Autonomous Robots & AI

As we see the continued implementation of Industry 4.0 principles and technologies, the use of robots and autonomous workers are taking over many traditional jobs and activities; not just any robots, but hyper-smart robots that can “think”. The advances being made today in artificial intelligence (AI) will have a big impact on the robots of tomorrow. But, don’t worry, these robots aren’t likely to take your jobs. What they will do is provide a way for people to spend their time engaged in tasks that people are good at and robots do poorly: innovation, creativity, communication and developing more sophisticated products.

The robots of tomorrow will be able to “think”, and make decisions based on tera-bytes of information. These robots will also be able to work cooperatively in groups to get more done. Mind-numbing, repetitive work that is often done in factories will be almost completely taken over by robots, with a few people to watch and make decisions when circumstances require. The living, breathing people can be moved to jobs like product innovation, quality certification, product testing, efficiency improvements, and an increased focus on customer satisfaction.

For a long time, there has been the idea that robots will become so intelligent that they will take over the earth, and invite some “transformers” to invade our planet, and other nonsensical mythology. As we remember the scientific pioneer Stephen Hawking, we might even remember his words about robots and technology. He once said, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." I have been hearing this since the 1980’s, and we are only slightly closer than we were at that time.

These intelligent robot invasion scenarios are fun to watch at the movies, but they are far from a reality with even the smartest robots today. Many basic activities are still done poorly by robots, and they have been working on this for at least 4 decades. Robots are still very poor at climbing stairs, running, picking things up, balancing objects, “seeing”, “hearing” and many other basic human tasks. Sure, there are robots that can do these things, but they are usually specialized robots that can do only one thing. A robot that does all of this well, or even as well as a human, is probably far, far in our future.

Smarter robots are in our future whether we like them or not. Don’t think of transformer robots that will kill you and take over the world, think of kinder, gentler robot friends. Think of greater worker satisfaction; think of a greater ability to rely on these “helpful” entities; and think of people who can leave their extremely awful jobs behind.

At least, that’s what I think.

Cheers,

Jim