/ News
Are You Ready for a Robot Colleague?
Those who work in professions from warehouse staff to hotel concierges may soon count a robot among their colleagues.
While Amazon has pioneered the use of robots in its fulfillment centers, its robots are still largely separated from human workers (see “Inside Amazon”). The next generation of workplace bots will work in much closer proximity to regular employees. Some will replace workers entirely, but most will simply take on the more mundane tasks of a human’s job.
Clearpath Robotics, a company based in Ontario, Canada, launched a robotic platform designed to take on the work done by forklift truck drivers in warehouses and factories. The company’s system, called Otto, was on show at the RoboBusiness conference in San Jose, California, last week. Several companies are testing the system, including GE, which has also invested in Clearpath.
Otto first must be driven through a warehouse, so that its laser sensors can map the environment. The user can then load the system with heavy items and command it to go from one part of the warehouse to another. And Otto will navigate around obstacles, including people, as it goes.
Another new robot on display at the show, from a company called Fetch Robotics, based in San Jose, will follow warehouse workers around with a bin, helping them retrieve items from shelves. Once a bin has been filled, the robot will roll away, and another will take its place.
Melonee Wise, founder of Fetch, says careful thought needs to be put into the way other workers will react to a robot (see “Innovators Under 35: Melonee Wise”). “So it’s in our best interest to make that interaction as smooth and enjoyable as possible,” she says. “If they don’t want to work with our product, then no matter how good it is, it isn’t going to make it very far.”
Another version of Fetch’s robot has a torso and a single arm at its center. That robot is meant to take the place of a human worker, retrieving products in concert with a bin-carrying bot.
Human-robot interaction, which has been a theme in academic research for some time, is now becoming more commercially relevant. Wise says, for example, that research has shown that a certain shape of head can be intimidating, and that a voice interface can encourage a particular type of interaction. “When robots talk, it conveys a certain level of intelligence, and people start thinking the robot is smarter than them, so they’re less likely to help the robot,” she says. “When the robot has nonverbal cues, people are much more willing to help out.”
Other robot startups have discovered odd challenges with robots designed to work closely with people.
A company called Fellow Robots, based in San Jose, has developed a mobile system that offers to help customers in a store. The armless, rectangular, wheeled robot is currently being tested at a nearby hardware store and at a few undisclosed locations. The system circles the store, and customers can use it to search for products, either by voice or via a touch screen. Once it has found an item, it will lead a customer to the correct location.
Colin Ritchie, head of business development for Fellow Robots, says there was initially some concern among employees that the robots would take away jobs, although this turned into a realization that the robot would just take over one of the more boring parts of their jobs, he says.
But it isn’t only workers who will interact with the robots, and customer behavior can be tricky to predict. The original design for the robot was humanoid, Ritchie says, but user testing showed this unnerved some people. “If you make it too human, people will resist it,” he says. “Now it looks more like a friendly Dalek.”
For all the hand-wringing over jobs, and despite the fate of Hitchbot (a simple robot that asked for rides and was destroyed in Philadelphia), there are few examples of people reacting very poorly to new types of robots.
Savioke, a company that has developed a robot that brings items to hotel rooms, which is already deployed at a few locations in California, has discovered that most hotel guests love using the robot, says Adrian Canoso, who designed the robot and its software. A concierge will place an item in a bin built into the robot and let it find its way to a guest’s room. It is capable of calling the elevator for itself and will telephone a room once it has arrived. It will also ask for a rating and perform a small dance if given five stars.
Canoso says there was just one incident, early on, in which an apparently drunk guest pushed the robot over, much to the dismay of hotel staff. But he points out that this person might have behaved just as badly toward a human member of the staff.
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541676/are-you-ready-for-a-robot-colleague/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru