So how do you get from imagination to market? Here’s what our experts have to say …

AJung Moon on “Do robots need heads?”

Are you curious about what your future robotic assistants will look like? My bet is that by the time you buy your very first robotic butler, it will have a friendly head on it that moves. In fact, it would be a good idea to make robots with heads if they are intended to share spaces and objects with people. That’s because …

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Mark Stephen Meadows on “Do robots need heads?”

I don’t know about you, but if something has a head I assume it has thoughts. When watching a movie I stare at the character’s face because I want to know what they feel. So for me a head’s a pretty important thing. If I’m going to talk with a robot, …

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Travis Deyle on “Do robots need heads?”

The obvious answer to this question is “No: there are lots of robots without heads.” It’s not even clear that social robots necessarily require a head, …

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David Robert on “Do robots need heads?”

As a robot animator I can attest to the fact that robots don’t “need” heads to be treated as social entities. Research has shown that people will befriend a stick as long as it moves properly. We have a long-standing habit of anthropomorphizing things that aren’t human by attributing to them human-level personality traits or internal motivations based on cognitive-affective architectures that just aren’t there. …

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We have a long-standing habit of anthropomorphizing things that aren’t human by attributing to them human-level personality traits or internal motivations based on cognitive-affective architectures that just aren’t there. Animators have relied on the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief and, in essence, co-animate things into existence: from a sack of flour to a magic broom. It’s possible to incorporate the user’s willingness to bring a robot to life by appropriately setting expectations and being acutely aware of how the context of interaction affects possible outcomes.

In human lifeforms, a head usually circumscribes a face, whereas in a robot a face can be placed anywhere. Although wonderfully complex, in high degree of freedom (DOF) robot heads, the facial muscles can be challenging to orchestrate with sufficient timing precision. If your robot design facilitates expression through the careful control of the quality of motion rendered, a head isn’t necessary in order to communicate essential non-verbal cues. As long as you consider a means for revealing the robot’s internal state, a head simply isn’t needed. A robot’s intentions can be conveyed through expressive motion and sound regardless of its form or body configuration.

[1] Harris, J., & Sharlin, E. (2011, July). Exploring the affect of abstract motion in social human-robot interaction. In RO-MAN, 2011 IEEE (pp. 441-448). IEEE.

My bet is that by the time you buy your very first robotic butler, it will have a friendly head on it that moves. In fact, it would be a good idea to make robots with heads if they are intended to share spaces and objects with people. That’s because the head is a really expressive part of our body we naturally use (a lot) to convey essential information to each other.  Robots will need to do the same if they are going to hang out with us soft-tissued human beings at our homes and offices.

For example, when people are attending to something, they tend to be looking at the thing they are attending to. People also look at the direction they are headed when they walk, and make eye contact when they talk. People nod with their head when they want to show agreement about what is being said. Without these nonverbal cues from the head interacting with each other would be much more difficult, because we wouldn’t know what each other are doing.

Rodney Brooks, a pioneer in robotics and now Chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics, had this in mind when he built Baxter. Although Baxter’s arms are as bulky-looking as its traditional industrial robotics predecessors, one of the innovative components of it is the fact that it features a moving head that makes its interaction with not-so-trained users very intuitive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIxWMTrGl8

If robots are to do meaningful things around us in a safe manner, it’s essential that we know what the robot is attending to, where it is headed, and what it is about to do – a lot of which a robot head can help with. That way, we won’t have to be a roboticist to know when it is safe to be around a robot holding on to a giant knife to make you cucumber salad. <optionally embed cucumber slicing robot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvDXrZX-SCA

Simply: a head allows a face, and a face allows interface.

So a head’s only needed if the robot has to interface with people (or other headed animals, say). A head is a design feature but the main function of an android is its form: it has to look like humans. Giving it a head is a function-follows-form decision. Wasn’t it Hunter S. Thompson who wrote, “Kill the head and the body will die?” Well, this should not be the case for military robots. The beheaded design can be improved. Saying that all robots need to have faces is like saying all animals need to have gills. For the deadly, dangerous, and downright dastardly work that robots today need to perform, like gastro-intestinal surgery, or military surveillance, a head won’t do much more than get stuck or blown off.

A head, like hands or a face, is a design decision that’s best left for the robots working directly with humans.

• Food intake: Probably not.
• Computational storage: Again, probably not.
• Location for sensors: Indeed, the apex of a robot is a natural, obstacle-free vantage point for non-contact sensors. But a “head” form factor is not a strict requirement.
• Emotion and expression: Ah, the real meat of this question… “Do robots need to express emotion?”

This is a funny question to ask someone who once (in)famously advocated for either (A) extremely utilitarian designs: “I want my eventual home robot to be as unobtrusive as a trashcan or dishwasher”, or (B) designs unconstrained by the human form factor: “Why not give robots lots of arms (or only one)? Why impose human-like joint limits, arm configurations, and sensing? We can design our own mechanical lifeforms!”

My views have softened a bit over time. Early (expensive) general-purpose home robots will almost certainly have humanoid characteristics and have heads with the ability to express emotions (i.e. be social) — if nothing else, to appeal to the paying masses. And these robots will be useful: doing my laundry, cleaning my dishes, and cooking my meals. In the early attempts, I will still find their shallow attempts at emotion mundane and I will probably detest the sales pitches about “AI” and “robots that feel.” But as the emotional expressions become more natural and nuanced, and the robots become more capable, I will probably warm up to the idea myself.

TL;DR: No, many robots do not need heads. Even social robots may not need heads, but (whether I want them to or not) they probably will, because paying consumers will expect it.

Corporations are more disciplined and less prevailed upon by conflicting interests than governments; hence long-term planning is a regular part of their management practice. But corporations have neither ethics nor loyalties, and often do marginally (if not outright) immoral things to preserve the profitability of the company over the welfare of the community and workforce.

Entrepreneurial solutions from business start-ups are a whole different category. They don’t necessarily solve anything that needs long-term solving, and they don’t really have a long-term business plan. They address a current whim, need or solution that the inventors feel strongly about. And they make it or fail based on their energy and ability to sell their new product. Only after they are established does long-term thinking kick in, so that the new company can develop new products and services.

Thus, if we are going to answer a question about policy, it’s really governments that we should be looking at. So let’s look at how policy is supposed to work in the US, why it might be failing us, and how taking the long view can help.

How the policy process is supposed to work in the US
The Executive Branch of the Whitehouse is supposed to analyze the future and past with an eye toward meeting and setting strategic goals including those defined in the US charter (its Constitution). They bring in the best minds to discuss problems and their solutions — sometimes behind closed doors and other times publicly. They also study trends and change to see what the future has in store for us. This is where the process of strategic planning — a process whereby goals and objectives are balanced against resources and alternative possibilities for the use of those resources — is supposed to take place.

In compliance with the intent of the Constitution, which provides the moral and ethical parameters to guide the process, the three most prominent objectives of this strategic planning are to provide continued infrastructure, healthcare and security. This planning often gets very specific, as can be seen in many of the DARPA projects: ARPANET, which turned into the Internet; Transit, which became our current GPS system; handheld language translation devices presently used in Iraq and Afghanistan; Stealth planes; Semiconductor gallium arsenide; Robot cars via Grand Challenge competitions; Bionic limbs; and the list goes on and on. DARPA is just one agency that solicits scientific solutions for various aims: NSF, NASA, NIH, USDA are four other prominent translators of Presidential goals into reality.

Sometimes strategic planning is more generalized, as was the recent recognition that the process of offshoring manufacturing to lower-cost-labor countries had serious unintended consequences to America, and that the process should be stopped or seriously changed — this realization prompted the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, which included a section for robotics development. As the Manufacturing Initiatives were being discussed, there was a timely submission of the presentation to Congress of the US Roadmap for Robotics (which was partially funded by government grants).

As the Robotics Initiative was incorporated into the Manufacturing Initiative, additional unintended consequences could be seen: the need for more technically skilled labor and the reduction of the lower-skilled workforce. Most often, strategic planning is reactive rather than long-term. Consequently, as resources are allocated to these reactive issues, long-term planning suffers and serious issues get put off.

Annually the President presents the results of those analyses and makes a case for the goals he chooses in a state-of-the-union and budget presentation to the Congress and the public. Congress then figures out how or whether the goals and services that the President outlined represent the will of the people, and whether the budget he proposed meets the needs of the existent government plus the new goals/services. They break down the President’s proposals into small tasks and send them to committees that specialize in those tasks. These committees have staff that are schooled in the subjects of the tasks, and these staff members often supplement their own analyses by consulting with outside organizations that represent the various interests and stakeholders involved.

The committees discuss, negotiate, and evaluate the merit of the goals the President has proposed. Then, when they agree to agree, they write laws and regulations that define those goals and present these to the whole of Congress, along with summaries, so that Congress members can evaluate and then pass those new laws and regulations task by task.

Finally, the Judicial System is there to adjudicate how people and companies interpret and comply with those laws.

Thus there are at least three levels where knowledgeable people influence the outcome of the strategic planning and legislative process: at the Presidential fact-finding level; within congressional committees and in the Congress and Senate itself; and at the judicial level.

Infiltrating technology whiz-kids into these positions isn’t enough of a solution; there’s more to the debate than just knowledge of the technology. There are also the ethical considerations, possible long-term consequences and alternative solutions to consider. Hence the need for wise leaders to pick balanced teams of advisors who can collectively cover all aspects of the strategic issues.

Those people who are appointed to presidential advisory, or “thought” positions need to be the nation’s brightest, and most knowledgeable and altruistic — for example, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology headed by Dr. John Holder and the other staff members of the Whitehouse Office of Science and Technology Policy, all of whom are competent selections. Congressional committee selections need to combine the most knowledgeable (and not just the most senior or junior) of the membership; Congress itself needs to have a balance of technology executives amongst its membership (fewer lawyers); and committees’ permanent staff needs to be selected for their technological prowess (not on seniority), and should be regularly vetted for any improprieties between them and lobbyists and special interest groups.

Assuming that most policy-makers start their policy-making careers with the intention of representing the best interests of their respective constituencies (and the country as a whole) by finding the least costly solutions to our problems, how come they don’t do just that?

Why the policy process might be failing us
The short answer is constant scrutiny, instant pressure from media and others, divided loyalties, and inadequate (and sometimes compromised) staff, all of which lead to selfish and protective thinking. The long answer is more thought-provoking.

Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School offers some interesting solutions and solution methods. Goldin, a former VP of the World Bank, addresses the why, the how and the what-to-do about it in his new book: Divided Nations: Why global governance is failing, and what we can do about it. He writes:

Globalization increasingly presents a paradox: it has been the most progressive force in history, but the most severe crises of the 21st century will arise due to the very success of globalization. Unless we are able to manage these threats, there is a real danger that globalization will have given birth to its own downfall.

In the two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, fundamental political, economic, and technological changes have led to a step-change in global connectivity. Interdependence and innovation have brought unprecedented benefits, and led to the most rapid global rise in incomes and health in history. However, the same processes of integration and innovation have also greatly increased the potential for systemic risk and global crises. Globalization is leaping ahead of the lethargic institutions of global governance.

The number of countries involved in negotiations (close to 200 now) and the complexity of the issues and their interconnectedness have grown rapidly, as has the effect of instant media and other pressures on politicians. These and other factors have paralyzed progress, so the prospect of resolving critical global challenges appears ever more distant.

Goldin believes that the UN would have to gain power over its member nations, with nation states relinquishing much of their current powers to the UN. He further says that without at least a global calamity, this isn’t likely to happen. He thinks that humanity is in denial of the fact that only one solution can prevail: some form of binding global governance… but only for those problems needing collective international action. Alternatively, Goldin points out that much could be tackled by a smaller group of nations: “a coalition of the willing.” He writes:

“What is needed is for NGOs, corporations, professionals, legislators and their staffs, and the public, to face up to the fact that today’s problems cannot be solved by their current approaches, nor by nations acting alone, nor by keeping our heads in the sand. Like it or not, some form of binding global governance must occur.”

Taking the long view

Policy-makers need to be focused on solving long-term strategic issues for their countries and constituencies. But it’s an iffy situation. During President Bush’s term, friends were placed in key advisory roles, often with no background knowledge of the subjects upon which they were to advise. Things are better in the Obama administration. Nevertheless, it’s a lot like the dialogue we’ve had before about which comes first: the technology or the solution.

But the answer is Neither.

What comes first is the problem that needs to be solved, and the commitment to finding a solution. That’s where and when positive things happen. If there’s no advice, long-term problems go unaddressed. China’s communist government has a long-term point of view and the discipline to make their strategic goals happen; few other countries have that power.

It’s not enough to place technology-friendly people in key advisory rolls. Nor is it enough to invest in science. Or efficiently lobby all the key players. Strategic goals need to be defined, talked about and agreed upon. Then the mechanisms of science, law, politics, business, the public, and funding can all focus on the solution.

This essay is an expansion of Frank Tobe’s response to Robotics by Invitation question “What do policy-makers need to do to keep pace with economic development in robotics?”

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This month we asked Robotics by Invitation panel members Rich Mahoney and Frank Tobe for their take on what policy-makers need to do to keep economic development apace with important developments in robotics. Here’s what they have to say …

Rich Mahoney on “What do policy-makers need to do to keep pace with economic development?”

I am not sure how to describe the specifics of what policy makers should do, but I think there are two gaps that policy makers should think about that are associated with the economic development impact of robotics: sufficient funding to support an emerging robotics marketplace; and  detailed descriptions of the innovations needed to solve specific problems …

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Frank Tobe on “What do policy-makers need to do to keep pace with economic development?”

I think the biggest thing happening today is the acceptance of the low-cost Baxter and Universal robots into SMEs and small factories everywhere.  Sales will likely be 2% of the total; 5% in 2014 and possibly 15% in 2015. That’s growth! And that’s before the might of the big four robot makers start selling their low-cost entry robots for SMEs …

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1. sufficient funding to support an emerging robotics marketplace, and
2. detailed descriptions of the innovations needed to solve specific problems.

The recent US National Robotics Initiative did a good job of coordinating marketing of existing funding opportunities in robotics R&D across government agencies, but was directed only at R&D.  Governments can drive innovation in economic development as well by creating acquisition opportunities, or where the government does not purchase directly, by aligning policy with requirements in the market. This is a little-used scenario for robotics so far, outside perhaps acquisition by the military of IED-defeat robots. Other markets that could benefit include agriculture, environmental protection, and healthcare.

To my second point, in order to develop economic incentives through acquisition or policy change, government agencies need well-articulated target solutions that provide a desired impact, and some sense of how acquisition budgets or policy would be aligned with those solutions. DARPA is very good at driving innovation this way. It does not say, ‘please work on robots related to the following list of healthcare areas,’ but instead, its Program Managers provide a very specific description of the robot they would like to see demonstrated, with a corresponding need that will be filled when that demonstration is accomplished. DARPA’s mission is associated with national defense. So, from a policy perspective, it would be valuable for various other government agencies to describe the robots that solve specific problems in their sector.

There are many other issues that will need to be addressed as robots emerge in these different markets but, typically, specific markets are very good at adapting standards as technology evolves. UAV-based solutions for agriculture, for instance, are forcing policy-makers to address laws related to our airspace for these types of devices.  The emerging self-driving vehicle market is leading to changes in driving laws.  But the markets police themselves.  Although there is a lot of attention to new developments in robotics, the actual level of applied innovation is relatively modest, and is throttled at some level by the factors I have highlighted.

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[Frank Tobe]
I think the biggest thing happening today is the acceptance of the low-cost Baxter and Universal robots into SMEs and small factories everywhere.  Sales will likely be 2% of the total; 5% in 2014, and possibly 15% in 2015. That’s growth! And that’s before the big four robot makers start selling their low-cost entry robots for SMEs. This has more near-term promise than unmanned aerial or ground vehicles in agriculture and elsewhere. These co-robots are proving that we need more high-tech people and fewer low-skilled people in this globally competitive economy.

What are the major policies that foster, steer, or hinder the robotics industry?

There are at least three levels where knowledgeable people influence the outcome of the strategic planning and legislative process: at the Presidential fact-finding level; within congressional committees and in the Congress and Senate itself; and at the judicial level. Infiltrating technology whiz-kids into these positions isn’t enough of a solution because there’s more to the debate than just knowledge of the technology. There are also the ethical considerations, possible long-term consequences and alternative solutions to consider. Hence the need for wise leaders to pick balanced teams of advisors covering all aspects of strategic issues.

Can you point out some examples of different policies in different regions/countries and their effects?

China is locking up long-term resources contracts for energy, agricultural land, shipping by sending out manpower everywhere to make it happen. Most other countries just compete on price and trade for deals.

What are the other main drivers of economic development? 

Lower costs for sensors, components and robots; global competition; demand for higher quality; new marketplaces for the DDD of robotics: food processing, agriculture, SMEs, healthcare; diminishing low-cost labor; growing population of seniors.

Do you have concrete suggestions for policy-makers?
Think long term. Include unanticipated consequences and alternatives. Cooperate with the other stakeholders to make all happy. Regarding international issues, follow the advice of Ian Goldin.

The complete answers to these questions more complex. To learn more, read Frank Tobe’s in-depth article on how policy should — and does — shape economic development.

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This month we asked the Robotics by Invitation panel to tell us what kind of research they would undertake if money weren’t an obstacle. Here’s what Mark Tilden and Illah Nourbakhsh have to say …

Illah Nourbaksh on “What would you research if you did not have to worry about grants?”

 Community empowerment through massive robotic sensing. There is no question we live in a world that is changing. Pollutants are changing the dynamics of the air we breathe, the water we drink and even the soil on which we live. Yet the power to measure pollution …

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Mark Tilden on “What would you research if you did not have to worry about grants?”

 Well, I’m lucky enough to be a gentleman scientist, so I concurrently study problems on minimal dynamical control systems (optimizing performance to silicon ratios), power regeneration and efficiency, alien robot morphologies …

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Y’know, the basics.  Bringing good things to life.  Moo Ha ha.

So robotics research is excellent for those with ADHD – the field’s problem and feature is it’s not just anything, it’s everything that’s techno fun. However every now and again there’s something that skitters, flops, pronks, spins, walks, tumbles, or bounces across the desk that could really use … a brain.

So the short answer is I’d put (other people’s) money into researching affordable competent minds that could help organize any mechanical body, sensor or environment they are given.  Small, quick, cheap, and with a voice interface so I can encourage it to effectiveness without a million keystrokes.  Power on and it asks “Hello, what is my name?”

Yes, that’d be handy.  Do they have an App for that yet?

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There is no question we live in a world that is changing. Pollutants are changing the dynamics of the air we breathe, the water we drink and even the soil on which we live. Yet the power to measure pollution, measure human behavior (including Emergency Room visits) and correlate the values is held tightly by government and corporate players.  They have the money to focus on sensors and values that make their case, and they have the marketing skills to then present those values in the best possible light for reelection and for corporate profit.

But in fact those most touched by a changing world are ordinary citizens, and it is the citizen who has the potential to make decisions that immediately impact health and future legislation, from what neighborhood to live in to which politician to elect. Robotic sensing technologies are rapidly becoming less expensive, and with the right infusion of research I believe we could develop the networking, data visualization and interaction smarts to have global, publicly accessible information about all sources of pollution. This would empower citizens and communities to make far more informed decisions, and to fight biased information presentations with their own re-interpretation of source data. This will take new innovation in sensing technologies, networking, Big Data storage, search, retrieval and evaluation.

It is the stuff of robotics, through and through, applied to the deep goal of community empowerment at an international scale.

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But I understand the sentiment behind the question. In robotics we have a shared sense of a technology that has yet to reach its true potential; of a dream unfulfilled.

The question asks what is the single biggest obstacle. In my view some of the biggest  immediate obstacles are not technical but human. Let me explain with an example. We already have some very capable tele-operated robots for disaster response. They are rugged, reliable and some are well field-tested. Yet why it is that robots like these are not standard equipment with fire brigades? I see no technical reason that fire tenders shouldn’t have, as standard, a compartment with a tele-operated robot – charged and ready for use when it’s needed. There are, in my view, no real technical obstacles. The problem I think is that such robots need to become accepted by fire departments and the fire fighters themselves, with all that this entails for training, in-use experience and revised operational procedures.

In the longer term we need to ask what it would mean for robotics to go mainstream. Would it mean everyone having a personal robot, in the same we all now have personal computing devices? Or, when all cars are driverless perhaps? Or, when everyone whose lives would be improved with a robot assistant, could reasonably expect to be able to afford one? Some versions of mainstream are maybe not a good idea: I’m not sure I want to contemplate a world in there are as many personal mobile robots, as there are mobile phones now (~4.5 billion). Would this create robot smog, as Illah Nourbakhsh calls it in his new book Robot Futures?

Right now I don’t have a clear idea of what it would mean for robots to go mainstream, but one thing’s for sure: we should be thinking about what kind of sustainable, humanity benefitting and life enhancing mainstream robot futures we really want.

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I say “applications” to distinguish this work from that of developing new algorithms or core building blocks.  Making an analogy to traditional software development, I don’t need to understand how process schedulers, or file systems, or memory managers work in order to develop useful desktop applications.  And I don’t need to know the details of DNS, web servers, or web sockets to develop portable web applications.  Knowing more about the underpinnings of the system will always be useful, of course.  But the key is that, once the building blocks are established, understood, documented, and tutorialized, the barrier has been greatly lowered: you just need to be able to write code.

Beyond just getting more people working with robots, we need better ideas for how robotics technology can be usefully and profitably employed to support people in their everyday lives.  My experience in the robotics community over the last 15 years has convinced me that roboticists are pathologically bad at coming up with application ideas.  We’re enamored of the technology, which is good in that it motivates us to work hard on important problems.  But it also leads us to concentrate on “robotic” solutions to problems, without regard to what people who experience those problems really need.  We can fix this problem by adding orders of magnitude more developers to our community, each of whom comes with a new and different perspective. And we can do that by making the development of robotics applications accessible to any competent programmer.

The Android and iOS platforms made it possible for people with no more than a passing understanding of 3G, GPS, or touch screens to build useful, even world-changing mobile applications.  We can do the same for robotics.  We’re on the right path, with a lot of effort going into open, shared software platforms for robotics.  We just need to keep pushing, and to keep the non-robotics engineer in mind when we’re building things.

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Frustration is compounded when the budding obsessive-compulsive hits what I call the ‘complexity barrier’, where for a linear increase in device competence, an exponential increase in money-time is required.  This often leads to a condition I call FIBA (for “F&@k It, Build Another”) where enthusiasm fades as prototypes fall further into dusty closets.

The problem with FIBA is that the evolutionary discoveries and skills from completing the mechanoid never resolve.  Also, unlike failed code, film, books, or other virtual projects, the half-finished device will be too expensive to throw away and will likely to haunt the builders ambitions for years (dammit!).

It doesn’t inspire, especially when Hollywood (and nature) makes it seem so easy.  There has to be a way to reduce all the factors so that robots can be put together at a price appropriate not just to encourage robo-evolution, but also allow users to put them at risk.  Right now conventional personal robots are precious things subject to de-acceleration trauma, but the best discoveries I’ve had have not been from artificial life, but artificial danger.  We can simulate a robot, but not the real-world it lives in, and how it deals with those problems provide vital clues for subsequent generations (robots and builders alike).  We have to get them cheap enough so they can make mistakes, or they/we will never learn … the vital step to proctoring these creatures into reality.

It’s a forced evolution, and sometimes painful/funny to watch, but if you’ve got a dozen of these dumbos in the lab, let’s see what the dog thinks of one.

Speaking of, anyone know how to get fang marks out of aluminum?

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Brian Gerkey on “What is the single biggest obstacle preventing robotics from going mainstream?”

The biggest obstacle to broader adoption of robotics is that only experienced roboticists can develop robotics applications. To make a robot reliably and robustly do something useful, you need a deep understanding of a broad variety of topics, from state estimation to perception to path planning …

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Mark Tilden on “What is the single biggest obstacle preventing robotics from going mainstream?”

From experience, the single biggest obstacle to personal robotic markets is cost, both in money and time. Robots have the disadvantage of being over-promoted in fictional media while over-priced on the shelves. Sci-fi is fine to inspire if builders feel the money-time is justified, but …

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Alan Winfield on “What is the single biggest obstacle preventing robotics from going mainstream?”

Well it depends on what you mean by mainstream. For a number of  major industry sectors robotics is already mainstream. In assembly-line automation, for instance; or undersea oil well maintenance and inspection …

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John Dulchinos feature article: “The great equalizer: How robotics frees manufacturers from consolidating in low-wage nations”

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 …

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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 …

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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. …

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We hope you will join the discussion. Feel free to post your comment below.

See all the posts in Robohub’s Jobs Focus →

This Robotics By Invitation contribution is part of Robohub’s Jobs Focus.

There may be some regional effects that result in an immediate increase in jobs (for example, setting up a new manufacturing plant and hiring workers to maintain the machines), but the global effect is indisputable: overall, robots replace human workers.

What is also true, however, is that robots create jobs as well.  This is simply Economics 101: there is a redistribution of labor from low skilled jobs – what robots can do now, and the foreseeable future – to higher skilled jobs. An analogy from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture: “In 1790, 93% of the population of the United States was rural, most of them farmers. By 1990, only 200 years later, barely 2% of our population are farmers.”  What is also true is that there are many more software engineers now than there were in 1790; or mechanics; or physiotherapists; or professional athletes; or artists.

So the debate about robots replacing human workers is, for the most part, a tired and old one; just replace the word ‘robot’ with any productivity-enhancing tool or development. And as long as the process is gradual, one can reasonably argue that society benefits as a whole.

But the question does have merit, because human workers are at an artificial disadvantage relative to their robot counterparts, and the culprit is artificially low interest rates.  Large companies such as Procter and Gamble can issue 10 year corporate bonds that have astronomically low yields of 2.3%.  With money so cheap, productivity tools – such as robots – that would not be economically viable under normal interest rates and yields are now a bargain.  Why should a company ‘rent’ labor (a human worker) when it can ‘buy’ it (a robot)?  Have we not seen this storyline before?

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[Photo credit: Petr Kratochvil.]

This Robotics By Invitation contribution is part of Robohub’s Jobs Focus.

The anxiety occurs when robots have anthropomorphic similarities that people wrongly associate with human ambition.  When a (semi) humanoid takes away the whole menial job that used to be done by a person, there’s an instinctive focus to blame the machine, not the corporation optimizing its bottom line.  Optimizing tasks to reduce costs is a good thing.  It’s just a shame we haven’t kept up with the social reforms needed so people who had those jobs before could find better jobs now.

So the short answer is robot-brained corporations kill jobs.  Robots are just the anthropomorphic patsies that get blamed.

Still, now I have to go and stare worriedly at my toaster.

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The most worrisome aspect of the plunging cost and climbing sophistication of drone technology is to consider its domestic use in the United States. Although I don’t expect to see armed Predator drones cruising American cities, it is obviously very tempting to employ smaller versions for domestic law enforcement applications (e.g., surveillance during hostage negotiations). How long until similar devices are sent to hover over high-crime areas? We are already confronting novel privacy issues with the advent of Google Glass, increasingly invasive social networks, and sensor-laden smart phones. As drones of all shapes and sizes proliferate abroad, I won’t be surprised when we start to see their appropriate use join the ongoing privacy discussion in the US.

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What also assures me comes from my years of robot gaming: when you have battles between autonomous robots, people just don’t care, as there are no human egos bolstered or defeated by the outcome.  Machines beating on machines has no emotional connection for us, which is where the ceiling of robot-soldier tolerance might stall.

What will be horrific is the first time a humanoid soldier machine is broadcast hurting or killing humans in a war setting.  When I worked in vision technology, we were asked how would a machine tell the difference between a group of soldiers and a pack of boy scouts from a distance?  It couldn’t, which is why human judgement is still the means by which a trigger is pulled.  Even still, when that video broadcasts, everyone in the world will know our place as the dominant species has just become … less so.

But the question comes down to who gets blamed when a robot commits an atrocity?  Without human frailty to take blame on site, is it the remote pilots, the generals, the politicians?  Sadly the precedent for blame-free robot conflict is being settled by beltway-lawyers now.  A new cold war where you’ll be able to legally and blamelessly use a killer-drone App, though you’ll still go to jail for downloading a movie.

Because that’d be immoral.

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In my answer I have tried (as much as is humanly possible) to put myself in the role of an alien dispassionately analyzing the situation.  And when I do, I keep returning to the following conclusion: the best possible outcome for humanity would be for robots to not play any part (with the possible exception of purely defensive roles such as defusing mines) in warfare whatsoever.

If I were an alien, this is what I would first observe:

1. The ability for the average human to create tools that can harm others is rapidly increasing. This is especially the case for robots and intelligent machines: sensors, actuators, computing platforms, power systems, and other enabling technologies are continually becoming less expensive, more powerful, and more widely available. The result is that increasingly large numbers of people are becoming capable of delivering payloads accurately and over great distances.
2. The knowledge required to create robots, intelligent machines, and the algorithms that bring them to life are widely accessible and impossible to suppress; knowledge wants to be free in the same way that entropy wants to increase.
3. Humans have an incredibly strong sense of fairness, and their own research supports this. One of their greatest triumphs as a species is their ability to channel traits such as tribalism, aggression, and competitiveness – the same traits that lead to warfare – to a benign medium that results in their great joy and entertainment, not to mention a significant economic activity: organized sports. Central to this incredible accomplishment is the establishment of well-defined rules and regulations that strive to ensure a fair competition.

And this is what I would then conclude:

Dominant powers are being seduced by the advantages that robots can bring to the battlefield.  In the short term, this is a perfectly rational strategy. In the long term, however, this leads to an arms race. Even though a dominant power may be able to maintain its lead by continually developing robotic weapons, the capabilities of its adversaries, while inferior, will co-develop and eventually reach levels that will allow them to inflict catastrophic damage. 

Furthermore, asymmetric warfare insidiously erodes the sense of fairness outlined in point 3, with detrimental consequences for both sides.  The losing side is disenfranchised, which coupled with points 1 and 2 above, is extremely destabilizing. The winning side loses its moral compass and the fabric that holds its society together begins to unravel, leading to home-grown disenfranchisement and destabilization there as well. 

The net result of this robotic arms race will be a high-volatility stalemate, with dangerous weapons available to the masses and a lack of social restraint to prevent their indiscriminate use.    

If I were an alien, and thus immune to personal and economic factors that could influence my impartiality (such as having a loved one in combat, or being employed by a weapons dealer or manufacturer), I could only conclude that humanity would greatly benefit from imposing strict and far-reaching bans on the use of robotic technology in warfare.

As a human, not only am I skeptical that this will happen, I admit that my personal views are situation dependent: if my daughter were in combat, I wouldn’t care about asymmetry or fairness, I would want her to be as safe as possible. I don’t think that this makes me a hypocrite, it just makes me human.

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In my opinion, this is due to two main reasons:

1. Robotics is DIFFICULT! It is a multidisciplinary field, where you have to put together the best from several worlds, and make it work. This results in huge integration challenges, which are as complex, or even more complex, than the technology itself.
2. Robotics is EXPENSIVE! Being an expensive technology makes it challenging to find viable business models for new markets.

Based on that, a successful funding scheme should foster the transition from research and technology to integration and business. This does not mean that one should directly fund companies, but that the funding scheme should enforce market orientation. In addition to the fundamental research, a successful funding scheme should put in place a combination of market oriented technological research, development of integration solutions, and pre-commercial procurement. This should, hopefully, help new robotics applications to reach the market.

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(1) strategic funding from NASA, DARPA, DoD, NSF and other government organizations to do the pure science involved in solving stumbling blocks in robotics, and

(2) entrepreneurial-initiated funding from friends and family, angel investors, VCs and “special people” like Scott Hassan, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, or Sergey Brin.

In addition, some funding is available via macro programs such as the Roadmap for US Robotics, which don’t move at the same speed as the entrepreneur-initiated projects.

Finally, surrounding each of the major universities involved in robotics research and education are clusters of support networks working with and supplementing the universities’ own commercialization activities. Stanford and UC Berkeley in the Bay Area of California; Georgia Tech in Atlanta; CMU in Pittsburgh; and MIT and Harvard in Boston. All of these clusters and commercialization activities are without government stimulus or direction.

Willow Garage is a perfect example of the benefits of special people: Scott Hassan had a vision to jump-start robotics – particularly the open source software side – and he invested hundreds of millions of dollars in that pursuit. From Willow Garage came seven notable spin-offs including an ongoing non-profit to perpetuate ROS.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Google established Google X-Labs, invested in Tesla Motors, and many more.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has set up a fund that has invested in all sorts of start-ups: from Uber to Behance to Linden Labs.

The real excitement comes from the special people: They not only enthusiastically give back with profits from their own experiences, but also bring the same level of energy that made them successful to funding of new robotics projects.

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There is still a major need for new methods and companies for systems integration. Still 75% of the system cost is integration, which is a surprise to most companies. We need to bring down the cost of deployment. Too little support has been provided for a new generation of systems integrators.

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1. Continue to fund robotics competitions.  Not only is this a great way to educate researchers on how to build real systems, but the approaches adopted by the winning teams are highly correlated to what is feasible with today’s technology. Also, the challenges these teams encounter in a one-year competition cycle are similar to those faced by a young startup in its first year of existence. This funding approach could be expanded to include team projects that create large-scale public installations because, like startups, they too must be reliable and robust to succeed in a public, real-world context.  Finally, one must also make sure that entrepreneurs know about these competitions and team projects, and that they have the right incentives to attend.
2. Provide funding that allows freshly-minted PhDs to transition from fundamental research to applied research with a specific business focus, and at the same time provide support from business mentors and entrepreneurs.  A pre-startup phase, if you will. This not only brings the research closer to application, but it also gives individuals an appreciation of what it takes to commercialize their research, without the immediacy and constraints of being a startup.  A good example of this kind of funding scheme is the Pioneer Fellowships program established at ETH Zurich.

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The most successful (and enjoyable) funding scheme I ever took part in was through a science outreach organization that distributed ‘Angel Cards’. We would actively seek out people who were frustrated but brilliant and give them a $10,000 US a month Visa card to spend on their research “hobby”. No other paperwork. At the end of 6 months we’d assess what they’d done and up their card to $20,000/month if good, or we’d just cancel the card, thank them, and walk away.

26% turned out something amazing, and not always in robotics, but that was fine. It was an excellent integrity test proctoring scientific conviction, but it’s exhausting for the managers, which is why we had to recruit successful candidates to take our place when we moved on. Regrettably the program stopped a decade ago, but for a while there it was like Santa Claus for innovation – an option to explore exotic, tangental paths without consequence, and I’m glad to see many of our docents have diversified profitably.

Money well spent. Always hoped someone else would take it up, and it seems a form of it has with the net-wide Kickstarter trend now raging. Rather than indenture a researcher to servitude under a venture-capital scheme or the bureaucracy of government funding, pre-customers can buy into a future product on promises and universal visibility. The personal investment is small, the risk distributed, and some of the products look promising.

Though crowd sourcing lacks the ‘blue-sky’ appeal of pure research outreach, I feel the best robotic funding scheme at present is to invest in cool and visible crowd-sourced ventures.

Or you could fund my ass. A cool hundred mil otta do it. :)

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So, where would the experts invest their money? Our panel members weigh in:

Frank Tobe on “If you had a EUR 100M investment fund, into which robotics technology or field of robotics would you put your money?”

As the robotics industry continues to grow, enters new industries, and provides new applications, strategic focus is necessary or the overall industry will develop haphazardly and spread out …

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Mark Tilden on “If you had a EUR 100M investment fund, into which robotics technology or field of robotics would you put your money?”

Well if it was for fun, I’d invest in autonomous paving mothers (APMs).  A self-driving solar-powered mobile furnace robot that eats sand and dirt and spits out interlocking solar-panel paving stones …

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Henrik Christensen on “If you had a EUR 100M investment fund, into which robotics technology or field of robotics would you put your money?”

Robots for manufacturing. Generating a new family of robots that have a fluent interaction with humans. It will be easily programmable. Some would argue that Baxter provides this functionality …

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Herman Bruyninckx on “If you had a EUR 100M investment fund, into which robotics technology or field of robotics would you put your money?”

A project that would (1) represent human knowledge about manufacturing in an ontology server; (2) focus on system integration software and hardware issues …

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1. represent human knowledge about manufacturing in an ontology server;
2. focus on system integration software and hardware issues;
3. develop affordance-driven system and component design;
4. make students aware of the dead-end future of the current wave of “Sense-Plan-Act” software development;
5. lobby with academic decision makers to throw away the “publish or perish” system, and replace it by direct peer review (that is, the technology exists to just ask all roboticists to score their peers, with a limited budget of points to distribute).

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I also like the idea of making 100,000 solar-powered self-driving surfboards to roam all the shores of earth so there’s always something to play with when you take your kids to the beach (I’m tired of fumbling with inflatable ducks).

And if it’s for profit I’d invest in advanced life-size humanoid executives to act as the research platform for a mass inexpensive humanoid robot market.  Start them out as executive helpers (a walking I-phone that can bring you coffee), then scale to tele-robo-tourism (why not take a walking tour of Hawaii before visiting?), and shopping (your robot avatar working a market far away).

Data from this development could then be used to optimize the ultimate robot market, a $1000 soft-plasic humanoid nurse that will keep the house in order, fetch and cook food, dispense medicine, then put itself away in a closet.  An affordable option to give people the dignity to live at home comfortably through their dotage without burden.

Yes, there might be a demand.  A good investment I think.

The most pressing problem to consider is the design of more robust, flexible, and
affordable grippers for robots. This is a major limitation for more widespread
use of robots in many different applications. Parallel pneumatic grippers are
affordable, but the more dextrous systems are much too expensive.

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As the robotics industry continues to grow, enters new industries, and provides new applications, strategic focus is necessary or the overall industry will develop haphazardly and spread out around the world. It is important to remember that the first industrial robot was designed and developed in America but almost all industrial robots today are manufactured offshore and the profits from their sale go to offshore companies.

Hector, the eldercare robot, from the EU-funded Companionable Project.

In the EU and Korea they are stimulating the robotics industry to fulfill national strategic goals such as keeping and growing homeland industry AND solving a particular set of problems, eg, how to help educate Korean children to learn a second language, English, using robots to supplement teachers. Another example of this type of strategic funding is the EU-funded SME project which also had twin goals: keep manufacturers from going offshore and provide robotic assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises, a new marketplace which, with robotic automation, will be able to better compete and remain at home.

The US doesn’t have anything similar but it should because robotics is an industry that has passed us by once and could continue that way again without guidance. $100 million in focused stimulation money could go a long way toward re-establishing a leadership role. The American tradition of entrepreneurial funding and product development just can’t work on a project of the size and scope that I am suggesting. And the alternative, just let nature take it’s course, will likely lead to a similar movement offshore as occurred with industrial robot – where the major manufacturers are located in Europe and Japan.

It seems to me that the next breakthrough marketplaces for robotics will be:

• SMEs (robot workers and co-workers in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises)
• Medical and healthcare (nursing assistance, surgeon augmentation, operating room assistance, therapeutic assistance, home care, elder care, remote presence, hospital automation)
• Agriculture (robotically automated planting, weeding, harvesting, sorting and packaging)
• Aerial surveillance and applications
• Embedded systems within our cars, trucks and taxis

Scene from the movie “Robot and Frank”

Of these, the one most beneficial to humanity is in the area of healthcare, thus, $100 million focused on stimulating breakthroughs in that industry might be best spent on developing an eldercare robot similar to the one in the movie ‘Robot and Frank.’ Along that path, that robot could then be turned into a consumer services product for basic home care and, down the road, perhaps even child care. Below is a short list of activities such a robot could provide people wishing to live at home independently:

• Cognitive stimulation and assistance
• Therapy assistance
• Monitor health (blood pressure, pulse, temperature, etc.)
• Collaboratively work with smart home environments and a remote control center
• Provide mobility assistance
• Keeps and reminds of daily calendar
• Reminds and delivers medicines, meals and other items
• Stores and locates lost items
• Can communicate when an emergency is detected
• Can communicate when a security breach is detected
• Can enable visual communication with family members and care givers
• Can coordinate other robotic devices such as floor cleaners, lawn mowers, etc.
• Can assist with basic household and yard chores

Imagine someone with legislative connections spearheading an effort to provide a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to design, develop, product engineer, build, market and distribute a cost-efficient robotic device for home health and elder care AND doing so before the competition beats us to the punch. The PPP would include at least one major medical devices conglomerate, a consumer products company, a few quality-of-life university labs, a couple of healthcare insurance systems, representatives from Medicare and the FDA, and an experienced healthcare/hospital/homecare business management leadership team. And they would all agree to share (patent and otherwise) in the research and development and give back when their efforts become profitable.

Many global government-funded PPP projects are further along the research path — such as Hector, the eldercare robot pictured above — but none have yet been turned into commercially available healthcare devices. $100 million will go a long way toward catching up and, hopefully, leading the pack.

Many consumer product companies are encouraging development of add-on robotic devices to provide consumer benefits, eg, Bosch is attempting to provide hamper to hamper service for dirty clothes (sorting, washing, drying, folding). But they miss the bigger picture in the process.

By solving the problems involved in providing unobtrusive but comprehensive eldercare, the US-funded PPP will also be solving many of these same consumer product issues, thus, the consumer products partner can make transitional products. The reason for the insurance company partners is because they are footing eldercare bills at present and would welcome cost-reducing robotic solutions once they were available. They can afford to be first-adopters and pay the premium price of the initial products.

Therefore, if the project is timely, well-managed, goal-driven and has the right team players, an industry could be born and stay in America and spread to other areas of robotic consumer products as well.

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Note: A previous version of this article was published under the title $100 million P-P-P investment in healthcare robotics at my blog Everything Robotic.

1. The Handbook of Robotics is a massive book. But is amazingly good at giving a broad sweep of the field.
2. Robotics, Vision and Control: Fundamental Algorithms in MATLAB by Peter Corke is an excellent introductory text with online Matlab examples.
3. Probabilistic Robotics by Sebastian Thrun et al. gives an excellent grounding in statistical and machine learning methods for robotics.
4. For people starting out in robotics I recommend the brilliant LEGO MINDSTORMS by Laurens Valk. It provides practical ways to teach and inspire the next generation of roboticists.
5. I also recommend people read some inspiring science fiction to get motivated! You can’t go past Isaac Asimov and his classic I, Robot.

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A great history of the robotic future can be found by starting through Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” anthologies (and the extending books “Robots of the Dawn”, “Caves of Steel”, etc). As with the Sherlock Holmes novels, Asimov’s stories are engaging, logical, quick to read, and, best of all, not bogged down by technical jargon. Written in a simpler time (starting 1930s), the “I Robot” parables revolve around the necessities of the humans involved, but as the series progressed over decades, Asimov’s machines evolve more interesting, sometimes pertinent, roles.

Stories of robot evolution are pandemic through sci-fi culture, and there are many pejorative “Frankenstein awakens and he’s pissed” sub-genres that burden the field. However there are some tales that explore why he’s pissed, and what sort of introspection it might take to calm him down (pitchforks not included). Two of my favorites along these lines are “Two Faces of Tomorrow” (1979, ISBN 978-1-59307-563-7) and “Code of the Lifemaker” (1983, ISBN 0-345-30549-3) both by James P. Hogan. Not only are these stories prophetic, but they deal with my favorite attribute of robotics, namely “Emergent Properties”, when a robot system does more than expected. A major part of the fun of research robotics — “Is it a bug, or awareness?”

There are many excellent modern mechanical missives, but one of the most brilliant details a realistic legal robot dystopia that’s free online. “The Robot and the Baby” by John McCarthy (2006) makes me glad robots are still mostly fictional and not subject to choking regulations and political tarnish. For now, the fun of building robots unfettered is secure, but this story reveals some disturbing possibilities and is my favorite cautionary tale.

And finally, I strongly recommend “Expedition — Voyage to Darwin IV” by Wayne Douglas Barlow (1990, Workman Publishing). This book is pure imagination in biology form, and fed well into my long-held bias that robots don’t have to just be copies of familiar earthly lifeforms, they could be nimble, exotic, enticing aliens. As roboticists, we can build anything, provided we’ve the inspiration, and this book is all about that.

Inspiration acquired. Now where’s my box of junk?

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So, what’s on the essential reading list for budding roboticists? Our panel members weigh in:

Mark Tilden on “What are the five must-read publications for budding roboticists?”

Aside from the conventional introductory texts on BEAM Robotics, control systems, electronics, and multi-axis mechanics, I always recommend books to inspire thoughts on robotic history, possibilities, and directions.

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Alex Zelinski on “What are the five must-read publications for budding roboticists?”

The field moves quickly. So much of the material dates quickly. Joining a professional association such as IEEE or IFR and regular reading of publications – magazines and journals – is essential.

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