Are robots and automated systems going to replace human workers? And if so, what then? The fear about automation has a long history and it's not an irrational fear.
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Here in the united states, we are celebrating labour day.
A federal holiday here. The states also one that I find really interesting
as its all about celebrating the american labour movement, but if you pay attention
especially in the tax base. There are a lot of entities out there, a lot of companies that are
eagerly opposing the labour movement and trying to do things like prevent
or workers from organizing and forming unions yeah a complicated there,
that we have a holiday to celebrate it, and yet we have plenty of examples of companies,
and organizations out their dedicated to preventing.
more labour organization from happening.
Let's put aside, all of that, I thought
were on holiday. Today I want
make sure that you had an episode anyway.
so we're going to actually listen to an episode that came out a few years ago, back in twenty twenty july thirteenth, twenty twenty in fact is titled the rule
but our coming for your job, and it's all about
robots and automated systems and d, the ends
eddie that exists around this idea of automation, eliminating jobs, which I think has only become
even more of a talking point in the wake of things like gender,
to have a I, for example. So, let's listen to this purpose
from twenty twenty. The robots are coming
for your job now chat with
begin at the end.
I read a lot of tact news and sometimes that ends up inspiring me to do an episode of text stuff then
happened to me recently when I read:
this headline off of the website text spot
sony factory assembles ps for in thirty seconds, only four
for humans involved in the process appears
in case, you are not aware, is a play station for video game console, so this factory can be
a video game console from parts in half a minute and only four
human beings touch the ding dang thing in the process.
for humans by the way are involved in
beginning and the end of the process, two of them load, mother boards onto the assembly line and a motherboard as the primary circuit board for a computer system,
and the other two human beings, or at the end of the assembly line and their job is to package the completed consuls, all
Actual assembly work is done by robots. Now you
maybe experiencing a couple of different responses to this information. I know I did
Those was wow, that's
seriously impressive, the ps bore lake.
A computer systems has a lot
components, many of which attached to one another by wire or cable, so these robots,
have to be able to take these flexible component
and to join them in their proper anchor points with the approach
the amount of pressure and precision to make a good connection
if any of you out there have ever build your own pc. You know that please,
in cables in can get a little tricky depending on the layout of the mother board and the various components and a view.
Someone like me, your likely putting stuff together only to realise that maybe you should have done some of that before you mounted them in a computer case, has now
don't have the space to working properly, so
pretty darn impressive- that robots can do this consistently and correctly at that level of speed. Another
response I had was scared of scary. I mean
Typically, you would have dozens of people employed on the assembly line to do this sort of work, but in this factory it's been stripped down
thirty two robots and for human beings at the article on
export points out, that twenty six of those thirty two robots are just attaching flexible com,
hold it together inside the council
Now I have no idea how much these robots cost, but I wager
that they are expensive enough to equal the salary of a standard human employee on the assembly line. However,
I'll pay robots. You do it
spend money to maintain and repair them, but assuming whatever you're making is going to be around for a little while
I'll pay for themselves because eventually, you'll get up
where the salaries you'd be paying for humans would be more than the purchase and maintenance costs of the robots and the
Increase in efficiency means
can produce a whole lot more staff in a given amount of time. Then you would, with a human centric assembly line, so you'll have more product to sell a shorter amount of time. When you start
crunching numbers you,
cover your robotic assembly line, can make more staff at a lower cost over a given period of time. Like you know, over a couple of years than what you would come
lynch with human beings on that assembly line. So you
I have to worry about the robots taking a vacation. They don't take sick time billion. Take the night off, they can work around the clock.
They don't need health insurance, though I would guess that most companies insured.
heck Ella, these things just in case one breaks down, but from a fine
your point of view, they make sense if your billing stuff, at a large enough scale stuff like video game councils,
play station for its
oh brainer because
I console has sold around one hundred ten million units so far
That's a number large enough that I can't even imagine what it would look like if you had all those consuls together in one place. So if there's
not demand for you to sell a hundred
ten million whatever it is. You want to sell need debt
have a way to to make those as efficiently as possible, and that will help maximize your profits and the more efficient process. The more compare
lively, you can price your product and still make a profit
but the idea robots performing jobs. Far more effectively, consistently and efficiently than humans,
raises a lot of questions, and these are not new questions either, but they
Our questions like, if more
factories rely on robots for production, particularly taking. If those robots can be programmed to produce new products once older
let's go obsolete. Why
to the job market. What
to the millions of people who work in manufacturing on assembly lives, where will they go
What will this due to economies around the world? Lots of me
I've tried to answer these questions, sometimes giving drastically different answers.
and we're going to take a look at the history and evolution of industrial robots in this episode and
applause? The ramifications of automated manufacturing
and this is where I die-
into history. I've taught
but the history of robots before so I'll try
aid to restrict my focus to industrial robots.
before I get into that. Let's just address the fact that,
The use of machinery to increase efficiency has been a controversial subjects long before
ever was such a thing as a robot. Generally,
speaking
machines are meant to make work easier,
or in some cases, make the work possible just to begin with
They are labour saving devices requiring humans to put forth less effort.
at the same or better results. This applies
as to the simplest of machines, amene stuff, like leavers or pulleys, or an incline plain, and it applies.
as the very complex machines as well before the
industrial revolution most stuff, like textiles
is made by craftspeople out of their own homes. This was,
Literally the cottage industry trade.
People would travel and become the lifeline for the cottage industry supplying raw materials buying finished products
and selling those products off at a profit elsewhere. Many tradespeople build a good deal of wealth were
in this way and they had the means to look at alternatives to this decentralized cottage industry approach, an idea
began to form if you brought
gather craftspeople to a centralized location. And if you simplified the process of production, you can make way more.
Of which in turn means you could sell way more stuff which,
in turn means you can make way more money and money makes the world go round.
This thought process helped fuel a similar line of thinking,
you could design machines that could do a lot of work that typically felt a skilled craftspeople. You
need the craftspeople at all. You could train any one,
even if that person had no experience with the process. Just a
the machine and, while I might
years of dedication to go through the process of being in a print.
Just to learn a trade while enough, so that you can actually make a living at it with a machine. You can skip right over that as law
does, the machines in product was good enough. It did
you have to be better than the stuff craftspeople were making. It just had to be good enough.
and cheap enough and fast enough to produce. Then you can
all the finished product at a lower cost than what craftspeople would charge, because not much time and effort went into making the thing. Now. I guess it's clean
You talk about this well using an example. So let's go with a poster child for the industrial revolution, weaving the
leaving trade is an ancient one.
Requires a good deal of skill to do it well by hand in the
eight seventeen hundreds, a man named Edmund car.
Right. Pandered, loom, powered by a water wheel, the loom
operation was such that a person
at no training and weaving could offer
the machine and produce finished textiles car.
Design would be built up
on by other inventors who had turned to steam power and other means to operate the power loom. Many car
which industry weavers found themselves out of work. They could
potentially ought to work in the textile factories as those
popping up all over the place, particularly in england
the wages were low.
as you can imagine, this,
didn't sit well with the weavers. There were protests.
including some that incorporated violence and destruction. Ultimately, the factory process
on out and along with it, some
really awful working conditions followed, including stuff like child labour and ridiculously low wages and dangerous working conditions. This lead to more protest
including the type that would give us the word sabotage and let's get a quick site.
Note on that one as it
is the source of a little mythology or misinformation. See the appeal
the full story goes that the word sabotage come
from the word sambo, which described,
The wooden shoes warned by laborers, mainly dutch labourers, but I'll
the labourers in france
According to the story, these laborers war, those shoes and use them to great effect in an effort to protest the conditions in factories they would
cause their wooden shoes into the machinery to break the very
is gears and litter.
The grind production to a halt, as it were. But this story, while compelling, isn't really the
bruce sabotage does stem from the word sambo. But in french there is a verb
somebody
this verb means to make a loud noise with wooden shoes. Now
a great that there's a verb for that
and it makes sense wooden shoes would make a great deal of racket as be bored. Walk around heck of
If a toddler war wooden shoes, I think it would probably sound as though the world were shaking apart, I don't know
toddlers managed to sound like they weigh eight hundred pounds, but they do it and if
We have a toddler. You know
I'm talking about and in
culture of france. The idea of a clumsy slow worker was often linked to someone who wore wooden shoes because their awkward to wear and
way. The reasons about hey led to sabotage is because factory workers who were approach
testing their work conditions and wages would purposefully
work more slowly and less efficiently. In order to effect the
roll output of a factory, there was
into a similar strategy that british
laborers employed and their version was called cacophony.
It was a saying from scotland, which essentially means don't do so.
Much man
now. I would argue this also feeds into a strategy that we see to this very day in certain government offices, where the ideas
there is no need to do too much too quickly, as it doesn't result in increased compensation, and it also sets a really high bar of expectations. So why not-
take it easy now have a coffee break, though in the
the twentieth century. People began to use the word sabotage to really refer to a purposeful approach to undermining the output of factories.
and I had nothing to do with tossing wooden shoes into machinery, though it did also pertained
instances in which workers purposefully damaged equipment, and
I d slow down the production that way
while this isn't directly tied to the idea that machines themselves are displacing workers, it is related to the effect that moving toward a manufacturing based economy and how that allows for the exploitation of workers, the machine,
themselves- aren't really at fault, but they for civil.
Take the system of operations that leads to exploitation. Now that something that
a theme in this episode- and we cannot ignore the social aspect of what's going on here, or else we missed the whole point. But let's skip ahead. I've spoken about this before
but we get the word robot. From a czech author named coral compaq, he wrote
a play called rostrums universal robots or are you are in nineteen? Twenty compaq took an older word raw botha, which means forced labour.
in Europe. This concept was tied to that of the old system of serfdom, in which peace
would do work on behalf of a landowner in return. Those
people would be allowed to live on part of that landowners land in our,
you are factory
where's devise away to build laborers from raw materials in the play. They are
indistinguishable from humans other than they have. No
her desires, but in the course of the past,
These laborers eventually take over all the jobs that humans previously held
and humans themselves become a threatened species.
as these laborers begin to understand the power that they hold by occupying
the positions of employment, including as soldiers in the military, and so will you
introduction of the concept of robot. We actually get the very first robotic uprising, all the way back in nineteen twenty see, I told you
an old idea, it's him
port to remember that, in the play, the role
lots are nearly identical to humans. They, they aren't mechanic
the way our robots of today are but the idea,
of creating machines that can do work without a will of their own is a part of
robotics in general, and industrial robotics in particular,
when we come back we'll talk about,
the earliest industrial robots and what they did. But first, let's take a quick break
paper gas listeners returning for season for is the restless ones and original podcast presented by t mobile for business, and I heart radio.
join me as I sit down for in depth discussions with the people at the intersection of technology and business, learn of their unique missions and challenges to enhance, optimization and drive their organizations forward. We reveal how
Today's forward thinking leaders continue to thrive and a world of ever changing technology,
here from those on the leading edge of business, share industry, expertise and how a strong, inflexible network lays the foundation for positive changes in their fields. For
revolutions and customer experience and employee enable meant to
it is with the power to change the game and even the world they are building a bridge to what's next and adopting transport
technologies like five g to create a more connected and meaningful future today check out new
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in a world where modern technology is rapidly reshaping our day to day lives. The new podcast technically speaking and intel podcast uncovers the remarkable ways. Tec is improving our livelihood across the globe, brought to you by Ruby studios from my heart media in partnership with intel. Technically speaking, is your passport to the forefront of a eyes ma
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the prime video sports. This is the biggest experiment that we've ever seen in college football a new day. He always remains really strong in front of all of us. The coaches had many complications: blood clots in his legs. All access see what he's going through make you want to push even harder, no filter when you feel confident black man sitting up and talking to stop. Oh, don't like that. Guy's work about to get comfortable the day they know regular game is personal. The change in the face of college football fizdale, the new season now streaming only on prime video
it's interesting to me that the attack world adopted the term robot when we think about the origins of that word in complex work,
Robots were sunshine and slaves they could perform. The
humans would otherwise do, but they
I'd be emotions that humans have and the who
idea is that these
Ices could do our work for us without question or protest. They would
in theory, indeed
the conditions that people wouldn't or couldn't, but in the play they
ultimately led to the destruction of the human race and potentially
become the new dominant species on the planet, nice.
potentially because part of the place plight invites
was the destruction of the formula that scientists used to produce the robots in the first place. That is unimportant plot point.
Robots are not sure how
make more robots, so they might just die out
That seems to me as though, that
a pretty emotionally charged term, to adopt for an entire discipline of technology right robots, especially
you are actually aware of that play and by the way I recommend people read it. It's a good play
and a lot of people are not aware of the origins of the word or at least not beyond, knowing that it came from a play in the nineteen twenties. So I guess for them. It's just you know a word.
a robot by any other name, would smell is sweet as it were and we
definitely seen the themes of are. You are serving as an undercurrent for stuff, that's happening and robotics in general.
but let's move ahead in nineteen, fifty four
an engineer named george of all designed
industrial robot. He was nine years old when compact coin,
the term robot. He could
his design. The programmed article transfer device for which he received a you,
spend in nineteen sixty one
This machine was robotic arm and it was capable of picking up something
and in transferring it a shoe
distance away
within reach of the arm. The arm itself couldn't move. It was anchored in place it get off.
oh, follow. In fact this is the important part. It would follow a pre programmed series of instructions to do this
Devolves argument were his device. Was that, up to this point, mechanical handling of objects fell into two broad categories:
Either stuff got moved by humans. Typically operate
now powerful machine like a crane or a forklift ores.
I've got moved by a device that operated under can control
and you will control is self explanatory. So, let's talk about cams, a cam,
rotating component in machinery. Typically
A cam has some variation in its surface. So
the star with a we'll. Just imagine a wheel that is spinning on an actual. Well you'd,
typically have a perfectly smooth we'll as a cam part of that service might be flat or
might have dips in it, and
when the cam rotates these variations apply force to some other mechanical component that has held a
the camp,
It causes that mechanical component to move in specific ways, a cat,
operating system can work on its own, but it will always
repeat, the exact same motions as long as everything is working, it'll, just repeat those
once the cams complete a full systematic rotation. You can't really adapted
do anything else, the movements depend entirely on the cams themselves. So if you will
to do something else. You would first have to swap out the cams.
And even then you would be under whatever
Limitations of the device was it
I like it when have full range of motion moral
at this level of specialization also means that its typically really expensive to upon camp based systems. So
It was really only useful if the application had to do with mass manufacturing or else you're looking at economic loss. The cost of the system was just too much so devalued
proposing a machine that could be programmed to do operator
and this would lead a programmer, create different processes using the same machine or you could get a whole body
of the same basic machine
and programme each one to do a particular job. Meanwhile, you'd free people up to
work on other stuff in the manufacturing process, and you could take the most dangerous stuff and give it to the robots
The story goes, the devil was at a party in nineteen. Fifty six any gone to a conversation with a man named Joseph ingle burger
Joseph was a scientist and an entrepreneur and when the subject turned to devolve programmed article,
transfer device, as well as the work of a science,
author known as isaac ass above the other, the father
robotics. He famously incorporated a concept of the laws of robotics in his works.
We won't really go into then this episode, but the law
the robotic still play a big part in the distance
in robotics in general, but it's kind of outside the the focus of the
Episode angle burger used his connections to get funding for devolved, to create a more advanced version of the programmed article transfer machine.
and it would be a robotic arm capable of making repeated precise movements while holding very heavy objects. They called
the unit mate you and I m a tea and the first prototype
unit, zero, zero one would go
Two general motors to work on a die casting assembly line now occurring
The company robot works that sir w o r acts this robot
Us around sixty five thousand dollars to produce an ngo burger sold it off at a tremendous loss. Gentleman
There's only paid eighteen thousand dollars for a sixty
I've thousand dollar machine, but ingle burger really wanted to establish that robotics wear away to perform repetitive dangerous functions at a lower risk to humans.
welding die cast. Components on auto bodies was a great first application of industrial robots. For a few reasons,
die. Casting is a process
as involving molten metal. You take
a molten metal, and you force it into steel molds, and these are what are called dies- the molten.
Oh cools and the exact shape. The mould, sir
This is a way to make or cast a bunch of identical parts out of metal and get consistent quality out of it were, then. You know
forging each piece and then setting them together.
died, can have complex shapes in it, such as external threads, which means you
I have to make
a pipe for example and then do a secondary process on that pipe to get the result,
you want, so you would have to carve those threads into a others.
Its smooth pie. You could just cast the pipe with the
reds incorporated on it already, but
holding die cast parts under otto bodies is hard work. The components are really heavy, so you're at risk of immediate injury. If something goes wrong, like let's say you drop away
the component on your foot or you might develop a repetitive stress, injury after going through the same welding motions over and over again. In addition, the
fumes given off while welding were sometimes toxic, still
I'm so it's not great to have people expect
so then for very long. So
robot was a great substitute for a person. The robot can handle much greater weight than people. Could the robot didn't breathe so there is,
respiratory issue there and it didn't get tired.
In a wood where down over time, but you can repair it and fairly short order. The unit worked with computer control,
hydraulic systems, a hydraulic system uses a liquid, that's under pressure in order to do work like pushing against a pistol.
our an actuator of some sort like lift a platform,
unum, eight zero zero one weighed twenty seven hundred pounds or about one thousand two hundred twenty five kilograms, and it could work
twenty four hours a day, placing components for the precision of within one fifty thousandth, of an inch
now not gonna. Do the conversion on that, because I think it's sufficient to say that it was just
billy precise
according to a charmingly dated newsreel from Britain complete with
swinging. Sixties music, that sounded like it came straight out. An austin powers movie, the robot could offer
four five hundred hours without the need for a human to check in on it angle, burger
A savvy businessmen and promoter would arrange for unit to show what it could do at trade shows and on tv appearances, including why,
on the tonight show, with Johnny Carson
don't know who that is, ask your parents and if they don't know, ask your grandparents
by nineteen. Sixty nine general motors had jumped on board the robot train as it were they
we rebuilt manufacturing plant in lords town ohio and they installed unit robots to perform spot welding on car bodies and the result.
spoke for themselves. The plant was capable
of producing one hundred ten cars per hour, which was more than double the speed that the plant could manage both,
or the installation of the robots, the business
case for the robot seem clear after a hefty up front cause,
You could produce way more stuff per day and as long as the demand for that stuff is high enough, they could
in greater revenue, you got
so bring the cost of production for an individual unit down there
good past savings on the customers and get really competitive with your or you could,
keep everything price the same and try to increase your profit margin. The kid
all this was that you had to be sure the thing you were producing would bring,
enough money to offset the cost of automation.
So it would not make sense to spend millions of dollars building out a factory staff with robots if you were made
something that had a very small market to begin with, yes, you'd be
produce way more watch, my college than you could before, but if
demand for watch. My college is really modest
that doesn't do you any good? In fact, you might end up
thing: the market and devaluing your product. So
Robots were taking on jobs that were previously held by humans. There is no real danger of a mass of upheaval where everything would be automated
mutations in the technology were just too great and the cost was too high for most companies to go that route
and this also became the starting point for something that would become really important.
That the main goal of developing industrial robots wasn't to displace humans. It was meant to offer.
the duties that were dull, dirty or danger.
As you often hear those terms being used with robotics, if it is a job, they carries with it a significant risk to the person performing it origin.
of so demanding that you can only expect a person to stick with it for a short while before they need to do something else.
Then building a robot to do that job, or at least that list of tasks makes sense. The robot is just a thing
can endure conditions that humans, cat and it doesn't get sick and it doesn't get hurt them
breaks down. You can typically repair it pretty quickly. We humans
We have that luxury.
I'm going to go and run down a full history of all industrial robots cause, though it mostly
involve me talking about model numbers with slight differences like the number
vaccines of movement or points of articulation for one robot verses. Another and that's not really interesting. By do when I had a couple of highlights, one
is that in nineteen, seventy five, the s
a I r b robot would be. The first
fully electrically driven robot
It also used entails first chip set as processors now,
This was not a super strong robot, because those electrically driven limbs just can't pack the same
punch as a hydraulic system, which typically moves much more slowly but can have
though much heavier payloads, so
particular robot could only lift waits up to around thirteen pounds or six kilograms, but they move
lord processors and electrically driven components marked a big technological step, even if the arms fist.
Ok capabilities were much less impressive than a hydraulic, says:
by the end of the nineteenth seventies. Japan was
into the robotics game, with arc welding, robots for assembly lines and then
it was off to the robotic races with the eighties, seeing a surge in advances.
industrial robots,
Soon, massive manufacturing facilities were installing robots to take over elements of the assembly line process, particularly in that dirty dull and dangerous category. The row
once became more sophisticated, which also added
to their value when we can.
back I'll talk more about. Why that's important, but first, let's take another quick break,
hey podcast listeners returning for season for is the restless ones and original podcast presented by t mobile for business, and I heart radio.
Join me as I sit down for in depth discussions with the people at the intersection of technology and business, learn of their unique missions and challenges to enhance, optimization and drive their organizations forward. We reveal how.
today's forward thinking leaders continue to thrive and a world of ever changing technology
here from those on the leading edge of business, share industry, expertise and how a strong, inflexible network lays the foundation for positive changes in their fields.
Revolutions and customer experience and employee enable meant to
ideas with the power to change the game and even the world. They are building a bridge to what's next and adopting transfer
The technologies, like five g to create a more connected and meaningful future today check out new
the soul of the restless ones. Away.
On the iheartradio, app apple, podcast or wherever you listened to podcasts.
In a world where modern technology is rapidly reshaping our day to day lives. The new podcast technically speaking and intel podcast uncovers the remarkable ways. Tat is improving our livelihood across the globe, brought to you by Ruby studios from my heart media in partnership with intel. Technically speaking, is your passport to the forefront of a eyes,
our goals and modern technology. Each episode will take you on a riveting journey, as you discover the awe inspiring innovations of our modern world from game chain
innovations, revolutionizing early cancer detection to a software, the detects pests on crops that can be detrimental to seasonal yields, tune in for commerce,
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by the mid nineteen nine. These robotics companies were making machines that could coordinate and synchronize the movements of more than one robot at the same time, allowing
more complex manufacturing processes by the
they two thousands. There were systems that could synchronize the actions of up to four robots at a time for
adding to the overall system, flexibility, ability,
in earlier that a programmable robot is more versatile than something like a cam operated system. Well, more sophisticated
robots with more access of motion and more points of articulation have the potential to do lots of different types of joy.
Jobs, and this is of critical importance if the robot is too limited, if it can only do a a small range of motions, you can
necessarily re purpose it for new processes and as markets change. You may find
self needing to be flexible when it comes to the stuff, your manufacturing, so as use an extreme hypothetical example that would probably never
happen. So let's say that you run an auto manufacturing facility
but then there is a massive market change and drastically affair
the demand for your cars. There's just not enough demand to support their the production,
so, rather than just you know,
opening up shop and calling it a day, europe
as decides to do an amazing pivot, and you begin to convert your manufacturing facility over to dine on no one home, applying
Now again, this is an extreme hypothetical example, but let's just go with it: okay, so hearing up
If the robots on your assembly line are powerful but limited in movement and function, you may find it implies.
Well to adapt them to your new line of business, which would mean unita,
either invest in new robots or
have to hire human workers to put together your appliances
and it would also mean that your old robots would be a sunk cost. You would need to either sell them off or put them in storage or something. If the
What are really sophisticated, however, you might be able to program them to do some of the operations on the new assembly line and thou.
keep them useful when lower the cost of production or for aid.
less extreme example. You
introduce a new model of whatever a thing. It is that you're producing anything new will require adjustments in the assembly line process and, if the chain
These are big enough. The robots may not be able to make his
A good contribution in the process that something that
could happen with the example of the play station. We were talking about yeah. Those robots can put together a pious foreign thirty seconds. There's no guarantee they'll be able to do the same thing with a p s, five
these, not without a major overhaul of their assembly line system, while
manufacturing facility, can turn out a finnish p s in thirty seconds. We,
might not see them work at all with ps, five, at least not right away. It would all have to be optimized silver dec.
Its industrial robots were kept as separate from human workers, as was possible. You wanted,
keep them,
well away from all the people were.
If the people well away from all the robots. Often the robots would operate within cages. Specify
glad to limit the possibility of a human coming within range after
All these robots are large, their heavy their powerful.
and many of them are incapable of sensing stuff in their environment
and whether or not a human is within their range of motion. Instead, there just going through that
he programme series of motions and they're not gonna.
stop, unless someone turns off a robot is
forming that same series of steps over and over, and that can mean that if a human
at area
gets near the robot. They could end up getting injured or worse, and in fact this has happened several times over the course of the last few decades.
And at least in some cases it seems-
though, the robot might have been at fault, meaning it's not always a case of human carelessness, for example.
An engineer and twenty fifteen died when a robot arm from one section of the factory floor,
of beyond its operating area and in
to the neighbouring section that the engine
There was working on this issue
that should not have happened, the robot arm should not have moved that far into
The neighbouring section
the robot arm head, the engineer on the head and she'd later died from her injuries in the
it states the gun,
that has listed thirty three workplace deaths due
accidents with industrial robots between the years. Nineteen, eighty four and two thousand fourteen
the investigations also found
The majority of those tragedies was typically the fault of human error
There was a person who was wandering into the operation zone of a robot that two thou
fifteen incident was
outlier nodded any
makes the thought of working around industrial robots, less scary or those other accidents, any less tragic, they're all terribly tragic moral
were we're seeing more robots that are capable of roaming. A work spent
They are no longer anchored to a specific spot on the floor. In some cases they also, unlike the first industrial robots, typically
of external sensors. These not only help the robots, navigate their environments, but also, hopefully, of
accidents with human workers. Let's try
amazon's warehouse robots, for example, these robots look like really big, robotic vacuum cleaners. They are designed to roll under shelves, and the shells are just now slightly larger than the demon.
Of the robot and
when an order comes in a robot from the warehouse rolls over to a shelf that holds the respect of item on it. According to the inventory system,
and the robot, those under the
just then lifts the shelf by raising a platter like platform on the top of the robot. Think of it like a little forklift, except it's more. Like a, I don't know,
like a trade that a waiter would use to carry drinks to a table, but it carry
the whole shelf up an overt
hu the edge of a cage where human operator will take the respective I
I'm off the shelf and scan it and put it into a bin
then those bends go to other humans who first
her scan those items and then put it.
two other bans that ultimately go to the packing department
You watch videos of these robots. It looks like they're doing a complicated ballet as they maneuver through this warehouse, avoiding other robots and shelves as they bring those shelves to humans.
markings on the warehouse floor. Tell them
but where they are with respect to everything else in the warehouse and the robots, even will position shelves
that have items that are being ordered a lot toward the edges of this space so that their easier to get
two and move them over to the human beings
It's kind of an interesting dynamic system. It's not like they pick up the shelf,
and bring the shelf immediately right back to where it started. The shelf can end up in a different location entirely.
In addition, cameras give the robots the ability to sense any obstacles that my block their path, allowing the robot to come to a stop and await further instructions and report that
It has found something unusual on the warehouse floor. Even so,
Typically, humans are not allowed to roam the area where the robots pick up shelves, if so
has fallen in the warehouse floor. A designated troubleshooter gets an alert and that person must use
interface, to draw the path that they are going to take from the entrance of the cage,
All the way to the point of trial
like let's say that approach
has fallen out of a shelf and has hit the floor, and robot has reported it you
use a tablet. If you're the troubleshooter use a tablet, any would draw almost like a maze, the path he would take to get to them.
particular item, and you would follow that path out and back
in addition, you'd, where a radio transmitter
it would send a signal out that the robots could all detect and now an alert the robots to the presence of you, the troubleshooter that
helps prevent a situation in which the robots are going to collide with you
you wanna, avoid that
now, there's a lot of work that goes into designing robots, thickened, interoperable and space. That's occupied by humans, in it
very challenging line of technology because it takes more than just thinking about how the machines work? You also have to think about how people
work and, moreover, you have to think about how people-
change the way they work when they're in the company of a robot,
it's kind of similar
hu the concept in court.
tom theory right. The idea that you change
just saying you observe just through the act of observation? Well,
you can have a work space that humans had only been working and for a while,
you could say I will. I have observed how the humans work and I'm going to build a robot. Does this one task that the humans do and
I'm just gonna corporate right into their work space, but
you find out that when you do that the humans all behave in a new way, because there's a new thing in the environment that you
in account. For and now the design of a robot doesn't work as well. We humans are tricky like that
moreover, we need
get to that threat? That weavers were
about more than a century ago.
Is automation going to take our jobs
other, have been a few studies all using different methodologies, and so
those studies coming under criticism for the approaches that were used, but their bit
you stated that suggest, will see automation continued to impact jobs in the near future and dry
asked italy. So over the course of the long run,
Interpretation of those results were have been reported in ways that
range from autumn?
it is going to be disruptive. That's on the line
then too.
Fifty percent of all jobs are going to be taken by the robots. So, what's the actual truth,
while the truth, as it turns out, is complicated
one thing automation rarely takes over and entire job. Why?
is far more likely to happen is that automation will take over certain tasks that are part of a job or perhaps mould.
jobs. So if a job requires a wide variety of tasks, some of which may require critical thinking, it's really hard to design a robot they can do. All of that
It's far more likely that you would automate certain job responsibilities, which would mean
that those jobs themselves,
I wouldn't go away. They were just change the repeated
responsibilities would be off loaded and you would focus on something else you might
to spend more time doing other duties rather than the routine ones, which
necessarily a bad thing, but there
Our cases where automation would like
you take over an entire job, for example, truck drivers
in shipping trucks, much of the work in autonomous vehicles is really
focusing not necessarily on replacing passenger vehicles. So
much as commercial vehicles like shipping trucks,
The bureau of labour statistics in the united states estimate that the age of the average EU s truck driver is fifty five and
more than ninety percent of all truck drivers in the u s or mail, and that will present a child
see generally the
pro argument for automation. Is that while robots and automated systems will eliminate some jobs, they will create other jobs, presumably better jobs,
and this is true at the turn of the twentieth century. Forty percent
of all jobs in the united states, were on farms. So that means for
ten people in the? U S, who had a job
working on our farm. Today,
agriculture and all the related food sectors make up
asked eleven percent of all jobs in the united states and if we just limit this to the people who are working on farms
not all agricultural jobs and food sector jobs, just the farm jobs. If we do that, we're too
about only one point: three percent,
of all? U S, employment, so going
forty percent to one point: three percent: that's a drastic change! Now. Clearly, automation has transformed agriculture. It allows us to do
more while relying on fewer people and
new jobs?
come around. So we didn't
see and unemployment rate reaching levels higher than forty percent pre covered,
pro automation argument states that new jobs, which again should
ideally be better than existing jobs and less strenuous and less dangerous and more interesting will emerge
as older jobs are phased out. Now that works fine.
on a macro scale when you're taking a really big picture, look at the overall trends, but when you consider the particulars, like our truck drivers, you start to see some obstacles see
This year I turned forty five
I'm a lot closer to the average age of a truck driver in the united states, then
and someone who's just getting into the job market for the first time- and I can tell you
that even as a relatively tech savvy guy, I would
and it really challenging to pick up the job skills. I would need to go in
to a different line of work, particularly
one where I'm competing against people who already have training and experience in that field.
so imagine having to tell a group of fifty five year old truck drivers that
out of a job, but good news. If you just start,
taking classes. You can learn to code and make
less money than you did in your old job. It's not
grain is what I'm saying
that being said, otto
It is clearly not going anywhere. It's going to continue to play a big role in how we get work done and in our
Best case scenarios. It's going to augment the work that humans do, leading to better more.
fishing and more cost effective outcomes. It will free us out to focus on the parts of our jobs that we find the most
billing we can handle the stuff that requires flexibility and intuitive thinking and the mist
in can handle the routine.
in and the dangerous, but in a
worst case scenario, will see an unbroken
a population of former workers who are
out of a job and without the support
system there to help
the transition into something new so that they can continue to
tribute to society,
and earn a living now. This is why you will often hear conversations about automation get tied.
Two concepts like a guaranteed jobs programme this
typically, where something like a government creates a system that makes certain every person who wants a job can get a job.
or you hear about guaranteed basic income. This is a strategy in which tax dollars go to fund a standard income pay out.
All citizens so
that they can meet their most basic needs. Now,
their big ideas there
easy to implement or administer and they're, not cheap, but
It may be that they will become necessary
or some similar strategy will be needed to make sense,
that we have a plan to move toward, rather than being
caught in a world where a disparate
The percentage of people can't find gainful employment.
We're seeing something like that right now, due to the covert crisis which
is also underlining the importance of automation in a world where
It's not necessarily saved to have a bunch of human beings. All gathered in the same place at the same time are the raw
lots coming for our jobs,
offer some of our jobs. Definitely many!
those jobs come with some pretty tough consequences for humans who are working, those jobs today
Those jobs may have high injury rates. The people work them may have lower life expectancies and there
a whole host of health issues that can come along with certain job. So
you could make a strong argument that really this is for the best, because it will help save lives and reduce the chance for injury or illness for a lot of people,
but for other jobs the robots aren't likely to take over in the near future for a lot of jobs. Automated systems not necessarily robots, but perhaps you know, software based ai will augment what humans are doing.
it's important. We have conversations about this stuff and attack
about how to address the consequences of increased automation.
There are ways we can enjoy the benefits of automation, but only if we think critically about it
and create policies and procedures accordingly. Now,
I gotta you going,
I hear robo Jonathan is going to host the next episode of text, often
have to train them on how to make ponds and pop culture references. I hope you liked that episode from too
De twenty, as I said, we ve gotta
the thought, while these days, because of things like generative ay, I had the concern that that could impact jobs, that for a law
time people assumed were safe from automation, especially from things like robotics,
a white collar jobs that people just thought were kind of the domain of
humans and now there's
real question as to whether or not that is actually the case. So I think it's even more pro
but again seeing the labour movement in the tech sector in particular of the last few years, tells us that
There are some very important issues, still at the very heart of technology and the way we do business that relate back to the
the foundations of the labour movement here in amerika, so I hope
you enjoyed that episode for those
in the united states. I hope you're having a healthy and safe and fun labour day,
were everyone else. I hope you haven't a great monday. I hope your days spent fantastic too,
I'll talk to you again, releasing
The tech isn't
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Transcript generated on 2023-12-17.