Page 49 - Modern Robotics Building Versatile Macines

REVOLUTIONIZING INDUSTRY 29

have not seen a human teller for years. Many supermarkets and librar-
ies are installing self-checkout machines. According to Marshall Brain,
author of “Robotic Nation,” it is these specialized robotic machines
that will have the real impact on workers. They will be followed by
more sophisticated walking humanoid robots that might take over
such jobs as receptionist, museum guide, store greeter, or even
security guard. Brain predicts that by 2055 robots will have practi-
cally taken over the workplace. Their development will be driven by
Moore’s Law—the observation that computer power roughly doubles
every two years.
Whether the threat is robots or cheaper foreign labor, there would
seem to be three possible responses on the part of society. The first is
to somehow stop the influx of the cheaper labor into the workplace.
This seems unlikely to happen, in particular because the interests
that most benefit from cheaper labor are politically influential. The
second possibility is that enough new jobs will arise that require skills
that are beyond the capability of robots. New technologies do bring
new opportunities—look at all the jobs created in Internet and Web
development and in venues such as eBay, despite the “dot-bust” early
in the new century. But it is far from clear that enough such jobs can
be created and that people can be retrained to do them. (People who
work in the kinds of jobs that are likely to be automated are also more
likely to lack sufficient educational background for more sophisticated
jobs.) The last possibility is that our society and economy might be
fundamentally restructured so that most people no longer need to
work in order to live.

in 1984 became HelpMate Robotics, Inc. The company’s most suc-
cessful product has been the HelpMate hospital robot. The robot is
designed to dispatch records, specimens, and supplies throughout a
busy hospital. The robot received extensive field testing thanks to an
arrangement with Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.
Automatic delivery vehicles are nothing new, but the HelpMate
robot and its successors are much more flexible and capable.
HelpMate does not follow a fixed track. Rather, it is programmed
to visit a succession of areas or stations and to make its own way,
using cameras to detect and go around obstacles. HelpMate can even
summon an elevator to go to a different floor!