It has been said that we are on the edge of a ‘robotic tipping point’ … but where, exactly, is this edge? And what’s holding us back? This month we asked our panelists to weigh in on what’s keeping robots from going mainstream. Here’s what they have to say …
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expert opinions
One of the oft quoted paradoxes of consciousness is that we are unable to observe or experience our own conscious minds at work; that we cannot be conscious of the workings of consciousness. I’ve always been puzzled about why this is a puzzle. After all, we don’t think it odd that word processors have no insight into their inner workings (although that’s a bad example because we might conceivably code a future self-aware WP and arrange for it to access its inner machinery).
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On April 8-9, Stanford Law School held the second annual robotics and law conference, We Robot. This year’s event focused on near-term policy issues in robotics and featured panels and papers by scholars, practitioners, and engineers on topics like intellectual property, tort liability, legal ethics, and privacy. The full program is here.
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The uncanny valet (Or, Notes on the design of robot psychology)
This article outlines the problems of today’s phone and online help systems and offers solutions to conversational systems of tomorrow. The article is about the design of hearts and minds for robots, considers the virtual voice as a legitimate robot, and takes a fast pass at the psychology of robot-human interaction.
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A growing business within Parrot S.A., (PARRO:EUROLIST B) is their AR.Drone line of products, parts and software. Their first quadcopter product was developed internally by (1) observing the $1 billion market in radio controlled helicopters, (2) seeing gamers interest in using their game devices to drive cars, planes and copters, and (3) the increasingly widespread use of MEMS inertial sensors and high-definition digital cameras in consumer products.
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We Robot Conference: 2. Law as algorithm
On April 8-9, Stanford Law School held the second annual robotics and law conference, We Robot. This year’s event focused on near-term policy issues in robotics and featured panels and papers by scholars, practitioners, and engineers on topics like intellectual property, tort liability, legal ethics, and privacy. The full program is here.
This post is part of Robohub’s We Robot coverage.
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Intuitive Surgical, a manufacturer with almost no tangible assets?
Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) is a prime example of how robotics is similar to other IP intensive industries like software, biotech, and entertainment.
In December my colleagues and I produced a valuation of Intuitive Surgical. Below is a representation of our model of the asset structure of Intuitive Surgical in our forecast.
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We Robot Conference: 1. Intellectual property
On April 8-9, Stanford Law School held the second annual robotics and law conference, We Robot. This year’s event focused on near-term policy issues in robotics and featured panels and papers by scholars, practitioners, and engineers on topics like intellectual property, tort liability, legal ethics, and privacy. The full program is here. This is the first of our posts recapping the event. Check back this week for more coverage!
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A crisis of expectations
At the first UK Robot Ethics workshop on 25th March 2013, I offered — for discussion — the proposition that robotics is facing a Crisis of Expectations. And not for the first time. I argue that one possible consequence is (another) AI winter.
In this talk I set out the proposition that robotics is facing a crisis of expectations. As a community we face a number of expectation gaps — significant differences between what people think robots are and do, and what robots really are and really do, and (more seriously) might reasonably be expected to do in the near future.
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Effect of robots on jobs? Only time — and management teams — will tell
Although there is a surge in early stage personal and service robotics activity right now, it will take time to find out which technologies and companies will be the real winners, and only then will we learn the real affect on the overall jobs picture. I do believe, though, that we will see a new set of ROI’s emerge that will alter the jobs landscape, resulting in new jobs in a growing US-based robotics industry, as well as new job skills required to work synergistically with safe service robots.
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Do robots kill jobs?
To coincide with Robohub’s Jobs Focus, we asked our panelists to weigh in on the role that robots play in the wider economy, and whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for employment numbers. Here’s what they have to say:
These days it is hard to read an article about the future of robots that does not include a reference to jobs. As a pure roboticist, I object to the constant connection between the two, but as a concerned citizen I think it is a worthwhile discussion …
Raffaello D’Andrea on “Do robots kill jobs?”
There is no doubt that robots, and automation in general, replace humans in the work-force: all productivity-enhancing tools, by definition, result in a decrease in the number of man-hours required to perform a given task …
Mark Tilden on “Do robots kill jobs?”
Robots do kill jobs but they’re crappy jobs, so good riddance. If you’ve ever had a job you were desperate for the money, but immediately regretted after you got it, then you know what I mean. …
We hope you will join the discussion. Feel free to post your comment below.
Ability to do creative, non-routine work will be a must in the coming automation era. Is this realistic for most workers?
There can be no doubt that technological progress has resulted in a far more prosperous society. Technology has often disrupted entire industries and, in some cases — as with the mechanization of agriculture — destroyed millions of jobs. In the long run, however, the economy has always adjusted and new jobs have been created, often in entirely new industries. Why then should we be concerned that the revolution in robotics and artificial intelligence will lead to sustained unemployment?
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There is no war other than the one we are fighting with ourselves
Just five years ago, anybody who spoke of technological unemployment was labeled a luddite, a techno-utopian, or just simply someone who doesn’t understand economics. Today things are very different – anybody from New York Times columnist Tom Friedman to CBS are jumping on the bandwagon.
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Robots and the economy: Red herrings, or canaries in a coal mine?
Recent economic trends are perplexing. Corporate profits are up. Productivity is up. Jobs and pay for the average worker have crashed, and are recovering slower than in any other decade on record. Many explanations for this paradox center on the role of technology: with the help of rapidly-advancing technologies (particularly information technologies), workers can produce that much more in output with that much less in input.
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Commercial opportunities to create more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs when FAA opens airspace to UAS
AUVSI recently released a report titled The Economic Impact of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently has heavy restrictions on unmanned aircraft flying in the nation’s airspace. In the report, we explore the economic implications to the United States once these FAA restriction are lifted. Congress has set a September 30th, 2015 deadline for this integration.
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