By Srivatsa Krishna

The world is changing once again forever. The invasion of robots is right around the corner, and it heralds yet another powerful chapter in the upcoming artificial intelligence revolution. It is now reported that over 3.5 million industrial robots are installed already, which is more than the population of every US city except New York and Los Angeles, according to the International Federation of Robotics. 

First, about 200-500 billion parcels move around the world every year, depending on how you count them. One of the leaders in the space of robotics is Boston Robotics, staffed by Indian engineers, and now owned 80% by Hyundai. They have developed a new kind of robot with vision called “Stretch”. Stretch could go inside massive containers and stretch out its arms to pick up 50-pound boxes and effortlessly move them around and place them. The catch is that they must be arranged in a particular way in the first place, for it to recognise and grab it. Their other famous robot is “Spot”, which dances to songs in his free time when not busy inspecting hazardous nuclear sites or roaming forests to gather data. 

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Second, having taken care of a bedridden parent for many years, I can vouch for the fact that one of the toughest tasks is to lift them up  from a bed and transfer them to a wheelchair or to the bath. It is sensitive, and the patient is always scared of what doctors call as a “fall risk”, which can be fatal. Japan has invented a bear-shaped robot called Robear that can pick up patients and move them safely.

Third, UR10, a coworking robot, costs about $25,000 and has replaced factory workers on many shop floors, including large retail giants such as Amazon, Walmart, etc, to name a few. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, 85 million low-level, repetitive jobs will be lost to robots, but 97 million new ones will be created. 

Fourth, Gita is a cute walking robot that collects and sorts groceries for you and follows you around as you shop! Its computer vision allows it to see, understand and react to its surroundings, especially pedestrians. It is like having your personal valet or help following you around as you shop.

Fifth, in March this year, Kodiak Robotics, one of the leaders in unmanned autonomous trucks, achieved a new feat. It covered about 6,500 miles in half the time as a manned truck would, driving trucks around the clock, but with a human safety driver behind the wheel. Driverless trucks do everything that a manned truck does, such as navigating difficult turns, coming off a ramp onto a freeway, etc, with ease. Where they do falter sometimes is when they see a massive pileup of cars in front of them or sometimes while navigating inside the city. Various studies predict that in the next 2-3 years, the need for a safe driver will no longer be there, and with the ongoing 5G revolution, this would make driverless trucks omnipresent.

Sixth, Roomba, which came out two decades ago, is a common sight in many US households (and now in India), and mops and vacuums floors unattended. It memorises the floor plan and can do this brilliantly, unattended, and can be triggered remotely if you are away for extended periods. Likewise, Amazon’s Astro is present in many homes, acting as a guard, playmate for children, and doing simple household chores. 

Lastly, during the pandemic, due to the disruption of human life, companies were forced to accelerate the adoption of robotics. In the pilot project at the Coffee Board of India during the pandemic, a software robot by UiPath, one of the leading robotics companies in the world, was experimented with, and the results were extremely satisfactory. The issuance of export certificates was automated with minimal human intervention, and the coffee industry was able to be serviced with minimal disruption on this account. (There were, of course, disruptions due to non-availability of labour and jams at ports, which too robots could potentially solve with time). 

Having had the privilege of touring the Tesla factory in September 2015, I was stunned at the presence of more machines than human beings, then. I am given to understand by the Tesla leadership that seven years later, it is completely transformed, for the factory is largely run by machines now. Optimus, its newest Humanoid robot, is clumsy today, but in another five years, it will be working on its shopfloors and join other humanoid robots who are ahead in the race. 

A recent article in the academic journal Robonomics shows that much of the world, especially countries with declining and aging populations, is seeing the adoption of robots rapidly. What is on the horizon are new robotics players who provide an open-source robot architecture that turns complex functionality into simple APIs and come with built-in clouds to arrange production deployments.

While how the rule of the robots will transform our lives is quite magical, it also poses some puzzling questions. First, this world was designed for humans, and how the invasion of robots, say in another 10 years, will fit into the current architecture remains to be seen. Second, there are questions about the ethics of machines which pose puzzling and serious questions. What should an autonomous car do when confronted with the choice of running over two pedestrians and killing them versus saving the lives of 10 others in a potential car crash which it predicts just a few seconds ahead? Third, if robots join the workforce in hundreds of millions, are we truly approaching an age where human beings will have enormous leisure time at their hands to enjoy life in a new Age of Hedonism and not be burdened by work itself, or will they find newer more complex more challenging jobs to keep themselves busy with? Fourth, when robots replace a hundred million or more repetitive low-level jobs, there is bound to be increasing friction with unions, especially in organized industries and sectors such as ports, airports, truck driving, and factories in general, and this could lead to protracted negotiations with labour. 

Last but certainly not the least, what happens if the robots experience software bugs that cause erratic or even dangerous behaviour? What happens if they experience a system overload and completely shut down? What happens if some virus or malware gets into the robot and the machine gets weaponised? How dangerous will it be to the humans around it? The answer lies buried somewhere in between Hollywood’s two extreme depictions of robots either as Terminator-like creatures or saviours of the planet.

(The author is an IAS officer. Views are personal. Twitter: @srivatsakrishna)