatred in kind for humanity? IMHO, all possible. Lets hope not, though.
Robots are already “militarised” – mainly as bomb-disposal machines, and unmanned vehicles (aka, drones). Boston Dynamics is developing a range of robots for military use. The Pentagon says that it wants a “human in the loop” that makes decisions on when to shoot. There is, though, a lot of concern about creating “killer robots” – http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/280012/scientists-warn-of-killer-robots. Interestingly, Alphabet (aka Google) is the new owner of Boston Dynamics, so they run a big risk for overall social and economic viability if they start producing robots that harm people.
Other research indicates that we’ll treat robots nicely if we see them as helpful – http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/01/28/170272582/do-we-treat-our-gadgets-like-they-re-human. Although, we may even obey robots if they are hopeless, or hapless, or untrustworthy if we regard them as authority figures – http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2016/03/georgia_tech_researchers_determine_the_inherent_trust_between_humans_and.html.
“Hatred” isn’t the appropriate term – what will their responses be if humans prevent them carrying out tasks? The field of machine ethics is a rapidly developing field taht is looking at this – http://www.nature.com/news/machine-ethics-the-robot-s-dilemma-1.17881