New wave of deft robots is changing global industry | NY Times

An article in today’s edition of the NY Times gives a comprehensive overview of robotic’s influence on assembly lines and warehouses in the manufacturing and distribution industries.

Two quotes to get you thinking:

… the advent of low-cost automation foretells changes on the scale of the revolution in agricultural technology over the last century, when farming employment in the United States fell from 40 percent of the work force to about 2 percent today. The analogy is not only to the industrialization of agriculture but also to the electrification of manufacturing in the past century …

[…]

“We’re on the cusp of completely changing manufacturing and distribution,” said Gary Bradski, a machine-vision scientist who is a founder of Industrial Perception. “I think it’s not as singular an event, but it will ultimately have as big an impact as the Internet.”

Well worth the read, but a pity that it is wishy-washy on the human jobs issue.

See on NY Times for the full article.

Markus Waibel is a Co-Founder and COO of Verity Studios AG, Co-Founder of Robohub and the ROBOTS Podcast.

Markus Waibel is a Co-Founder and COO of Verity Studios AG, Co-Founder of Robohub and the ROBOTS Podcast.