Robots getting better....
 

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/23/n...se-boasts-tot/

The warning currently is that most if not all service related jobs will be done by robots by 2025. I personally think that is off by about 5 years because of news like this.

In my view.

2010 Robots doing basic assistance. Mainly standing around and waiting to be commanded to produce something or flipping switches or whatnot at a certain time. This will cause a few jobs to be replaced.

2013 Robots start gaining better command systems and sensors. Now a few will be able to do such tasks as cooking simple meals. and organizing in warehouses. A more serious job loss results.

2015 Robots start seriously taking the place of humans in a variety of different jobs. By this point it is safe to say humans will compete with robots for a job at McDonalds.

2017 Half the service workforce is replaced by robots. However at this time Mineral and food prices start to fall dramatically as robots are now useful in exploiting resources or caring for plants.

2019 Robot become more standardized and start to be mass produced which drops prices across the board. The large amount of job loss means unemployment requests skyrocket. But with taxes from more businesses that can economically pay them with robots working 24/7 it works out.

2020 Skynet... No just kidding! By this point I think its safe to say that robots will have changed the face of civilization.

Reminds me of the claims of the 'Paperless office' in the 80's ... anyhow I posted on this subject last week and it went ignored for the most part.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...03#post1053703

Today's offices are more and more paperless. And besides there will always be a use for human labor in certain applications (Software design, The arts)

But the pace of development is astounding. Instead of talking about it like in the glory days of "Danger Will Robinson" Todays robots are actually doing things.

Look at it from a store managers point of view.

Pay 2 cooks minimum wage and they only work part time. Or pay 20-30 thousand and get a robot that will cook and assist. But after closing will spend the night cleaning up the store.

That isnt very far off. And with a price like that they will sell like hotcakes because of the huge amount of productivity and return on investment.

I don't know where you work, but it can't be an engineering and design office.

In my job there is paper for my drawings down to the factory, paper for the certificates which are duplicated.

Then we have the data books so more certs and duplication of drawings. A3 drawings for checking, marking up.

Offices are definately not more paperless. In fact in the oil industry with all the trails need they are more paperful.

I'm talking the average office not the "paper trail or fail" .gov or whatever.

After the rape the companies had in the 90s over the cost of ink carts. The move to Electronic has been more pronounced. And with tablet PCs netbooks and other small devices. The paper use has fallen a great deal.

Anyway thats off topic.

Hmm I paper trail or fail. In the oil industry it is about safety and tracibility and in order to do that you can't go wrong with having a hard copy. I'll also think you'll find the average office has just as much paper as before.

What does that have to do with robots? Edit: And on top of that you are a mod and ought to know better than to drag a topic further off topic.

And they don't

Robots will never be as we have imagine them living in our house, walking and talking. They will be more in the form of AI, which we have more and more of as our cars and appliances get smarter and wired to the net.

Robots in industry, that's another story.

Excuse me, Steamwake made a valid point with it reminding him off the 80's paperless office. It is related so not off topic.

Coming back on topic, I'll believe it when I see it.

Longam, It IS the story because it will change a big part of labor in the nation and the world.

Right now its written off as "OH NO SKYNET!!111" Jokes but it is only delaying the inevitable panic by people who will lose their jobs to these things.

What do you think they will say? I can give you one likely example. Calls to tax them to death or outright ban them while China and other nations use them to rapidly grow their economies.

That wont work. A better plan needs to be discussed before we get to that point.

Here you go.

That is now. In 2009... Do you HONESTLY believe that it will remain at this point?

Up to 2013 maybe. But they still have to be commanded.

Replacing workers at McDonald's I think no. Two reasons. Robots break down and getting a tech in to repair could quite possibly take longer than phoning in someone else to get there backside down to do the job if a human worker gets ill, especially if you need a new part.

Although in terms of appearence of robots especially for interaction has advanced I still don't think people will accept it.

We need leaps in AI that I don't see happening. Even with 'smart' bots they are constrained by their programing and that is the word, programed.

I think organising warehouses is a bit optimistic. Maybe you mean moving stuff around. I was taking it you mean that the robot will figure stuff out.

I share your enthusiasm for robotics Zach, but I think you're being too optimistic in your timeline. Robotics is still in its' infancy, and when you consider the tremendous amount of computational power and programming effort that must be expended just to get a robot to reliably perform a simple task, even the rapid acceleration of computer power is not enough to have robots replacing service jobs by 2017.
Consider the AI used in the software entertainment industry. While many great leaps forward have been made, most AI remains relatively stupid. It has predictable patterns and often fails or is exploited within the game's engine.
If AI in a computer game cannot be designed to function properly the majority of the time in a software environment it was designed for, how will it function properly and cost-effectively in the real world where any number of unforseen circumstances may present unsolveable problems to the AI?

I'm certainly not an expert in robotics but I was on my high school's DC Best robotics team, not so long ago. Even the amateurish robots we produced required a tremendous amount of time and effort just to maintain and calibrate, let alone program. And they were only designed to do simple things like climb a rope or navigate a rudimentary obstacle course.
And people like me would have to be trained to maintain exponentially more complex robots if their use became widespread in the near future. We'd have to be trained a lot. Training requires a lot of time and money. Highly skilled labor is fairly rare and costs a lot of money. Why invest in all that training and labor cost to support a robot when you could easily hire a minimum wage worker for a service job? Especially if you're a corporatist who is only trying to beat Wall Street quarterly predictions for a few years?*

Additionally, given the current status of the economy, funds for investment in robotic technology will be limited for quite some time. Consumers and industry are buckling down and trying to save. There is less capital for experimental ventures into robotics.

I've worked alongside UAVs and EOD robots. That was back in 2006-7 but I still hear the same complaints that I had; They're great when they work, but they fail too often.
Of the 8 missions I participated in involving UAV's and EOD robots, 3 of them were aborted, changed, or seriously set beack because of failures. That's completely unacceptable by any standards. And these are supposed to be "top of the line" military robots. They all cost astronomical amounts of money.
Why would a private business owner spend that kind of money for that pitiful perfomance record?

Robotics are the future, but the future isn't here yet. It will be here soon, but IMO, not so soon as you predict.


*more explanation available if required, but it is a bit off-topic

When paying 20-30 thousand for a piece of equipment. The chances of it breaking down better be rare. Tho I suspect it wont be a disaster to have to wait for a few hours for a tech to arrive when you don't have to pay by the hour. Worst comes to worst. Dont be a cheapo and get a backup.

As for appearance. Completely and utterly meaningless. This is flipping burgers for 1-5 dollars a pop. This is not a fancy restaurant and I think acceptance will be higher because you don't have to worry about a robot spitting in your food or coming to work sick because money is tight.

And of course I mean both about warehouses. Computers already organize them. And robots would just take the place of the people working the equipment. That is basic AI and not hard at all in the scope of things.

I am talking industrial bots. I keep hearing about this (They wont be accepted because they look too robotly) But something tells me that a robot working an area of a farm or moving equipment around in a mine or even being in the kitchen of fast food will be ignored at worst and likely maveled.

I dont know about you but if I had two choices

Big Mac prepared as soon as the meat is cooked packed and ready to go within a few mins.

Big Mac prepared by tired cook wondering more about his date tonight than that vegtable he forgot to put on my order. Using meat that has been sitting around for 15 mins.

Ill go with the robot..

Actually if I was to be served by a robot I'd prefer ti to be looking like a robot, not more like a human.

UndrSea has made some very good points that I agree with.

Also woud having a robot be cheaper? I think no.

I don't know what the minimum wage is in the US but for this exercise I'll assume $5 which might be generous.

Typical worker doing a 40 hour week at $5/hr $200 per week that's $10400 per year.

Now if you get a £20,000 robot and assuming it works the same hours and doesn't break down will take almost 2 years to pay for itself. Also you have to put that money upfront to get the thing. How much does an advert for a burger flipper cost? Not £20,000.

Now is your robot going to process the order any quicker? A burger takes the same time to cook whether by a machine or a person. Now I'm assuming it has got very good speech recognition abilities and that is still something that is causing problems now.

Now a better way to cut down on your labour costs is to have self service terminals like we have in Tesco in the UK. You go in punch in your order, pay and then it comes out waiting for you.

Zach I'm not disagreeing with you for the sake of it. It will happen one day, but as UndSea said, not so soon.