The friendly robot and the future of work
2020年11月24日 お仕事In one of the most unforgettable scenes of the Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, released in 2005, surgical robots dramatically transform Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, one of most identifiable characters in Hollywood movies. Robotic surgery has been around since the mid-1980s, when Arthrobot helped surgeons perform orthopaedic surgical procedures. The space connection is not all imagination. The AESOP robot was funded by NASA to work as a robotic arm in space but soon became a pioneer as a camera for laparoscopic procedures in the mid-1990s. ZEUS, another robotic surgical aid, was used in a beating heart coronary artery bypass graft in the late 1990s. Today, robotic surgical aids are used across the world.
General-purpose robots are making their mark in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has stretched our healthcare sector to its limits. Mitra, a friendly Indian robot, helps COVID-19 patients make video calls with their families using its camera and a video screen on its torso. Mitra can move on its own from the bedside of one patient to another. Another robot from Milagrow, a Gurgaon-based firm, is cleaning and disinfecting hospitals.
These robots are doing their part in assisting our healthcare heroes and reducing their exposure to COVID-positive patients. Both patients and healthcare heroes appear to have formed a bond with the machines. Many patients who have seen these robots in action don’t leave the hospital without a selfie.
This brings us to the important question: Will robots replace Indians at work? The answer lies in how we plan to use robots. One approach that Indian policymakers should consider is to encourage use of robots that assist us in making our jobs more productive, rather than focus on robots that are likely to entirely replace us at work.
The real possibility of robots replacing humans has been highlighted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as well. In a 2016 report, it indicated that while robots threaten up to two-thirds of jobs developing countries, robots will also open up new opportunities for work. Let us also not forget the externalities in play. Sometime in the near future, robots can reduce the labour costs in manufacturing to such an extent that factories are likely to be re-shored from their current offshore low-labour cost locations.
However, there are application domains where we will want robots to entirely replace us as soon as possible. One of them is manual scavenging. A team from IIT Madras has developed a Sepoy Septic Tank Robot, which uses high-velocity cutters to cut through the sludge in septic tanks and a vacuum pump to suck it out. This Indian robot comes at fraction of the price of a similar imported robot. A couple of years ago, Bandicoot, a scavenging robot, was piloted to clean the sewers in Thiruvananthapuram. According to a 2018 report by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, one life is lost in about every five days while cleaning sewers and septic tanks across the country. Manual scavenging has to end in India and robots can play an important role in rooting this practice out. Like India, other countries are also making their assessments of robots and their use.
robot arm -https://www.arcsecdrive.com/product/robot-arm/
General-purpose robots are making their mark in the COVID-19 pandemic, which has stretched our healthcare sector to its limits. Mitra, a friendly Indian robot, helps COVID-19 patients make video calls with their families using its camera and a video screen on its torso. Mitra can move on its own from the bedside of one patient to another. Another robot from Milagrow, a Gurgaon-based firm, is cleaning and disinfecting hospitals.
These robots are doing their part in assisting our healthcare heroes and reducing their exposure to COVID-positive patients. Both patients and healthcare heroes appear to have formed a bond with the machines. Many patients who have seen these robots in action don’t leave the hospital without a selfie.
This brings us to the important question: Will robots replace Indians at work? The answer lies in how we plan to use robots. One approach that Indian policymakers should consider is to encourage use of robots that assist us in making our jobs more productive, rather than focus on robots that are likely to entirely replace us at work.
The real possibility of robots replacing humans has been highlighted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as well. In a 2016 report, it indicated that while robots threaten up to two-thirds of jobs developing countries, robots will also open up new opportunities for work. Let us also not forget the externalities in play. Sometime in the near future, robots can reduce the labour costs in manufacturing to such an extent that factories are likely to be re-shored from their current offshore low-labour cost locations.
However, there are application domains where we will want robots to entirely replace us as soon as possible. One of them is manual scavenging. A team from IIT Madras has developed a Sepoy Septic Tank Robot, which uses high-velocity cutters to cut through the sludge in septic tanks and a vacuum pump to suck it out. This Indian robot comes at fraction of the price of a similar imported robot. A couple of years ago, Bandicoot, a scavenging robot, was piloted to clean the sewers in Thiruvananthapuram. According to a 2018 report by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, one life is lost in about every five days while cleaning sewers and septic tanks across the country. Manual scavenging has to end in India and robots can play an important role in rooting this practice out. Like India, other countries are also making their assessments of robots and their use.
robot arm -https://www.arcsecdrive.com/product/robot-arm/
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