Little is known about the robotic tray on wheels seen in this video from Robot Watch. It whirs around this Japanese cafeteria, but only some of the patrons seem to be even slightly bemused. Perhaps they had foreknowledge of the robotic waiter, or maybe they’ve become desensitized to robots since their country is teeming with the metallic bastards. This story has been bouncing about the intartubes with no real explanation or description of the bot. I know it uses an “inverted pendulum” to balance, but I’m sort of unsure what that means. You don’t see grandfather clocks bringing food to people upside down.
This is semi-cool, and it seems semi-feasible to have a semi-large-scale semi-deployment of the traybot. I’m all for anything that eradicates one more annoying instance of human social interaction, so let’s get this thing stateside.
Experts in the field of robotics say that in the next decade, robots will have an increasing presence in low-level service industry positions–thus potentially displacing human employees. Roboticists believe jobs that are dull, dangerous, or dirty are excellent candidates for automation.
As the technology progresses, those employed in the service industry could struggle to find work. Futurist Marshall Brain says, “The service sector, which is a gigantic part of the employment landscape in the United States, is inevitably going to be a place where you can replace millions of people with robots that work 24/7 for less money”.
Dr. John Wen, a director of the Center for Automation Technologies and Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y, believes that such a transformation of the service sector would be analogous to when computers replaced many of the dull bookkeeping positions in offices. Like other scientists in the field, Dr. Wen says that while robots may replace some low-level jobs, their advent will also create jobs in the robotics industry. Of course, those who currently hold dull, dirty, and dangerous positions are probably not going to pick up jobs as robotics programmers and engineers, but as the science is developed, future robots may be much easier to program, thereby making a transition from service to science more doable.
Some hospitals already utilize robots to deliver meals and bed linens to patients’ rooms. In a Osaka, Japan, a mall robot gives direction to lost shoppers. A handful of consumer robots make chores like vacuuming, mowing, and gutter cleaning a thing of the past for their owners. While experts say millions of jobs could be replaced by robots, they predict a gradual change that won’t cause too much economic upset.
Care-O-bot 3 is one of the weirder looking robots we’ve seen recently. The 4-foot-8-inch robot is built to “relieve us of heavy, dirty, monotonous or irksome tasks.” It was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA. With a single arm that has only three fingers, it was specifically made to serve drinks and perform other similar tasks.
It’s equipped with laser scanners, a nifty 3-D range camera, even stereo-vision color cameras which allow the robot to identify various objects. For instance, it doesn’t know the particular shape of a bottle, but when you place it in the bot’s hand it will form a 3D rendering of it for future use. Of course it’s fingers have sensors which prevent it from gripping fragile items too hard. It won’t run you over either thanks to it’s unique 3D perception of the environment. It recognizes movement which stops the robot from moving.
Sounds like it wants to do all my chores and serve me. But it looks like it wants to suck me into it’s huge body. Yes, it’s look scares me. I mean it looks like a guy in a robot suit. Probably a crazy killer.
Experts in the field of robotics say that in the next decade, robots will have an increasing presence in low-level service industry positions–thus potentially displacing human employees. Roboticists believe jobs that are dull, dangerous, or dirty are excellent candidates for automation.
