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Our Contemporary Robotic Renaissance

My team stood silent as I pulled the ring-collector off of our creation, snapping on a

throwing arm in its place. It was the FIRST regional championship, the preliminary round of our

competition tour. I return the robot to its starting position, but accidentally nudge it on the way

out. I quickly grab it once again, taking a second pass at aligning the arm with the goal. I had to

get the angle just right, as a perfect bounce was required to get the ball over an obstacle and into

the goal. As the timer ticked down the final seconds of the round, our robot rolled steadily

toward the goal. The arm actuated, swang, and the ball was released, sent sailing over the barrier

and into the back of the goal. The buzzer sounded, and my team erupted into cheers of joy and

relief. Later that day, it was announced that our team, the Mechanical Masters, would be moving

on to the state competition. Our underdog, inexperienced team had prevailed. This event became

the defining experience of my middle school years.

My interest in engineering began when I was very young. My prized toy would always be

my latest Lego Star Wars set, and I had amassed a great collection of assorted pieces under my

bed. My interest in Legos remained strong and constant through elementary and middle school,

however, I began to shift from models and instruction booklets to machines and tutorial videos. I

created simple machines, gearboxes, and locks purely through the joy of the process. However,

there was one set I never was able to convince my parents to let me get: the Mindstorms robotics

kit. The basic starter set cost around $300, so I understood my mother’s sentiment. However, I

always regarded it as the pinnacle of the Lego system, rivalled only by a model Death Star with

similar pricing and allure.

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My mom was the one who first proposed the idea of a robotics team to me. She asked me

first if I was interested, and if I knew anyone else who would be willing to do it with me. She

had been looking for activities for me to do during the school year, and found the FIRST Lego

League, or FLL. I gathered a group of my friends, asked my science teacher to be a mentor, and

just like that, my team was made. The objective of the competition was to score as many points

as possible within a time constraint. My team and I worked tirelessly into the night, fueled by

taco 12-packs and boneless wings. I had never been able to experience the thrill of competition

blended with the joy of construction before, and my experience on the team developed into my

passion for the field of robotics as a whole. In order to further my knowledge of robotics and its

integration into the workforce, I seek to research and answer the question: How has the

advancement of robotics affected the job market over the past 20 years?

Most people are aware of what robots are, and their general underlying principles.

However, the media has done a poor job of portraying them, leading to paranoia over a “mass

robot uprising” where household appliances suddenly gain sentience and turn on their owners.

While comical, these ideas serve only to convolute the average person’s idea of what a robot is,

what it is capable of doing, and what it simply cannot accomplish. For example, when people

picture a robotic-enhanced military, they imagine a platoon of humanoid metal soldiers, when in

reality, robots are much more likely to be used to enhance an already-capable human ground

unit. Robots will never truly replace us, but rather, will be used as a supplemental tool or

function.

To understand the importance of robots and their place in our society, we must first

investigate what exactly a robot is, and how it functions. A robot at its core is a specialized

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machine that is capable of carrying out a predetermined task. These tasks are typically beyond

the limits of human capacity, either too dangerous, precise, or demanding. Robots can either be

controlled by a remote operator or an internal algorithm. The choice between these comes down

to the nature of the task that the robot is performing.

The idea of a robot is much older than robots themselves. Robots began as simple

mechanical human figures, dolls that could simulate human movement. These technically

impressive, yet practically useless machines were where progress stagnated, up until the early

1950’s. Weilyn Pa, a Computer Science student at Stanford University explains this transition:

The earliest robots as we know them were created by George C. Devol, an inventor from

Louisville, Kentucky. He invented and patented a reprogrammable manipulator called

"Unimate," from "Universal Automation." For the next decade, he attempted to sell his

product in the industry, but did not succeed. In the late 1960s, businessman/engineer

Joseph Engleberger acquired Devol's robot patent and was able to modify it into an

industrial robot and form a company called Unimation to produce and market the robots.

For his efforts and successes, Engleberger is known in the industry as "the Father of

Robotics." (Pa)

This marked the transformation of the field of robotics as a whole, going from an eccentric

novelty to a powerful utility. This shift can be observed in the design of current robots as

opposed to past ones. Nowadays, most are designed with a singular purpose in mind, with no

regard to appearance. An example of this new, utilitarian design would be the welding arms that

are used in the automotive manufacturing industry to assemble vehicles. This is in stark contrast

to the piano-playing mannequins of last century.

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A robot operates with regard to three basic principles. These are necessary in order for

the robot to successfully imitate human behavior. Firstly, it must be aware of its surrounding

environment. This is accomplished using a variety of sensors and probes which function

similarly to our five senses, letting the robot gather data on its immediate area. Secondly, the

robot must have a list of instructions to follow. This can be provided by either a

controller-wielding operator or a logic-based computer algorithm embedded in the robot’s

architecture. The algorithm uses situation data provided by the sensors to make decisions based

on whether or not conditions are being met. And finally, the robot must be able to act on its

provided instructions. (Newton)

The United States military is one of the most technologically advanced fighting forces on

the planet, and has been adopting robots as a supplement to standard infantry for the last 15

years. These robots are integral tools in a unit’s operational capability, and are used in situations

to remove an operator from a hazardous situation. One prime example of this is the EOD bot.

EOD, or Explosive Ordnance Disposal, is the highly dangerous task of defusing bombs, mines,

or other explosives found in an area of operation. Before the robot was introduced, this job was

relegated to trained professionals in gigantic blast protection suits. Despite these protections, it

was still a deadly job, and a solution was required. A robot was designed and pushed out to the

field, where it took the place of the humans as a bomb killer. Its implements included a

flashlight, claw, arm, and laser, letting the operator sabotage booby traps from a sufficient

distance away. This invention saved countless lives through its ability to eliminate the possibility

of any injury in the first place. If the operator makes a mistake, the bomb explodes, taking the

EOD bot along with it. This is a small price to pay, and the operator lives to fight another day.

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However, robots serving in the military presents a unique ethical dilemma. It’s one thing

to use a robot to defuse bombs, but another issue entirely to use one for frontline combat. Most

seem to be fine with the idea of radio-controlled drones and weapons platforms. After all, behind

the screen is a human making the decisions. The debate arises when considering autonomous

robots designed to eliminate enemies. What if the algorithm fails? In an interview with Mr.

Trevor Davies, Senior Director of Engineering at Dolby, he stated that “When it comes to

sensitivity of judgement, how to motivate someone to do something, or how to make a difficult

decision in a combat environment, I think the human’s always gonna win there, it’s very hard to

ever program that.” He is correct in his assertion. Humans and robots think in completely

different ways, and inserting a robot into a situation it is unfamiliar with could have disastrous

results. Dr. Jonathan Schimmel continues, expressing that “ I think differentiating between who

are combatants and who are non-combatants is the hardest part of it all. Especially is this type of

warfare, where there’s not really soldiers and a battlefield, it’s more just like guerilla warfare,

everyone’s dressed the same.” There is simply too much potential for error at our current

technological limitations, and the aftermath of an error would be catastrophic.

In addition to its potential as a military supplement, robotics has an equally promising

future in our day-to-day lives. Advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence are

going to be what differentiates the robots of today from the robots of tomorrow. Presently, robots

excel in simple, controlled scenarios where there is no element of randomness present. Take the

example of a welding arm. It is designed to have a sheet of metal appear in exactly the same

place every single time, and it follows a predetermined pattern in order to perform the weld. The

pattern will be followed extremely precisely, but there is no room for interpretation or

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improvisation of the task. If something is disturbed within the system, the robot cannot simply

adjust for it, and the error must be corrected by an external influence. This is what is likely to

change. Hardware-wise, robots will likely remain very similar to their current designs, since

there is only so much optimization one can to do a moving torch. However, die shrinks as a

result of Moore’s Law (a prediction of the steadily increasing efficiency of microprocessors) will

afford increased power and efficiency to the computers within these robots. Deep learning

techniques have been lauded as the latest breakthrough in artificial intelligence, as they have

enormous potential to improve a robot’s adaptability and decision skills. “For example, when

utilizing deep learning to teach a device to use facial recognition, computer engineers might

flood the device’s network with hundreds of thousands of pictures of faces. Over time, the

neutral network of the device will build associations between faces, learning to recognize key

features.” (“Artificial Intelligence”) An application of this would be a robot that could take the

place of workers doing unskilled, mundane tasks, such as picking or sorting fruit. During our

interview, Mr. Davies noted that “working on a production line where a panel comes in and

you’ve got to paint it or weld it, that’s a very controlled environment, but working in a field,

where you’ve got to identify fruit on a random location on the plant, pull it off, and identify if it’s

good, it’s those kinds of things that are more difficult.” Adding to his point, Dr. Jonathan

Schimmel theorized “Think about picking fruit. That’s all done by hand now, but you can

imagine, ironically, the smarter the algorithm, the dumber the job it can actually do. You know,

picking fruit is a really difficult job, but if you had a smart enough algorithm to know how to

identify ripe fruit, you could imagine a robot picking fruit, which is a long ways away from

doing a pick and place of electrical components.” The point about how “the smarter the

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algorithm, the dumber the job it can do” is particularly interesting. It makes sense. These jobs,

incredibly simple for a human brain to accomplish, are impossible for the typical robot to

complete. We simply have a different set of skills, and are much better suited for the variability

that fruit-picking entails. The growth of the plants is completely random, and the exact location

of each fruit is random as well. The task seems simple in our eyes; we look around, spot a ripe

fruit, grab it, pick it, and add it to our basket. However, each of these tasks on their own is

enough to stump the average robot. A neural network would have to be trained to recognise the

fruit among everything else, and another would be used to determine whether or not the fruit is

ripe. Simple decisions we can attribute to our intuition or experience require immense amounts

of processing power on the mechanical end. Despite years of steady efficiency increases, there

will always be things that robots can never do. The takeaway from all of this is that the

advancements in the next 20 years of robotics will bring sweeping changes to the capabilities of

robots in their capacity for flexibility and intuition, helping them to become much more

self-reliant and intelligent as a result.

In conclusion, the field of robotics has revolutionized the modern workplace, and

promises a future of safety and success. As robots become more and more integral to our jobs,

we can reflect on the immense progress that brought us here, and speculate on the advancements

to come. We are living in a time where the innovations are coming at a rate that is too fast to

even comprehend. They will continue to improve the functions of these already immensely

useful machines until there is nothing left to improve. But, there will always be something new,

an optimization or update, that will continue to move us forward. We are truly living in the

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robotic renaissance, the golden age of progress in the field. And we will all benefit.

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Works Cited

"Artificial Intelligence." Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2018. Student

Resources In Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EVGQOK887488565/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=SUIC&xid=6

28b6434. Accessed 11 Mar. 2019.

Davies, Trevor. Senior Director of Engineering, Dolby. Personal Interview. 11 March

2019.

Newton, David E. "Robotics." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by K. Lee

Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. Student Resources In Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CV2644031932/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=SUIC&xid=f02949

16. Accessed 11 Mar. 2019.

Pa, Weilyn. “Robotics: A Brief History.” Stanford Computer Science, Stanford

University, 1999,

cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/robotics/history.html. Accessed 11

Mar. 2019.

Schimmel, Jonathan. VP Global Support and Sales Operations, 10X Genomics. Personal

Interview. 11 March 2019.