It is a machine. A machine that is capable of carrying out a complex series of actions. But it performs these actions automatically, according to how it has been programmed. The Robot.
When you replace the word “machine” above with the word “body,” it describes humans.
We are bodies capable of carrying out complex actions, and we do this automatically. At least, we do as we have been programmed or taught.
Take anything. Making a salad. Playing baseball. Fixing a flat tire. We have been programmed how to do these things. When we were babies, we didn’t know how to chop the broccoli. Or use the air pump.
I think that is why a lot of people are afraid of robots. They do what we do, and sometimes, better. Well. Most of the time. I have a friend in robotics, the vice president of the company. They work a bit like a temp agency. They have robots that can perform certain skills, and they “hire” these out to companies that need those kinds of workers. Around the clock, without taking a break for a Hershey bar or to take a leak.
Robots are here.
We’ve all seen the science fiction stories about them. The movies where robots turned on their masters, disobeying, destroying, killing. Or the ones that overthrow humanity and take all the jobs? Human replacement.
These days, robots are pretty safe. They are efficient systems. The only ones we ever see in the media are the extremes. The Go-Go Dancers from Boston Robotics, and such. Or the creepy ones, at tech fairs.
But, in reality, they are doing tasks every day, all over the planet. The top five industries for robotics are health care, agriculture, food preparation, manufacturing, and the military. The top three countries are China, Japan, and South Korea. The United States is fourth.
That top sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov, penned the “Three Laws of Robotics.” They are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Well, as they say. Crap happens.
The first case where a person was killed by a robot happened accidentally. It occurred in 1981 when a Japanese factory worker was crushed by a robot arm. Since that time, 61 robot-related injuries and deaths have been reported in the US, mostly industrial accidents. But mostly, they buzz along effectively doing their work.
They have been around for centuries. At least in thought or in the way of predictions. One of the most amazing of these notations was made by Aristotle in 350 BC. He predicted that slaves would be replaced by automatons in performing household tasks.
But. Get this. “Archytas of Tarentum,” who was a friend of Plato, built a mechanical bird. It was driven by a jet of steam or compressed air. This was arguably history’s first robot—in the fifth century BC.
From those humble beginnings, in real life, they have expanded in numbers. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) study World Robotics 2020, there were about 2,722,077 operational industrial robots by the end of 2019. This number is estimated to reach 3,788,000 by the end of 2021.
For as amazing as they can be, they are also vulnerable. A good example comes from the Middle East. Taliban fighters in Afghanistan used ladders to flip over and disable the US military robots sent to scout out their caves. “Man down.”
So. Here we are again, performing our programmed behaviors. And today, I wrote another piece. And you are reading it. Beep.
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“Actions such as his could come only from a robot, or from a very honorable and decent human being. But you see, you just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.”
‒ Isaac Asimov, ‘I, Robot’.
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“The true knowledge is not in the things, but in finding the connections between the things.”
‒ Daniel H. Wilson, ‘Robopocalypse’.
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“Then you don’t remember a world without robots. There was a time when humanity faced the universe alone and without a friend.”
‒ Dr. Susan Calvin, ‘I, Robot’.
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