By: Robert C. Hackney
Will Robots take people’s jobs? There are two obvious answers to that question. One is that it is a “definite maybe,” and the other is that it depends upon your job. The reality is, however, yes, robots are coming and they may either help you in your job or they may replace you. Either way, they are coming, and some are already here.
While this is not technically a specific legal issue typical of this blog, the impact of this technology is so pervasive that it deems a discussion here for all business owners.
According to a report issued by the Office of the President of the United States in December 2016, robots have made the economy more efficient. The President’s Report cites an analysis of twelve developed economies, which includes the United States, that concluded that artificial intelligence could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 in the countries studied.
Economic pundits refer to three industrial revolutions, ie: driven first by steam power, then electricity and finally electronics. The World Economic Forum has referred to a fourth industrial revolution, which is says will be driven by artificial intelligence.
As of this writing, however, artificial intelligence based automation has not yet had a major impact upon growth in economic productivity. I expect that to change, and such change may be rapid.
Thus far we have mixed the terms “robots” and “artificial intelligence.” We will separate and distinguish them as we go forward. Robots are generally the physical and mechanical devices that are driven by artificial intelligence, or AI. I like to think of it as the AI being the brains, and the robot being the body carrying out the orders of the brains.
As we all know, technological advancement is nothing new in America. In the mid-1800s, about one-half of all Americans were involved in the agricultural segment of the economy in one way or another. Today that number is about 2% of the working population. As such, we have adapted, changed and evolved with the times. Now America produces more than enough food for domestic consumption, and has adequate resources to export massive amounts of food to other countries, all with only 2% of our population involved in agriculture.
As beneficial as the technological advances in agriculture were to the overall economy, these advances came at the expense of many individuals who were displaced and had their lives and jobs disrupted in the process.
Predicting the changes that will come with more and more AI automation has become a hobby for many industry analysts. The reality, of course, is that all predictions are inherently flawed.
We can, however, feel comfortable in our view that there is certainly a trend and that the trend will grow. Where it will impact us the most we cannot determine, but there are obvious places that seem to be already attracting attention. One focus has been on self-driving vehicles. One example of this technology is Google’s self-driving car. Google started its work on this project in 2009, and by 2016 had logged over one billion simulated miles and over 2 million actual miles driven. Google states that it had accumulated a combined 300 years of driver experience by the end of 2016. Google’s parent, Alphabet, Inc., morphed Google’s self driving car project into a company called “Waymo” in December of 2016 (which came from the saying “a new way forward in mobility).
Google is certainly not alone, Elon Musk’s Tesla, Uber, Toyota, Mercedes Benz and GM are all working on their own versions of autonomous vehicles. Even China is competing, with its Pony.ai.
While having an individual vehicle for your own use that drives itself is compelling, the greater implication for the economy comes in the use of commercial vehicles like taxis and trucks.
In 2016, Uber introduced its first tests of self-driving taxis, which were running around Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Phoenix and other cities until a fatal crash in Arizona in early 2018 when the project was put on hold.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are still approximately 240,000 taxi cab drivers in America. Consequently, there are potentially almost a quarter of a million jobs on the line if self-driving taxis become a reality (and they will). Uber itself has seriously impacted the taxi business, and in its next phase it will impact those individuals who have become Uber drivers.
In the commercial area of trucking, America has between 1.7 and 3.5 million truck drivers that will eventually be impacted by self-driving trucks.
Have you met Otto? He is quite a driver, and he isn’t even human. Otto is a company based in San Francisco which has developed AI technology that it can retrofit to trucks so that they can drive themselves. Otto is still in the testing stages and so is not fully developed, but at the pace of technological change, it won’t be long before there will be Otto driven trucks on the highways of America. At the moment, Otto’s “brains” cost about $100,000, but the company expects this price to reduce to the area of $10,000 per unit.
In October of 2016, Otto carried 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer down Interstate 25 from Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs, Colorado, or about 100 miles. A backup driver was in the truck, and it was preceded and followed by Otto personnel.
This was the first real demonstration of the potential of the technology and also showed its present limitations. To get on and off the highway, the human driver had to handle the driving, since Otto cannot yet drive in city traffic.
Otto’s founders are two former Google employees, Anthony Levandowski, formerly of Google’s self-driving-car project, and Lior Ron, who was the head of Google Maps. Other former Google employees joined them and the company was created in 2016.
In late 2016, Uber acquired Otto. The marriage of Uber and Otto gave Otto’s team the ability to work with about 500 Uber engineers who are devoted to self-driving technology. With Otto, Uber now can focus on transportation of people and delivery of goods.
Of course, Otto is not alone. It is reported that Volvo Trucks, Peterbilt and Daimler Trucks are all in the process of developing systems for self-driving trucks.
If you drive a taxi, or if you drive a truck commercially, I have two words for you: “drone school.”
I know, it sounds funny, but the skills you have as a taxi driver or a truck driver may translate to flying drones. According to a 2013 report by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, there could be more than 100,000 new jobs created by 2025, and those jobs would have an economic impact of $82 billion. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International is a group representing 7,500 individual members and 600 corporations from 60 countries.
If you are looking for a new career, there will be opportunities for people with drone training that include military drone pilot, firefighter, disaster relief, search and rescue, law enforcement, oil and gas operations, seismic study, border patrol, traffic reporting, storm chasing, agriculture, package delivery, forestry, engineering, computer science, commercial contractors, film, and other industries.
To meet this need, many colleges and universities have created programs, including Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, University of Nevada, Reno in Reno, Nevada, Monroe Community College, Corporate College in Rochester, New York, and Mohawk Valley Community College, Center for Corporate and Community Education in Utica, New York, among many others.
Interestingly enough, the Unmanned Vehicle University in Phoenix, Arizona was created solely for the purpose of drone training. One of this school’s programs is the drone pilot training course that totals 46 course hours, broken down into 3 sections. The first 16 hours cover the basics of drone topics, the next 10 hours will be spent flying over 40 different drones in a simulator, the final 16 hours will be real flight training at a specified center. The school also has doctoral and master’s degrees focused on the engineering and program/project management of drones.
The drone market was $11.3 billion in 2013 and is projected to be $140 billion in 2020.
The Story of Mary
Mary is 87 years old and lives in a nursing home. She is hearing impaired and nearly blind. She is no longer able to read, or even watch television. Mary is somewhat feeble, and is in a wheelchair. In addition to her other troubles, she suffers from dementia. While she recognizes family members, and can clearly talk about things that happened fifty years ago, she has a very bad short term memory. During some of her days, she gets into a “loop” where she asks the same questions over and over again. What is this place? Do I live here? How long has I been here? Mary is somewhat typical of many people her age. Due to her situation, her biggest problems are boredom and depression.
Recently, things have gotten much better for Mary. She has a new friend named Pepper. Pepper is a great friend because she is attentive, kindly and never gets bored or angry with repetitive questions from Mary. Pepper has learned Mary’s personality traits and is responsive to them. Pepper has adapted to Mary so much that she knows all of Mary’s tastes and habits. She knows what Mary likes to eat, when Mary is tired and when Mary is scheduled to get her medicine. Pepper even schedules Mary’s doctor appointments for her.
Pepper also knows when Mary needs to get out of her wheelchair to use the rest room or when Mary needs to be lifted out of bed. In those cases, Pepper calls on another new friend, Robear. Robear is very strong, but very gentle. Robear helps all of the people at the nursing home when they need to be lifted out of bed or into or out of a wheelchair. Robear does this an average of 40 times per day without ever getting injured or tired. Robear takes no sick days and will never have a worker’s compensation claim for a bad back.
As you have guessed by now, both Pepper and Robear are humanoid robots, and both of them exist today. Pepper, developed by Softbank Robotics has the ability to perceive emotions, and was designed to be a day-to-day companion. Pepper recognizes people’s faces, interacts and moves autonomously. Pepper can analyze the look on your face, your body movements and the words that you use to learn how to respond to your mood at that point in time. Those who have interacted with Pepper are consistently surprised by what Pepper can do.
Robear was designed to look like a teddy bear so that it is not frightening to the elderly or others who need its assistance. The robot has specially engineered parts that allow it to have a gentle touch, so even though it is strong enough to lift large weights, it is also nimble enough to have the person not feel like they are being manhandled.
Right now Robear is expensive, in the $200,000 range, but like all electronics it is anticipated that the cost will come down substantially as the systems are more fully developed. Developed by Riken and Sumitomo Riko Company Limited, it was designed to address the problem of an aging population in Japan, which has a shrinking population which will be made up or more and more elderly people, with less healthcare workers to service the population.
In addition to Pepper and Robear, there are other companies developing robots to work with the elderly. One other such robot is being developed by a French company called Yumii. Yumii’s companion robot goes by the name “Cutii.” Cutii was created for elderly care in the home, as opposed to an institutional setting.
Cutii has vocal and facial recognition. It can provide access to a “full catalog of activities and services.”
On your next trip to Disneyland, don’t forget to stop by the Autopia ride, where you will find ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility). ASIMO was the first real humanoid type robot that has been in development since the 1980s by Honda. ASIMO has the ability to recognize faces, can detect moving objects, can distinguish sounds and react to commands, and generally interact with humans. ASIMO can also walk, dance, run, and pick things up. Obviously, all of these robots are still in development, and Honda received negative press following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. Honda received numerous requests to send ASIMO to help with the recovery, but ASIMO wasn’t designed for disaster recovery, or even evolved enough to work outside a lab or office environment. As a result, Japan relied upon robotic assistance from American companies, and later Honda announced that it was now working on a disaster recovery robot.
In 2016, Honda announced that it would work together with SoftBank, the Internet company that developed Pepper, to develop artificial intelligence products with sensors and cameras that can converse with drivers of automobiles.
Boston Dynamics, which was acquired by Google in 2013,and sold to SoftBank in 2017, is another leader in robotic research and development.
Boston Dynamics developed Atlas, a two legged humanoid robot and a robotic dog named Spot. In early 2017, the company released video of its latest robot, Handle. Handle appears to be nothing like any of the previous incarnations of robots, and does not follow the concept of attempting to look somewhat human. Handle looks to be best suited for working in a warehouse. Handle has wheels where we humans have feet, can jump over hurdles and land on its wheels, is extremely stable, can lift heavy items, and can go down stairs. Handle is very dynamic and is unlike previous stationary factory robots. Although it’s not quite ready for prime time, the video of Handle is impressive, and anyone interested in what a robot can do should take a good look.
The main focus of robotic development has been in the manufacturing field. While there have been large stationary manufacturing robots used for many years in sectors like the automotive industry, the newer versions of manufacturing robots are smaller and more adaptive. These robots are also designed to be less dangerous, as the larger, older robots are typically sealed off from areas where humans work due to the dangerous nature of their activities.
Rethink Robotics is a developer of industrial robots, and created Baxter in 2012. Baxter was designed to perform simple industrial tasks, such as routine production line work. Baxter is relatively small, only three feet tall, and has two arms and an animated face. Baxter is different than previous industrial robots in that it is adaptive, and does not necessarily have to do one task over and over again. Baxter can be set in a stationary position, or can be mounted on a pedestal with wheels to make it mobile. Baxter was designed so that it could be programmed easily by workers, and does not need extensive coding to program activities. It can be taught to perform tasks in minutes, unlike older versions of robots that require computer engineers to write new code for new tasks. Baxter has multiple sensors embedded in its hands and arms and consequently is designed to be safe to work in close proximity to humans. Workers can “program” Baxter for a task simply by guiding its hands through the training motions.
Three years after Baxter came on the scene, Rethink Robotics came out with Sawyer. Sawyer weighs in at only about 25% of Baxter, is more flexible, and only has one arm. Sawyer was created to perform smaller and more detailed tasks than Baxter. Rethink Robotics refers to their products as “smart, collaborative robots.” Sawyer was designed to do more intricate tasks than most industrial robots. The company says that with Sawyer’s “built in force sensing, you can control force for applications where delicate part insertion is critical, or use force feedback in tasks where you need to verify that parts have been seated properly.”
Rethink Robots believes that these robots will support and supplement workers in the manufacturing field, not replace workers. The idea is to have the workers spend more time using their intelligence, and less time doing the repetitive and dangerous tasks that the robots can accomplish.
One of the more interesting, and some would say bizarre, companies in the robotics filed is Festo, a German industrial automation company.
Using nature as its inspiration, Festo creates robots based on animals and insects as ways to improve technology. Festo seeks to understand just how and why some creatures move and fly. The results of Festo mimicking biology are flying seagulls, hopping kangaroos, robotic ants that cooperate (BionicANTs), eMotionButterfly, AirJelly (flying jellyfish), AirPenguin, AquaPenguin, AquaRay, AirRay, AquaJelly, SmartBird, BionicOpter (a robotic dragonfly), Rolling Spider and Bionic Flying Fox. Festo calls its group the Bionic Learning Network, and has published technical papers with groups like the International Congress of the Aeronautical Sciences.
As funny and interesting as the unique robots seem, there is method to their madness. Festo has been a leader in pneumatics and industrial automation over a period of 50 years. The company is focused on “drive, control and gripping technology,” owns about 3,000 patents, comes out with over 100 new innovations per year, and has a catalog of about 30,000 products with thousands of variants.
In a test that has similarities to the BionicANTs robots, the US Department of Defense released a video of 103 Perdix micro-drones launched from three F/A 18 Super Hornets. These micro-drones demonstrated unique ability in the form of swarming like flocks of birds or bees. The drones were not pre-programmed individuals, but a collective, where the swarm had no leader, and adapted to other drones entering and exiting the team. The drones performed a series of missions, where they surrounded a designated point on the ground, and demonstrated “one distributed brain for decision making and adapting to each other.”
The Perdix drones began as a student project at MIT, and later adapted for military use by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Most fascinating is that the commercial components used in Perdix drones are based on those used in smart phones and 3D printable parts. The test also confirmed that the drones could survive being launched from aircraft travelling at over 450 mph, and -10 degrees Celsius from high altitude. In the test, the drones simply patrolled an area and demonstrated swarming capabilities, but it seems obvious that they may be used for surveillance or even attacks, and to maintain battlefield communications.
All of the above are the best known robots and companies operating in the areas described, although substantial venture capital is being invested in robotics and new companies are forming constantly. The eventual leader in the robotics arena may be a company that does not yet exist.