The word robot was coined by Czech playwright Karel Capek in 1920. In "Rossum's Universal Robots," Capek imagines an artificial, fully functional servant. Yet for most of the history of robot development, they have always been dumb, vulgar mechanics in factories, out of sight.
Tingene begynder at ændre sig. Den hurtige innovation af smartphones har bragt billige kameraer og sensorer, hurtig trådløs kommunikation, kraftfulde og bittesmå computerchips, og robotter har nydt godt af dem. De seneste fremskridt inden for maskinlæring har gjort det muligt for robotternes software bedre at forstå deres miljø og træffe informerede beslutninger. Robotter er på vej fra omhyggeligt administrerede fabriksindstillinger til hverdagen, med applikationer, der skal udvides i supermarkeder, klinikker, socialsikring og mere i de næste par år.
The timing of the robot's arrival is just right. Many factories are facing labor shortages—demand for workers has recovered much faster than expected due to the changing circumstances of the pandemic, while some people (especially in the U.S.) have left the workforce. Thanks to the boom in e-commerce, cargo space has grown rapidly. Robots are now integral to picking items from shelves and helping people pack (exponentially growing) packages. They even started moving slowly along sidewalks, delivering goods or food to people's doorsteps. In a world ravaged by the pandemic, where workers are in short supply and there are many elderly people to take care of, having more robots to boost productivity is a good thing.
Men nogle frygter, at robotter vil ødelægge arbejdspladser. Økonomer fra Oxford University offentliggjorde et papir i 2013, der blev fejlfortolket som at sige, at 47 procent af de amerikanske job er i fare for at blive automatiseret.
In fact, fears of mass unemployment are overblown. Evidence shows that robots are disruptive to the labor market, but ultimately beneficial. Japan and South Korea have the highest penetration rates for robots, but the labor market is also strong. Yale University studied Japan's manufacturing industry from 1978 to 2017 and found that adding 1 robot unit for every 1,000 workers could increase a company's employment by 2.2 percent. Research by the Bank of Korea found that robotization shifted jobs from manufacturing to other industries, but did not reduce total employment. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others have studied Finnish companies and found that their use of advanced technology has led to an increase in hiring.
All of this suggests that the arrival of robots will bring dramatic changes to jobs, as will the skills and companies that can benefit, but not the catastrophe many feared. An example of a so-called "bad automation" is self-checkout in supermarkets, because it replaces manual labor. But it's not the end of the world at all—robots can do unpleasant or contemptible jobs like slaughtering. Retrained supermarket cashiers can help customers pick items from aisle shelves, and may even find that dealing with people in need is more rewarding than scanning barcodes in front of a laser machine all day.
Uundgåeligt, selvom robotter gavner samfundet som helhed, vil nogle mennesker lide under forandring. En af lærdommene fra den liberale globalisering i 1990'erne og 2000'erne var, at selv med de enorme fordele ved øget handel var der en politisk modreaktion, fordi taberne følte sig forladt. Dette er en af grundene til, at virksomheder og regeringer må anerkende værdien af omskoling og livslang læring. Efterhånden som job ændrer sig, fortjener arbejdere hjælp til at tilegne sig nye færdigheder, herunder hvordan man arbejder med det voksende antal robotkolleger og hvordan man håndterer dem.
The potential gains from the robotics revolution are huge. In Capek's play, robots rebel against their human masters, causing mass unemployment and worse. In the real world, the robot's beginning doesn't line up with Capek's satire, and there's certainly no reason to think the end would be the same.