Robots and Automation Robots and Automation

Robots and Automation

By: Bill Wanlund

Pub. Date: February 9, 2015 Access Date: September 26, 2021 DOI: 10.1177/2374556815571549 Source URL: http://businessresearcher.sagepub.com/sbr-1645-94777-2641309/20150209/robots-and-automation ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Will technological advances help businesses and workers? Executive Summary

Fueled by advances in computer and sensor technology, robots are growing in sophistication and versatility to become an important—and controversial—sector of the world economy. Once largely limited to manufacturing plants, robots now are found in households, offices and hospitals, and on farms and highways. Some believe robots are a job creator, a boon to corporate productivity and profits, and a way to “reshore” American manufacturing that had migrated to countries where labor was cheaper. Others fear that the growing use of robots will wipe out millions of lower-skilled jobs, threatening the economic security of the working poor, fostering social inequality and leading to economic stagnation. Today's managers need to understand how humans and machines can best work together; government and industry must decide how best to manage robots' design, manufacture and use. Overview

Drew Greenblatt, president and CEO of Marlin Steel Wire Products of Baltimore, says introducing robots into his manufacturing operation was “imperative: Our choice was either extinction or transformation.” When Greenblatt bought Marlin in 1998, the company—then based in Brooklyn, N.Y.— made steel baskets for bagel shops. And the overseas competition was murderous. “We were confronted with finished baskets from Asia that cost less than my cost for the steel alone,” Greenblatt says. “We had an untenable business proposition, where we were losing money on every basket. We had to transform.” Marlin made its first investment in automation—a robotic wire bender with a built-in robotic welder—in 1999. Today, the company uses five robots and expects to add three more by the end of 2015. Marlin's human workforce has grown, too, from 17 employees in 1999—“most of them earning minimum wage with no benefits,” or about $15,000 a year, Greenblatt says—to 29 today. The lowest starting salary now is $35,000, he says, and the company provides a 401(k) retirement savings plan and health insurance for every worker. Robots have allowed Marlin to expand production beyond baskets to other wire-formed and sheet metal products. And, he adds, sales are up—from $800,000 in 1998 to $6 million in 2014. Robots “saved the company,” Greenblatt says. Robots “saved the company,” says Drew Greenblatt, CEO of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore. Marlin's automated workers are among the estimated 230,000 industrial robots in use in (Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty the United States, according to the Robotic Industries Association (RIA), a trade Images) organization based in Ann Arbor, Mich. But robots are relatively scarce in places like Marlin—small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), says RIA President Jeff Burnstein. “The automotive industry accounts for more than half” of U.S. industrial robots, Burnstein says, while “only about 10 percent of the U.S. companies that could benefit from robots have installed any so far. Most of the 300,000 SMEs [in the United States] have yet to install even one robot.” Industrial Robots Drive Growth in Spending

Worldwide spending on robotics, $U.S. billion, 2000–25

Note: 2015, 2020 and 2025 figures are estimates. Source: Alison Sander and Meldon Wolfgang, “The Rise of Robotics,” Boston Consulting Group, Aug. 27, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mo6r8pm

According to projections, industrial users will spend more than $24 billion on robotics by 2025, the largest share of the projected $67 billion global spending that year. Analysts predict commercial robotic spending will jump by $11 billion between 2015 and 2025, while personal market spending will grow by $6.5 billion.

Robots are a boon to business because they can increase labor productivity, reduce payroll costs (thus allowing U.S. manufacturers to better compete with foreign competitors), increase profit margins and fill jobs suffering from worker shortages, say robotics proponents. Business consultant Jeff Holmberg of accounting firm Froehling Anderson in Minneapolis says, “Robots can far outperform their human counterparts at precision or repetitive tasks, both in terms of processes per hour and the number of hours that they can operate. As an added bonus, robots don't get bored, need time off or complain.” But some economists fear the robot revolution will lead to massive job losses as machines take over work that had been the domain of humans. Karl Fogel, a partner with technology consultants Open Tech Strategies, told the Pew Research Center, “The reason [businesses] are investing in machine agents is precisely that they will replace more [lower-paid] humans than the number of [more highly paid] humans needed to build and maintain the machines…. We're going to have to come to grips with a long-term employment crisis and the fact that— strictly from an economic point of view, not a moral point of view—there are more and more ‘surplus humans.’” 1 Economist Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Center for Digital Business, says that technological change is contributing to job losses and to stagnating incomes. “It's the great paradox of our era,” he said. “Productivity is at record levels, innovation has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren't keeping up.” 2 Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank that promotes incorporation of innovative technologies into public policies, disagreed. “Automation has never led to fewer jobs in the economy in the past and never will in the future, for the simple reason that automation lowers prices, which increases demand for goods and services, which in turn creates jobs,” he said. 3 Jeff Trinkle, program director at the National Science Foundation for the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a multi-agency federal initiative that supports robot research in areas of national priority, says, “The continued evolution of robotics will lead to job creation in some areas and losses in others, with an overall gain in productivity and standard of living. This has been the case for essentially every major technological advance in modern history. If the U.S. were to decide not to develop robotics further, because robots might take away some jobs, I believe we'd be making a big mistake. The rest of the world would continue on with robotics development, and would gain in productivity relative to the U.S. By focusing on ways that people and robots can work together, the U.S. will remain strong leaders in robotics and will be able to ensure that robotics technologies are deployed equitably.”

A 2014 poll of 1,896 technology experts found respondents split over how advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will affect employment. Fifty-two percent thought the technologies would either have no effect on overall employment or would create “new jobs designing, building, servicing, and utilizing the same technologies that are displacing other types of work.” But 48 percent were more pessimistic. Dave Kissoondoyal, CEO of business consulting firm KMP Global, told the pollsters, “Networked, automated, artificial intelligence applications and robotic devices will have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025.” 4 Cage-Free Robots

In the past, industrial robots worked in isolation, caged off to keep humans out of harm's way as they manipulated, welded and sorted the objects at dizzying speeds on the assembly line. Mike Taubitz, former global director of safety and ergonomics for General Motors and now an independent industrial safety consultant, says that, in the 1980s, “big, clumsy hydraulic robots were the rule. Control wasn't very good, employees trying to program one were at risk of the thing running off in an unpredictable direction. So we put guarding and cages around them, with interlocking systems.” But caged robots have drawbacks. They typically use expensive proprietary software that requires considerable programming expertise, their safety cages occupy valuable factory floor space and many of them are priced beyond the budget of small or medium-sized businesses. Now a new generation of industrial robot is emerging, designed to work safely alongside humans. They are relatively inexpensive—prices generally run $20,000 to $35,000 per unit, compared with $60,000 and up for a new “conventional” preprogrammed caged robot. These machines, known as co-bots, can easily be programmed to perform a variety of light, repetitive tasks such as moving, sorting and shipping merchandise, according to their manufacturers, and they are fitted with sophisticated sensors to stop their processes immediately if unexpected contact—such as bumping into a human worker—occurs. Social roboticist Heather Knight, who studies human-robot interaction at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), thinks co-bots offer a good social as well as industrial automation model. “Instead of replacing a factory worker with a robot,” she says, “you could have … humans and robots working side by side, making use of what the person is good at and what the robot is good at. You would have these human- robot teams that would function as a unit of creation.” Co-bots have been fairly slow to catch on. Universal Robots of Odense, Denmark, a co-bot manufacturing pioneer, has sold only about 2,500 worldwide since it began manufacturing them in 2008. 5 In the United States, Rethink Robotics is tight-lipped about sales of its Baxter co-bot; the company reportedly had set a target of at least 500 in 2013. 6 (See Short Article, “The Factory Robot of the Future.”) The growing complexity of technology, and the increasing use and sophistication of robots, presents managers with tough choices. Experts advise them to be open- minded about the technology and to be adaptable. Here are some of the questions being asked by those affected by automation: Weighing the Issues Will wider robot use increase profitability?

On the shop floor, Marlin Wire Products CEO Greenblatt points to Ed, who is operating a $400,000 robot to make wire baskets. “Before we got that robot, we had six guys making a total of 14 baskets an hour. Now, Ed alone makes eight an hour,” Greenblatt says. “Productivity is up, I can ship faster, and I can ship [a] product of consistently higher quality.” He adds, “We do the math on how much direct labor we're going to save plus the quality improvements in our product. We should see a two-year return on investment.” Matt Tyler, CEO of Vickers Engineering, a precision manufacturing business in New Troy, Mich., gives a quick, back-of-the-envelope return on investment (ROI) calculation: “Say the robot costs between $50,000 and $100,000. The integration into the production line, the programming—call that another $150,000. We eliminate the need for two operators—say $40,000 a year each for benefits and wages—that's $80,000 a year. Payback is about a year and a half, not even taking into consideration quality improvement and producing more product.” (See Short Article, Baxter from Rethink Robotics is one of the cheapest “Does Automation Cost Jobs?”) industrial co-bots on the market. (Rethink Robotics Inc.) It's hard to find an executive of a manufacturing company using robots who doesn't think they help the bottom line. Elaine Chen, senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management and the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, says, “For a

Page 4 of 19 Robots and Automation SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. typical SME, you can expect an ROI of one to two years.” Chen explains the calculation: “A piece of equipment costs a certain amount, and there will be a cost of running it. Then, you purchase integration services to bring the robot into your manufacturing line so that it can work with the equipment you have, and program the robot to do its task.” Those costs depend on the job, she says: “A robot that welds car doors, for example, might cost $100,000, but the integration costs might be $300,000 or $400,000 more.” Then, Chen says, add in annual costs like preventative maintenance to replace parts and lubricate the machine and “calculate how much you're spending for that same activity without a robot, and decide when the cost of purchasing and running the equipment is going to be covered by savings over time.” As head of the robotics trade association RIA, Burnstein promotes the use of industrial robots. Still, he advises companies to think carefully before making the investment: “System integrators can analyze a company's operations to determine the right technology for their specific needs,” he says. “Robots may not be the right choice in every case; other machines might be preferred in some cases, manual operations in others. You have to look at the specifics of the company.” Business consultant Holmberg believes “it all comes down to cash flow” when a company is deciding whether a robot will pay off. He says, “One risk is exaggerating the benefits using a best-case scenario in your cash-flow analysis. Your assumptions going in may be wrong. For example, it might take two days to program the robot instead of the one day you had budgeted for. You can mitigate that risk by running the scenario a number of different ways and changing your variables—from best-case to worst-case scenario. You can also go through all your assumptions about the money you're going to save and figure out how sensitive your scenario is to one change in a variable.” Does robot use destroy more jobs than it creates?

It's a clichéd joke: Once robots take our jobs, the only work we can get will be flipping burgers in a fast-food restaurant. On second thought, maybe that's too optimistic. Momentum Machines, a San Francisco company, says its robotic hamburger-maker “does everything employees can do, except better,” according to its website. Ingredients are stored in automated food containers; when an order is placed, the robot chars the meat, chooses and prepares the bun, selects freshly sliced toppings to order and assembles the burger. And, the company proclaims, it can do this 360 times an hour. 7 “Our device isn't meant to make employees more efficient,” Momentum co-founder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy. “It's meant to completely obviate them.” 8 Momentum's admission that its robot could cost jobs crystallizes one of the issues in the debate over the economic impact of increasing robot use: What will become of the workers whose jobs inevitably are lost? In a September 2013 paper, two researchers at the University of Oxford in England estimated that, given the rate of technological development, “47 percent of total U.S. employment is in the high risk category” of being automated, “perhaps a decade or two.” 9 Low-Skill Jobs Are Most Susceptible to Automation

Probability of computerization by occupation

Source: Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Sept. 17, 2013, pp. 57–72, http://tinyurl.com/oj67kae

According to a study by two Oxford professors, occupations with few technical requirements face the highest risk of automation, such as telemarketer (99 percent), bank teller (98 percent) and butcher (93 percent). Robots are far less likely to replace humans in specialized roles such as nuclear engineer (7 percent), pharmacist (1.2 percent) and dentist (0.4 percent).

But study co-author Carl Benedikt Frey, a fellow of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, says the findings were not predictions. “It is technologically possible to automate these jobs, but we don't know how soon or even whether that is going to happen,” he says. “What happens in the end will be affected by factors like equipment costs, labor costs, social pressure and legislation.” MIT's Brynjolfsson said technological change is destroying jobs more quickly than it is creating them, and that these net losses are hurting workers' incomes and contributing to the growth of economic inequality. 10 Yet Brynjolfsson and his MIT colleague Andrew McAfee describe themselves as technology optimists. They are confident that smart entrepreneurship eventually will find a way to fix the stagnating-income problem. “There has never been a worse time to be competing with machines,” they wrote, “but there has never been a better time to be a talented entrepreneur.” 11 In 2014, the Pew Research Center canvassing of 1,896 technology experts found respondents almost equally divided over the impact of advancing robotics on employment. Fifty-two percent thought improvements in artificial intelligence would either have no effect on overall employment or would create new jobs designing, building and servicing robots. One of those responding, Microsoft's principal researcher, Jonathan Grudin, said: “Technology will continue to disrupt jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change.” 12 Many who believe that robotics will be a net gain cite historical experience. They point out that while the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries disrupted the labor market at first, in the end both employment and the standard of living were much improved. Thomas Haigh, an information technology historian and associate professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, told the Pew researchers, “Over the past 200 years many technologies have boosted productivity by eliminating jobs; yet large-scale technological unemployment has never been a long-term reality. So it seems unlikely that new productivity technologies will destroy more jobs than they create.” But Garry Mathiason, founder and co-chair of the Robotics, AI and Automation Practice Group of the San Francisco law firm Littler Mendelson, believes this technological revolution is different. “Argued historically, creation of higher-level jobs in technology would also mean a creation of secondary and third-level jobs, and more jobs for less-skilled workers,” he says. “There's still some truth in that argument, but the fact is that the speed of change is so much faster and the automation and use of robotics in the lower-skilled jobs is growing so rapidly that [workers] probably won't be able to make that shift.” (See Expert View, “Q&A: Robots and Change.”)

It's too soon to know whether 21st-century advances in automation will follow historical precedent on job creation, says Oxford researcher Frey. “Economic history is quite a bad predictor,” he says. “Economists say that technology advances will create jobs, but I'm not sure they know that. I wouldn't dismiss anything without evidence, but neither have I seen any actual research that confirms that automation creates more jobs than it eliminates.” Do today's executives possess the skills to lead in a robotic world?

The spread of robotics throughout the world's industries, and the speed at which technology is advancing, have led some management experts to reexamine the nature of management and its role within an organization. MIT's Chen says managers don't need to be particularly steeped in their industry's technology—they just need a competent “due diligence team” to back them up. She says, “In a medium-sized enterprise of 100 employees, the general manager, the one responsible for all the operations of the plant, is not going to be looking at all the trade magazines or doing spreadsheet comparisons of the different robotic solutions. Instead, that manager needs to delegate the technical analysis to an engineer. It's a complex process—frequently, 10 people can be involved in making a decision [to buy an expensive robot]. The general manager makes the decision, but everybody else makes a contribution to that decision.” Industries Using More Robots

Estimated global supply of industrial robot units by industry, 2011–13

Source: “World Robotics 2014,” International Federation of Robotics, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/owpfjv8

The automotive industry used more robots than any other industry—about 69,400—in 2013, and installed more robots each year beginning in 2011. The chemical, rubber and plastics and food industries also used more industrial robots each year, while usage in the electronics industry declined.

Majid Abai, founder and CEO of The Abai Group, a business and technology consulting firm in Los Angeles, says managers shouldn't rely on in-house knowledge of technology trends and developments. Instead, he says, they should listen to the people who sell the equipment. Managers “do have to learn and be aware of what's coming down the pike, but they're going to put less reliance on the IT department within the organization and more reliance on the vendors [who] will take over reprogramming and supporting these robots,” Abai says. “The IT departments will not be part of that side of the equation.” In Abai's view, old-line management is part of the problem. “There are senior executives who are just technology-averse. They've been doing business a certain way for a while, and they've been happy doing it,” he says. “But there's a new crop of executives coming in who are technology-savvy, and that leads to an intergenerational culture clash. Kids today will grow up knowing about robots. They already know about technologies; it's just a matter of them knowing about the next generation of technologies.” Page 7 of 19 Robots and Automation SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Business executives today need an expansive worldview, according to Dave Mawhinney, co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CMU's Tepper School of Business. “Core technologies mimic the imagination and vision of the human mind,” he says. “We're teaching our students to open their minds and think about automation and optimization technologies holistically—how these technologies might improve the output, in manufacturing, for example, both in terms of value and in time and cost savings.” Vivek Wadwha, a fellow at Stanford University's Rock Center for Corporate Governance, takes business schools to task because they don't provide students the necessary skills to succeed in today's corporate environment. “I don't think any MBA programs are teaching how to find the convergences between new technologies, for example, and to look at these advances and figure out what they mean and how they work,” he says. Wadwha thinks that for managers to succeed in an increasingly complex technological environment, they need to be open-minded and adaptable. “Managers are used to looking at their own divisions, fighting for their own political survival within the company,” he says. “The problem is, the threat comes from other industries. If managers don't recognize this, they'll be unemployed before they know it. People need to be aware of developments in other industries which impact their business and work procedures.” “A business school should establish a model in which there's a lot of attraction between the students and industry,” Wadwha says. “Get students into the business ecosystem where they can be exposed to industries and to the outside world. Most campuses are like fortresses, cut off from the rest of the world. Big mistake. Schools should do the exact opposite. Students need practical experience and exposure to the real world.” Background Robots in Faith and Literature

The idea of creating an artificial being that would serve its creator has deep historical and philosophical roots. In about 322 B.C., the philosopher Aristotle wrote: “If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.” 13 The Talmud mentions a golem—a robot-like creature fashioned out of earth or clay—which comes to life to perform tasks for its creators. According to Jewish tradition, the golem sometimes turns on its makers and runs amok, causing death and destruction. 14

Christianity had its own artificial creations. Historian Jessica Riskin of Stanford University describes a 15th- and 16th-century “mechanical Christ on a crucifix, known as the Rood of Grace, [which] drew great flocks of pilgrims to Boxley Abbey in Kent,” England, during the Easter and Ascension holy days. Operated by strings, the figure could bow, nod its head, move its hands and feet, and signify emotion with a range of facial expressions as it delivered benedictions. 15 The word “robot” entered the English language by way of a 1921 play “R.U.R.” (subtitled “Rossum's Universal Robots”) by Czech author Karel Čapek; the word is derived from the Czech “robota,” meaning forced labor or drudgery. In the play, an engineer develops an artificial being to perform dull, repetitive factory work. The robots are cooperative at first but turn belligerent, revolt against humans and eventually conquer the world. Science fiction writers created stories with various robot themes. “Runaround,” a 1942 short story by Isaac Asimov, enumerated the three laws of robotics: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” 16 (In his 1985 book, “Robots and Empire,” Asimov added a fourth law, which he called the “zeroth” to indicate it took precedence over the other three: “A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”) 17 Science fiction was to play an inspirational part in the birth of industrial robotics. 18 In 1954, inventor George Devol filed for a patent for a “Programmed Article Transfer”—its purpose was to move items automatically from one place to another. Two years later a cocktail party discussion of science fiction robots led Devol to a partnership with engineer- businessman Joseph Engelberger, who provided financial backing to produce and market Devol's device. 19 In 1961, Devol and Engelberger sold the first industrial robot, called Unimate, for $18,000 to U.S. automaker General Motors, which installed it on the assembly line in its Trenton, N.J., manufacturing plant. This prototype was essentially a 4,000-pound programmable steel arm controlled by step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum. GM used Unimate to drop freshly forged “red-hot door handles and other such car parts into pools of cooling liquid on a line that moved them along to workers for trimming and buffing.” 20 Robots in Factories

Unimate sales were slow at first—by 1964, the robot's parent company, Unimation, had sold only 30 robots. 21 However, after more research and field testing, Unimation in 1966 began mass production of modified Unimates that could weld, spray-paint, apply adhesives and perform other potentially hazardous jobs. 22 GM installed 26 Unimate spot welders at its Lordstown, Ohio, plant in 1969, making it the most automated automotive plant in the world. Lordstown turned out 101 cars per hour, the fastest plant then in existence (second fastest was GM's Oldsmobile plant at Lansing, Mich., which produced 91 cars per hour). 23 More than 90 percent of Lordstown's body welding operations were automated, as opposed to 20 percent to 40 percent at less automated plants. 24 The introduction of robots to automaking failed to stir much labor concern until 1971, when GM consolidated its Fisher Body and Chevrolet manufacturing operations at Lordstown. The consolidation allowed GM to lay off some 700 workers. The Unimate, sold in 1961, was the earliest industrial robot. Its relative, the Unimate X, shown pouring tea in the Along with the automation, United Kingdom in 1967, was designed on a smaller scale, with simulated waist, shoulder, elbow, wrist and management demanded faster finger movements. (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) assembly: 100 cars per hour, rather than the 55 expected at typical plants. At the earlier, slower rate, each worker had about a minute to complete a task. Now each had only 36 seconds. Lordstown met the 100 cars-per-hour quota—but many vehicles rolled off the line incompletely assembled or damaged. Management called the deficiencies sabotage; the workers contended the unreasonable pace of the work was responsible. The workers, represented by United Auto Workers Union (UAW) Local 1112 called a strike on March 3, 1972, to protest the layoffs and working conditions. The Lordstown strike lasted 23 days and cost GM an estimated $150 million in lost sales. Management allowed the laid-off workers to return to their jobs, and production returned to the pre-speedup pace. However, GM and the rest of the auto industry continued to add robots to their production facilities. 25 Although robots were a major cause of the UAW strike, the job action did not reflect the union's attitude toward automation in general, says history professor Nelson Lichtenstein of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is director of UCSB's Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. “The UAW never stood in the way of technological change,” Lichtenstein says. “They welcomed it—robots were doing the dirty, dull and dangerous work. All UAW wanted was to win the fruits of [the technology] and to make sure if there were layoffs, they were done by seniority and that workers would have a chance at other jobs when other factories opened up. [Labor] did not stand in the way.” But robots were slow to catch on among other manufacturers, including other automakers, in the United States, partly out of fear of worker resistance and partly because U.S. companies were initially reluctant to commit to the heavy investment that introducing robots required. International Popularity

It was a different story overseas. Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries signed a licensing agreement with Unimation in 1969, and it began producing Unimates the next year. (The licensing agreement ended in 1983, with Kawasaki going on to manufacture its own robots. During the 14-year partnership, Kawasaki sold 2,400 Unimates.) 26 Japan was enjoying an economic boom in the 1960s; it also was anticipating a labor shortage, and this combination made robotics an attractive option for manufacturers. The Japanese government generously supported the industry, providing tax breaks and interest-free loans for both users and producers of robots, according to a 1983 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

The ITC reported that by the end of 1982, manufacturers had installed some 31,900 robots in Japan, more than four times the number in the United States. In 1982, 50 U.S. firms were making robots in America, with sales valued at $143 million—but only six robot manufacturers accounted for 80 percent of the sales. Meanwhile, 250 robot-making firms were operating in Japan that year, with sales of around $600 million. 27 Robots were also making headway in Europe. In 1969, the Trallfa company of Byrne, Norway, began marketing a robot originally developed in-house to be used for spray- painting wheelbarrows the company produced. Trallfa's first robots were sold to a Swedish company for enameling bathtubs. In 1973, Germany's KUKA manufactured FAMULUS, a multi-armed device first used in the handling of automotive materials; in 1974 the Swedish firm ASEA (now ABB) produced the IRB 6, which ground and polished bent steel tubes. 28 Europe was using 20,500 industrial robots by 1985, versus the United States' 13,000. 29 During the 1980s, fearing they would fall irretrievably behind their overseas competitors, some U.S. robot manufacturers “oversold the benefits and the ease of implementing robots,” according to Donald A. Vincent, former executive vice president of RIA. 30 The industry's image suffered when the robots didn't live up to buyers' expectations of cheap and error-free operation, and managers neglected to balance the savings in labor costs against the expense of maintaining the machines, wrote David Kucera, an industry observer. 31 The American robotics industry grew haltingly during the '80s, vexed by questions about reliability. It also was vulnerable to the cyclical needs of the automotive industry. (Carmakers accounted for 70 percent of U.S. robot sales in the 1980s.)

Welding robots assemble automobile bodies in “Earlier robots were ambitiously designed to take on giant tasks, but couldn't Toyota's Tsutsami plant in Japan in December 2014. necessarily do so with great precision and reliability; [later] designers increasingly Japanese automakers were early and enthusiastic focused their robots on performing more manageable tasks with greater consistency,” Kucera wrote. In the 1990s, American robot makers scaled down the adopters of robotics. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty tasks the machines were designed to perform, which allowed greater accuracy and Images) reliability. 32 According to RIA's Vincent, “Advances in robot control technology, simulation and off-line programming made robots easier to program, maintain and use.” They also expanded applications for industrial robots. “In addition to concentrating on applications such as spot welding, painting, and dispensing, the robotics industry developed products that could handle assembly, material handling, and material removal,” Vincent wrote. 33 And prices dropped, thanks to growing demand brought on by greater confidence in robots' capabilities. In 1984, the average robot cost $82,758; by early 1999 the average had fallen to $76,669. Allowing for inflation, “the real reduction in prices was more than 40 percent over the 15-year period,” according to Kucera. 34 With lower prices and a wider range of applications available, robots became a realistic business consideration for manufacturers beyond the auto industry. “While automotive-related manufacturing still accounted for about half of the U.S. market in 1999,” Kucera wrote, “inroads were being made in non-automotive materials handling, flexible manufacturing systems, and service-oriented uses. Some of the other major industry sectors purchasing robots include[d] electronics manufacturing, food and beverage production, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and the aerospace industry.” 35 By 2000, the United Nations reported, 742,500 industrial robots were operating worldwide. More than half—402,200—were in Japan, while 92,000 were in the United States. 36 The total worldwide stock of operational industrial robots at the end of 2013 was “in the range of 1,332,000 and 1,600,000 units,” the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reported. 37 Current Situation Asian, European Countries Still Lead

The United States lags other countries when it comes to putting robots to work. According to the IFR, South Korea is the world's most roboticized country: With 437 robots per 10,000 workers, it has the highest “robot density” on Earth. Japan comes next (323 per 10,000), followed by Germany (282) and Sweden (174). The United States, with 152 per 10,000, ranks seventh. 38 Of 178,132 industrial robots sold worldwide in 2013, American companies bought almost 23,700 of them, 6 percent more than the previous year. 39 RIA President Burnstein says the increasing use of robots bodes well for America. “As robot sales in the U.S. have risen

Page 10 of 19 Robots and Automation SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. sharply over the past few years to new records, unemployment has fallen,” he says. “More manufacturing plants are adding workers because robots have helped the plants produce higher quality products at lower costs. Instead of shipping manufacturing jobs overseas, some companies are now bringing them back because they can compete through automating.” Many who advocate increased use of industrial robots say that the technology can help with “reshoring”—the return to the United States of jobs that manufacturers had sent overseas because of the high cost of American labor. Marlin Steel Wire Products CEO Greenblatt says, “Robotics is going to be the catalyst for the resurgence of American manufacturing. In the past, an American bending wire at $20 an hour was toast when he was up against a foreign worker making $2 or $3 an hour. Thanks to robots, now we're exporting to Germany, we're exporting to China, because we have the technology that enables us to be productive, and that gives our products value and make it worthwhile for them to buy from us. Robots are a boon to American workers. They can win anywhere now.” Harry Moser is founder and president of the Chicago-based Reshoring Initiative, an industry-led effort to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and he thinks robots can help. “For work to come back, people have to believe it'll be profitable,” he says. “Because our wages are still four or five times higher than China's, it's essential that the work be more automated than China's, and preferably that it be more automated than it was here when [the jobs] left 10 or 15 years ago.” He says that in 80 of the 250 examples of reshoring he has studied, “companies said improved automation [in the United States] was a driving factor” in the decision to end or reduce overseas production. But David Simchi-Levi, professor of engineering systems at MIT, has cautioned that while automation can bring manufacturing back to the United States, it doesn't necessary follow that jobs will come along with it. His research found that more technology and robots means fewer human workers. And even when jobs are created, today's new, more modern plants need more engineers who can fix the robots and fewer lower-skilled employees who would otherwise do the work that is now automated. Where manufacturing plants do require more employees, many people coming out of school are simply not prepared or willing to work in the field of manufacturing—“which means no lift in employment,” Simchi-Levi wrote. 40 Government and Co-bots

The U.S. government hopes collaborative robots can boost American manufacturing. In a 2011 speech at CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center, President Obama announced that as part of a push to reinvigorate American manufacturing, the federal government will support “research into next-generation robotics … to help everyone from factory workers to astronauts carry out more complicated tasks.” 41 That support is coming from the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), which awards about $40 million a year in university research grants. 42 Administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the robotics initiative is funded by the NSF, the Department of Agriculture, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. Its goal, says program director Trinkle, is “to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people … to establish better linkages between fundamental science and technology development, deployment and use. NRI is a big part of a federal- Simon the robot, developed by Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Andrea Thomaz, was funded as part business partnership.” of the National Robotics Initiative via the National Science Foundation. Thomaz is investigating how humans and To date, NRI has awarded $78 robots interact. She invites ordinary people to teach Simon tasks, such as clearing the dinner table. (Georgia million in research grants. The Institute of Technology) second round of grants, for $38

Page 11 of 19 Robots and Automation SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. million, was presented in 2013 and included money to support “development of a co-robotic cane that could help individuals with visual impairments more easily navigate their environments … [and] avatar robots for co-exploration of hazardous environments.” 43 Robots Get Personal

Increasingly, personal robots are becoming part of life at home, in part because of lower prices. At the end of October 2014, iRobot's Roomba home vacuum cleaners were selling on Amazon.com for $144.99 to $699.99, depending on features; Robomow lawnmowers ranged from $1,099 to $1,999; and an Ecovacs Winbot window-cleaning robot was $345. The IFR said about 4 million personal robots were sold globally in 2013, with sales totaling $1.7 billion, and it projects another 31 million will be sold between 2014 and 2017. 44 Many of these will be connected to their controllers and each other over the Internet. Describing what has become known as the “Internet of Things,” or IoT, the Cisco Internet Business Systems Group (IBSG), a consultancy arm of the Cisco Systems IT company, has said 25 billion robots and other devices will have been connected to the Internet by 2015. 45 This interconnectivity allows robots to share information with other robots, increasing their learning speed; to take advantage of greater computational ability to engage in more complex activities such as mapping and planning; and to collaborate with other robots to perform tasks, according to RoboEarth, a robot-specific Internet database and network sponsored by the European Union. 46 Rob van Kranenburg, founder of the European Union's Internet of Things Council, said, “Rather than programming robots to handle every potential situation, the Internet of Things could create an environment in which the objects themselves inform robots of their purpose and usage.” 47 Robots equipped with Radio Frequency Identification sensors could be integrated into the IoT, and “could act automatically and, potentially, navigate in a smart environment faster, more safely and more accurately than humans,” Kranenburg and other scientists wrote. For example, “The IoT could inform a service robot that an office waste bin is full. The network could help the robot navigate by passing commands to the building elevator. Once the robot reaches the waste bin, the IoT could point to the location of replacement garbage bags. Or … the robot could query the network to report about the state of all waste bins in the office building, enabling the robot to plan its path accordingly.” 48 The growing interconnection of robots raises a security concern: Can robots be hacked? Peter Lewis, a 4G wireless systems developer in Washington, says, “Industrial robots, surgical robots, drone aircraft, automated traffic lights, power generating plants, municipal waterworks—all are connected in some way to computers and the Internet. And without the proper safeguards, they can all be penetrated by a determined individual with the necessary skills and equipment,” Aurelius Wosylus, a Munich-based security expert for SafeNet, a data protection company headquartered in Belcamp, Md., sees “two levels of threat: one, call it student-level, people sitting at home with [computer] programs that knock on every door, trying to get in to see what they can do inside a system. There are pretty good technologies to minimize that risk.” “Then,” Wosylus says, “there is the government or professional level threat—they want to hack into systems; if they're industrial spies, maybe they steal the software. … These guys have a different skill level and a large budget. It's very difficult to protect against them.” Wosylus says robots will need “an ‘onion’ of protection, with various levels—a basic outer level firewall, then intrusion detection, then a firewall to protect the robot from intrusion, and then encryption of the robot software to ensure if the software is stolen that it can't run on other systems.” Looking Ahead An Uncertain Future

Representatives of robotics manufacturers tend to be cautious when discussing their industry's future. The International Federation of Robotics anticipates that worldwide sales of industrial robots will increase by 12 percent annually through 2017, with the strongest growth —16 percent per year—in Asia/Australia, and 6 percent in the Americas and Europe. The organization predicts 2 million industrial robots will be in service by the end of 2017. But the IFR also warns that “downward risks”—such as tensions between Russia and the Western world, developments in the emerging countries and global financial markets, and “insufficient implementation of structural reforms in the euro zone countries”—could have an adverse effect on the industry's growth. 49 As for the United States, RIA President Burnstein says he tries “to avoid forecasting because most forecasts end up being wrong. People get taken in by ‘hype’ and then try to project that out rather than looking at facts. … The long-term trends are very positive, but don't expect a sharp line up with no declines, and don't read too much into the declines if they come.” Looking beyond the industry's growth prospects, many technology experts believe robotics' greatest impact will be cultural. Jamais

Cascio, a writer and futurist specializing in possible futures scenario outcomes, told the Pew Research Institute, “By 2025, robots/AI … will start to become background noise in the day-to-day lives of people in the postindustrial world. From self-driving taxis to garbage collectors to autonomous service systems, machines will start to exist in our social space the way that low-paid (often immigrant) human workers do now: visible but ignorable. …We'll know they're there, we'll interact with them in perfunctory ways, but they will less and less often be seen as noticeable.” 50 Georgetown University assistant professor Meg Ambrose, who researches and teaches technology law and policy, thinks a backlash against robots might develop. “We need to be aware of our utopian enthusiasm that is usually followed by a wave of panic. I think there will be areas where people will reject robots. … That's true of just about any kind of technology,” she says. “I'm hopeful that there will be a bit of a Luddite response, to kind of put on the brakes as a moderating force. The area of [technology] policy needs a lot of serious intellectual work.” CMU robotics professor Illah Nourbakhsh fears it might be too late to analyze robots' place in society. When he thinks about the future of robotics, he thinks of “robot smog—the idea that the world we live in will eventually become a bit polluted by people's innovation.” “For example,” Nourbakhsh says, “I talked to a woman who runs a company that makes drones. She's a runner, and said she really wanted to build a drone that could deliver a water bottle to her midway through her run. Now, imagine 50 runners on Boston Common, all with drones bringing them water. The idea is dumb. Amazon wants drones to deliver its packages. Do we really want all these drones? But they'll never be able to regulate that; the technology is way ahead of the legislation. That scares me.” As a social roboticist, CMU's Knight “designs robots with behavior systems inspired by how humans communicate with each other.” Historically, “robotics in industry meant automation, a field that asks how machines perform more effectively than humans,” she has written. “These days, new innovation highlights … what people and robots can do better together.” 51 Knight says business and industry can't take full advantage of robots' potential until the public is comfortable with the technology. “The way people perceive and work with robots is important to realizing the technology's potential, while preserving and enhancing the human role in its use,” she says. For example, “in health care, you can imagine a system where a robot will come up and shove a pill down your throat. That would work functionally, you'd get your medications in the right order and at the right time, but it would be a terrible design for our society. You'd be treating people like infants.” Knight says, “If we approach robot design from the standpoint of what we need to do to reach our higher objectives as a society, we can design our systems so that, rather than displace or disempower our workers, we can give them a larger role.” Chronology

1920s–1950s Robots enter the public imagination. 1921 “R.U.R.,” a play by Czech writer Karel Čapek, introduces the word “robot” to the English language. 1942 Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's short story “Runaround” lays out the “Three Laws of Robotics,” a key one being that “a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings.” 1948 Mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener delineates the principles of cybernetics, which he defines as “control and communication in the animal and the machine,” considered to be the basis of practical robotics. 1950 A paper by British mathematician Alan Turing posits the concept of artificial intelligence, asking, “Can machines think?” 1954 Inventor George Devol files for a patent for a programmable mechanical arm, known subsequently as the Unimate; it is considered the first industrial robot. 1960s Robots go to work. 1961 General Motors installs Devol's Unimate in a Trenton, N.J., plant, the first use of an industrial robot. 1968 Film producer-director Stanley Kubrick's movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” introduces the malevolent space robot HAL (for “Heuristically programmed Algorithmic” computer). 1969 Unimates made by Kawasaki Industries are the first robots produced in Japan; the first European-made robot is marketed by Norway's Trallfa company. 1970 Stanford University researchers introduce Shakey, the first mobile robot to independently adapt its movements according to changes in its surroundings. (It's named for its jerky locomotion.) … The Soviet Union's lunar vehicle Lunokhod 1 is the first remote-controlled robot to explore another world.

1972 Workers at GM's Lordstown, Ohio, plant strike to protest automation-induced layoffs. 1990s–2001 The service robot emerges. 1994 Dr. John Adler invents the Cyberknife, a surgical robot that uses radiation bursts to perform noninvasive surgery on tumors. 1997 NASA's Sojourner robot explores a small part of the Martian surface for 83 days; a laser guidance system allows Sojourner to determine its own course independent of human control. 2001 First responders use PackBot bomb-disposal robots to search the rubble of the World Trade Center. 2002–Present Robots come home. 2002 Roomba, a robotic home vacuum cleaner, is marketed by the iRobot company. 2004 Annual sales for the North American robotics industry reach $1 billion. 2008 Universal Robots of Denmark begins marketing “collaborative” robotic arms, designed to work alongside humans without requiring protective safety cages. 2009 Google begins developing technology for self-driving cars. 2010 The Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group estimates the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeds the 6.8 billion humans on Earth; the company designates this milestone as the threshold moment for the “Internet of Things.” 2011 President Obama announces the National Robotics Initiative to provide federal support for “research into next- generation robotics.” 2012 Rethink Robotics introduces Baxter, an easy-to-program collaborative robot for light industrial duties. … The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issues the world's first license for a robotic, self-driven car, a modified Toyota Prius using Google technology. 2013 A study by two University of Oxford scholars concludes that nearly half of U.S. jobs are potentially at risk of becoming automated. 2014 China begins mass production of industrial robots. … In Germany, package delivery firm DHL field tests a drone, “Parcelcopter,” for emergency deliveries of medicines and other necessities to residents of the North Sea island of Juist.

Resources Bibliography

Books

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee, “Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy,” Digital Frontier Press, 2011. Two members of MIT's Center for Digital Business say the pace of technological development endangers jobs, and call for “restructuring” educational and economic institutions to better prepare the workforce. Lin, Patrick, Keith Abney and George A. Bekey, eds., “Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics,” The MIT Press, 2011. Essays collected by California Polytechnic State University philosophers and scientists explore ethical, social and policy questions surrounding roboticization, including whether robots merit legal rights or moral consideration. Nocks, Lisa, “The Robot: The Life Story of a Technology,” Greenwood Press, 2007. A historian of science and technology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology traces the history of robotics, from ancient automation to robots in popular culture, but focuses on industrial robots and developments in artificial intelligence.

Articles

Condon, Bernard, and Paul Wiseman, Associated Press three-part series: “Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs,” Jan. 23, 2013,

Page 14 of 19 Robots and Automation SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://tinyurl.com/bhbo6eo; with Jonathan Fahey, “Practically human: Can smart machines do your job?” Jan. 24, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/bhnq4vr; “Will smart machines create a world without work?” Jan. 25, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/brvp8f6. Journalists examine technology's role in the loss of middle-class jobs. Lewis, Colin, “The economic impact of the robotic revolution,” RoboHub, Feb. 19, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/m9jgjhx. A behavioral economist blogs about how robotics benefits jobs and the economy.

Reports and Studies

“World Robotics 2014 Industrial Robots,” (Executive Summary), International Federation of Robotics, Sept. 30, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/o7tbbog. A robotics industry international trade organization reports on sales and use of robots in 2013 and trends for the future. Christensen, Henrik, et al., “Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics, 2013 Edition,” Robotics Virtual Organization, 2013. A panel of scientists, engineers and business executives describes scenarios in which robotics technology can be applied in manufacturing, health care and other fields to enhance the American economy. Evans, Dave, “The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything,” Cisco, April 2011, http://tinyurl.com/88uhsx3. The then-chief technologist for Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group discusses the impact of the connection of 50 billion devices to the Internet by 2020. Frey, Carl Benedikt, and Michael A. Osborne, “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” Oxford Martin School, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/oj67kae. Two researchers from the University of Oxford review jobs data and conclude that advances in robot technology and computerization leave 47 percent of American jobs, among them office and administrative support workers as well as factory labor, vulnerable to being taken over by automation. Manyika, James, et al., “Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy,” McKinsey Global Institute, May 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nmbecug. A report by the business and economics research arm of a management consulting firm analyzes how advanced robotics, the “Internet of Things” and other emerging technologies could have “massive, economically disruptive impact between now and 2025.” Mishel, Lawrence, Heidi Shierholz and John Schmitt, “Don't Blame the Robots: Assessing the Job Polarization Explanation of Growing Wage Inequality,” Economic Policy Institute, Nov. 19, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/kyuahmw. Economists from a liberal think tank conclude that economic policy more than technology is responsible for growing economic inequality. Sachs, Jeffrey, and Laurence Kotlikoff, “Smart Machines and Long-Term Misery,” National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2012, http://tinyurl.com/kupvad5. Two economists write that the increasing ability of machines to replace unskilled labor will drive those wages down, while pay for the skilled workers who design and operate the machines will continue to rise; the authors recommend tax policies to improve economic equilibrium. The Next Step

Jobs

Chang, Andrea, “Amazon robots speed customer orders but may lead to fewer workers,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 2, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/no9jufe. Amazon executives say their company's use of more than 15,000 robots in warehouses has created jobs, not eliminated them, because of company growth. Hemmadi, Murad, “Clearpath Robotics is changing the world with its life-saving robots,” Canadian Business, Nov. 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/oal5ucx. Canadian company manufactures robots that replace humans in harmful or dangerous jobs, such as taking measurements in mines and sweeping for landmines. Kaufman, Alexander, “Fast-Food Workers Could Face Robot ‘Armageddon,’” The Huffington Post, Aug. 12, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/nm8dck4. Experts say a robot made by a San Francisco company that can perform every duty of a fast-food worker is a sign of the inevitable roboticization of fast-food restaurant jobs.

Manufacturing

Knight, Meribah, “At Ford's South Side plant, the rise of the machines,” Crain's Chicago Business, Nov. 12, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/q7g9zdd. Ford Motor has installed more than 500 robots in its Chicago manufacturing plant, which has about 4,200 human workers, and plans to replicate the plant's worker-to-robot ratio at its other American factories. Luk, Lorraine, “Foxconn Plans to Make Its Own Industrial Robots,” The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pkey3gn.

Chinese manufacturer Foxconn, maker of the Apple iPhone, is designing its own industrial robots capable of performing difficult tasks to overcome a shortage of cheap, skilled labor. Young, Angelo, “Nike Unloads Contract Factory Workers, Showing How Automation Is Costing Jobs Of Vulnerable Emerging Market Laborers,” International Business Times, May 20, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/qcwovs9. Apparel manufacturers such as Nike are replacing hundreds of thousands of workers with industrial robots to increase productivity and cut labor costs.

Profitability

Bjerga, Alan, “Record Profits No Job Creator on Farms as Owners Automate,” Bloomberg, Jan. 30, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/b9rxfzr. Automation of America's farms has made the farming sector highly profitable, although labor analysts predict nearly 100,000 agricultural jobs will be lost through 2020. Inagaki, Kana, “Japan aims to turn robotics into profit,” Financial Times, Oct. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pzqwdnt. Japanese leaders plan to implement policies to make the country's robotics industry more profitable, such as subsidizing installations at companies' facilities and lowering liability costs for robot manufacturers. Ngui, Yantoultra, “Malaysia's automation incentives draw mixed feelings from manufacturers,” Reuters, Oct. 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pmma2d8. The Malaysian government is offering tax incentives to manufacturers that automate their factories to help boost profits in the face of rising minimum wages and operating costs for Malaysian businesses.

Research

Borchers, Callum, “Robot may help fight malaria,” The Boston Globe, May 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ky76exz. A Maryland-based biotechnology firm and Harvard University's Biorobotics Laboratory have collaborated for two years to create a robot precise enough to produce a reliable malaria vaccine. Hodson, Hal, “Baxter the robot brings his gentle touch to novel jobs,” New Scientist, July 23, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ozotz5g. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and the University of Colorado are exploring new applications for the factory robot Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics, in medicine, space farming and mobility assistance for the disabled. Howe, Robert, Aaron Dollar and Mark Claffee, “Inexpensive, Durable Plastic Hands Let Robots Get a Grip,” IEEE Spectrum, Nov. 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q9zc94o. Yale and Harvard engineering professors have been working for nearly a decade to create a robotic hand prototype that possesses the dexterity of human hands.

Organizations

Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation 1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036 202-797-6000 www.brookings.edu/about/centers/techinnovation Think tank that explores issues affecting public debate and policymaking in robotics and other areas of technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St., Cambridge MA 02139 617-253-5851 www.csail.mit.edu Research and training institution. Congressional Robotics Caucus Advisory Committee c/o Erica Wissolik, IEEE-USA, 2001 L St., N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036 202-530-8347 www.roboticscaucus.org/ Provides information on research and developments in robotics and related technologies to members of Congress. International Federation of Robotics Lyoner St. 18, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany +49 69-6603-1502 www.ifr.org/association/ Worldwide trade association for the robotics industry that collects statistics and market data; sponsors annual International Symposium on Robotics. National Robotics Initiative

National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22230 703-292-5111 www.nsf.gov Federal interagency group that coordinates U.S. government support of robotics research in areas of national interest. The Reshoring Initiative 21110 Buffalo Run, Kildeer, IL 60047 847-726-2975 www.reshorenow.org An industry coalition that supports the return of manufacturing jobs to the United States. Robotic Industries Association 900 Victors Way, Suite 140, Ann Arbor, MI, 48108 734-994-6088 www.robotics.org Trade association for North American robot manufacturers and users, and companies that support the industry. The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 412-268-3818 www.ri.cmu.edu Robotics research and teaching institution. About the Author

Bill Wanlund, a retired foreign service officer, is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. He has written about a number of issues, including abortion debates and immigration, for CQ Researcher, an imprint of SAGE. Notes

[1] Aaron Smith and Janna Anderson, “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs,” Pew Research Internet Project, Aug. 6, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/nzjt4rz. [2] David Rotman, “How technology is destroying jobs,” Research Brief, MIT Technology Review, June 12, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/odnek6s. [3] Ibid. [4] Smith and Anderson, op. cit. [5] Tanya Powley, “New robot generation comes out of safety cage for 24-hour shifts,” Financial Times, June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/m23v8h7. [6] Frank Tobe, “Low-cost robots like Baxter, UR5 and UR10 successfully entering small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” Robohub, May 14, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/njuqg8x. [7] Momentum Machines, http://tinyurl.com/nwnxgtf. [8] “Hamburgers, Coffee, Guitars, and Cars: A Report from Lemnos Labs,” Wade Roush, June 12, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/l6aqnbp. [9] Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?” University of Oxford, Sept. 17, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/oj67kae. [10] Rotman, op. cit. [11] Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, “Race Against The Machine: How The Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and The Economy,” research brief, MIT Center for Digital Business, http://tinyurl.com/lqursg6. [12] Smith and Anderson, op. cit. [13] Cited by Karl Mathia, “Industrial Robots,” excerpted from “Robotics for Electronics Manufacturing: Principles and Applications in Cleanroom Automation,” Cambridge University Press, June 2010, http://tinyurl.com/mo7h5pm.

[14] Alden Oreck, “Modern Jewish History: The Golem,” The Jewish Virtual Library, http://tinyurl.com/5f9gt. Some scholars see a golem in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel “Frankenstein”—a cautionary tale of a creature assembled artificially in a laboratory and brought to life in an electrical storm. Originally a gentle being, the creature turns violent after ill treatment at the hands of humans. [15] Jessica Riskin, “Machines in the Garden,” Republics of Letters, Vol. 1, No. 2, Feb. 24, 2010, http://tinyurl.com/ndyagfc. [16] “Runaround” and other robot-themed short stories by Asimov can be found in a compendium titled “I, Robot,” http://tinyurl.com/ny6q6tv. [17] “Asimov's Laws of Robotics: Implications for Information Technology,” Roger Clarke's website, http://tinyurl.com/mx3q8yx; also see http://tinyurl.com/ohkrdan. [18] The Robot Industries Association defines an industrial robot as “an automatically controlled, and reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.” These tasks might include welding, assembly, painting and materials handling. The robots differ in design, depending on job requirements and work environment. A more complete discussion of industrial robot technology and its uses can be found on the USLegal.com definitions website, http://tinyurl.com/k8hq775. [19] Engelberger credited an early fascination with Isaac Asimov's robot literature with his later interest in commercial robotics; he once called Asimov his “mentor.” Asimov, in turn, wrote a foreword to Engleberger's 1980 book, “Robotics in Practice,” Kogan Page. [20] Paul Mickle, “1961: A peep into the automated future,” The Trentonian, undated, http://tinyurl.com/y2jxdd.

[21] David Kucera, “Robotics,” Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed., http://tinyurl.com/l5gw2jr. [22] Jeremy Pearce, “George C. Devol, Inventor of Robot Arm, Dies at 99,” The New York Times, Aug. 16, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/na3ex44. [23] Ken Weller, “The Lordstown struggle and the real crisis in production,” http://tinyurl.com/lnj8dku, Feb. 17, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/mpvlxz5. [24] Austin Weber, “GM Centennial: Trendsetting Plants,” Assembly, June 30, 2008, http://tinyurl.com/osoo5xh. [25] Andrea Orchard, “The 1972 Lordstown Strike,” Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, http://tinyurl.com/o62m2nb. [26] George E. Munson, “The Rise and Fall of Unimation Inc.,” Robot magazine, Dec. 2, 2010, http://tinyurl.com/kqfrd9o. [27] Nelson J. Hogge and John T. Cutchin Jr., “Competitive Position of U.S. Producers of Robotics in Domestic and World Markets,” U.S. International Trade Commission report, December 1983, http://tinyurl.com/ozg9jxg. [28] Jacob Heffernan, “History of the Robotic Arm,” undated, http://tinyurl.com/ltxbomf. [29] “History of Robots,” Dragonstrike Systems, undated, http://tinyurl.com/lctr3hd. [30] Donald A. Vincent, “The North American Robotics Industry: Leading the Charge to a Productive 21st Century,” undated, http://tinyurl.com/kyvxsll. [31] Kucera, op. cit. [32] Ibid. [33] Vincent, op. cit. [34] Kucera, op. cit. [35] Ibid. [36] “The Boom in Robot Investment Continues—900,000 Industrial Robots by 2003: UN/ECE issues its 2000 World Robotics survey,” United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Oct. 17, 2000, http://tinyurl.com/pdlowzl. [37] “World Robotics 2014: Industrial Robots,” International Federation of Robotics, Sept. 30, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/o7tbbog. [38] Ibid. [39] Ibid.

[40] David Simchi-Levi, “Does the return of manufacturing to the U.S. mean more jobs?” Innovation@work (blog), MIT Sloan Executive Education, Nov. 24, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/ntvegy8. [41] “Remarks by the President at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center,” the White House, June 24, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/6fgpt33. [42] NRI website, http://tinyurl.com/qgf4qel. [43] NSF press release, “National Robotics Initiative invests $38 million in next-generation robotics,” Oct. 23, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/q3oo2vc. [44] “World Robotics 2014: Industrial Robots,” op. cit. [45] Dave Evans, “The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything,” Cisco Internet Business Systems Group, April 2011, http://tinyurl.com/88uhsx3. [46] RoboEarth, http://tinyurl.com/qe5sbcc. [47] Alexander Perzylo, “RoboEarth meets the Internet of Things (loT) at the PICNIC Festival in Amsterdam,” Sept. 27, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/p83hyd3. [48] Florian Michahelles, et al., “Enlisting Robots: Once robots are integrated into the Internet of Things, they can perform tasks automatically,” RFID Journal, Aug. 13, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/k3xy3sf. [49] “World Robotics 2014: Industrial Robots,” op. cit. [50] Smith and Anderson, op. cit. [51] Heather Knight, “How Humans Respond to Robots: Building Public Policy through Good Design,” The Brookings Institution, July 2014, http://tinyurl.com/n387jfv.

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