Vid: Robots Taking Over Many Future Jobs - Sorry, Juan, I Got Lawnbot
Pittsburgh - At a mall in Osaka, Japan, lost shoppers can get directions from a robot that looks like something out of “The Jetsons.” In hospitals across the US, disc-shaped robots deliver bed linens and meals to rooms. In some homes, robots are already doing a range of chores, such as vacuuming rooms and cleaning gutters. At least one company is working on a robot that works on a farm.
As a growing number of robots become capable of working alongside humans, the service industry may face a pattern all too familiar in the manufacturing sector: robots replacing humans in jobs.
“The service sector, which is a gigantic part of the employment landscape in the United States, is inevitably going to be a place where you can replace millions of people with robots that work 24/7 for less money,” says futurist Marshall Brain.
While it will take a decade or more for droids, such as “Robovie,” the mobile MapQuest in Osaka, to become pervasive in everyday life, the robotics industry is primed to begin producing robots that could eventually take the place of tour guides and bellhops.
The first robots to make a serious impact on the staffing in the service industry will probably carry out low-level tasks, experts say, allowing people to focus on chores that require higher levels of intelligence.
For now, automatons such as Robovie that use cameras and sensors to “understand” human emotions are more the exception than the rule.
“Dealing with humans is a very complex task. It takes us as humans many years to grow up and learn all the social etiquette and cues,” says Joel Burdick, a professor of mechanical engineering who specializes in robotics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. It will take time to perfect robots capable of understanding human emotions well enough to please people in service roles, says Dr. Burdick.
And, though he expects that robots will have a substantial impact on the service industry, he says that in some cases humans will simply always want to interact with other humans.
But robots have already started their march into the service industry. Though they might not look like robots, automated checkout lines at grocery stores or touch-screen check-in kiosks at airports are the tip of the service industry’s robotic revolution.
Read full CSM article here.
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Robots……..doing jobs that Americans won’t do.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pmThis is what will solve the illegal problem. Robots by the score.
Cheap labor without the attendant lawlessness and societal decay?
More please.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:52 pmYou racist bastards!!! What are the poor Mexican people supposed to do now??!!
What about the Mexican economy?? How do you expect it to grow if the Mexicans are not sending dollars back to Mexico??
You should all be ashamed?
Ok, I’ll take two robots and a side of fries.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:25 amThis little gem make look strange, but I doubt it needs a green card to work in the U.S.! Fantastic!
May 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am