Background
Like it or not, robots are steadily marching forward replacing humans in their stride.
Many human jobs are being replaced by robots or robots are collaborating with humans, which were reported as follows:
Working robots: collaborative robots or “cobots” are being installed in factories to work alongside with humans. In Britain, cobots are being used to address the shortage of workers due to Brexit. A study from Massachusetts of Technology (MIT) indicates that cooperation between humans and robots is more productive than using either humans or robots alone and reduce human idle time by 85 per cent.
In addition, cobots are being utilized in restaurants. At Mofongo’s distillery and cocktail bar in the Dutch city of Groningen, a cobot climbs a 26-ft high bar to tap bottle of spirits. In a restaurant in Tokyo a cobot boxes takeaway dumplings. Trials are underway for machines to go through medical records using artificial intelligence to ensure that they get the right medical record.
(Source: Mark Bridge. Robots in restaurant to solve staff shortage. The Times, June 16, 2018)
Soft fruits robots: there goes students’ summer jobs of picking strawberries! We spent a summer during our college days in a strawberry farm in Northern England. The pays enabled us to buy a nice bicycle. A company, Fieldwork Robotics Ltd in the UK is developing a prototype robot capable of picking raspberries. The robotic system could be adapted to pick other fruits and vegetables. Running on wheels and guided by cameras, they will have multiple arms, equipped with sensors to detect and pick ripe berries.
(Source: Miles Costello. March of the robots was never so sweet. The Times, August 6, 2018.
A robot stuntman: The Walt Disney Company’s researchers initially had developed a robot stuntman by devising a lump of metal that could be flung across a space into a net. It had sensors and its centre of mass could be shifted, allowing its flight to be controlled and a precise landing would be made. It was followed by a headless, limbless automation made up of three connected shafts, and then a full humanoid robot. It was noted that robots have started to become mobile and autonomous and can begin to imitate sophisticated stuntmen or stuntwomen.
(Source: Will Pavia. Disney’s next trick: a robot stuntman. The Times, August 7, 2018.
More bad news for human employees: It was reported that Citigroup, the US banking giant, had announced that it would reduce up to half of its technology and operations staff in the next five years and replace them with machines. Another large bank, Credit Suisse, was planning to automate a large number of compliance jobs.
(Source: Miles Costello and Dominic Walsh. 10,000 workers @may be replaced by machines”. The Times, June 12, 2018.
In Malaysia, there is an urgent need to replace foreign workers in large oil palm plantations to harvest fruits and transport them to palm oil mills quickly. Foreign workers in oil palm plantations represent a major portion of immigrants in Malaysia.