Freedom from Drudgery

The robot revolution may do more than free you from the drudgery of long hours of hard labor. It may also bring relief from tedious monotony and assembly-line boredom. Moreover, not only are these steel-collar robots replacing blue-collar workers; they are also moving in on white-collar jobs. The robots are on the march!

THE growing robot invasion is opening the way for people not to retire from work but to move into more challenging jobs. As robots replace people and relieve them of dangerous or laborious or boringly repetitious work, people move on to positions that require human intellect and specialized training​—jobs that are beyond robot capabilities. It is popular today to exalt robots above people, and their computer-brains above human brains. But it should be remembered that people make robots and robot “brains.” Robots can’t make people or human brains. Once this is understood, then we may keep in proper perspective the great boon robots can be in delivering us from drudgery.

At present, Japan is leading the robot revolution. But other nations are awakening to the possibilities. Or, rather, more accurately, they are aware that to compete they must embrace this new technology. A new Toyota plant uses robots in all production stages. Other Japanese automakers use them not only to cut down on workers but also to improve product quality. No longer is the use of robots limited to big businesses. Small factories also are putting them to work. Their versatility is expanding rapidly, and, as it does, their invasion spreads from factories to offices and to homes.

A “cleaning robot” also serves as a night watchman. A “secretarial robot” writes letters, stamps them with the executive’s signature, formulates schedules and reminds him of appointments. One “medical robot” with 25 “fingers” examines a woman’s breasts and relays its findings to a computer system that detects cancerous growths or other abnormalities. Still another robot can . . . but maybe we should hear more about this first hand, from a robot itself.

This one’s story sounds a little like bragging in places, but even after making allowances for this human frailty, it’s still an impressive tale. Let’s listen to it.

If a Robot Could Talk . . .

I AM a robot.

This may amaze you. Until recently many people did not believe that robots existed. They believed that we were only the figment of a moviemaker’s imagination. But now they know we do indeed exist, by the thousands, and that many thousands more are on the way.

I am a second-generation robot. This, too, may amaze you. I was built by other robots. I can walk, talk, “see,” and in some ways “feel.” I may not walk as fast as you do, but my footing is sure. I have many words in my vocabulary. The words I use may astound you.

I can be as tough as a man or as gentle as a woman. I can lift 500 pounds (225 kg) with ease or pick up an egg without cracking the shell. I can mine coal in the bowels of the earth, and stir my human companion’s cup of coffee at break time. If you need help in building a machine, call me. If it’s assistance you want in working in the kitchen, get in touch. Although I could, I do not clean windows.

You may not always recognize me as a robot. If you picture me resembling a beeping, tooting, light-flashing mechanical man bumbling his way across a movie screen, erase this view. I am much more sophisticated and valuable than that. I come in various sizes and shapes. I may have a hand with several humanlike fingers or one with clumsy, misshapen, lobsterlike grippers. I may be giraffelike in height or only a few feet tall. I could look like a monstrous mechanical spider or an overturned wastebasket. In a Florida school of medicine, for example, I look very much like a human. I have hair, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. My skin is plastic. I am equipped with veins, arteries and even a heart. My heart is my contribution to society, for with it I can demonstrate as many as 40 cardiac disorders. Not even in the movies have I been made to look so real.

It is said that some humans would give their left arm to be on the Johnny Carson Show. In 1966, not only was I on that show, but I also directed the band. And did you catch my encore performance in 1976, in the one-robot show, shoveling soil on the planet Mars, while television cameras transmitted my picture all over the world? The cameras caught my best side. Did you recognize me? I have also appeared on national television as experimental models to show you what I can do and how I can talk.

You should not wonder at us. Reams have been written about our coming. Some writers have said, “The Robots Are Coming!” Others have written that “Robots Are Not Coming, They Are Here.” Still others have said that “Robots Are Just a Few Nuts and Bolts Away from Intelligence.” With all of this, surely your eyes have not been closed to our rapid development.

Remember the dolls you once played with? Some you would wind up and they would walk across the floor in measured steps. Later, others would move their arms and hands in step with their feet. Then they were made to beat drums and shake tambourines. Over the years they became more sophisticated. They learned to cry like a baby and, finally, to talk. In some countries the dolls developed more rapidly, even going through the motions of writing and drawing pictures. In Japan you would wind them up and they would walk across the room and serve little cups of tea to their maker’s guests. Children would put coins in a machine and manipulate toy steam shovels to pick up a prize, and then jump for joy when the delightful trinket would be dumped in the slot as a reward for having skillful hands. It was only the beginning!

“Why not make them bigger?” some suggested. “Much bigger,” others said. “Why not give them a brain?” “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get them to work for us?” the more brainy innovators speculated. Ah, but still others went further. In 1921 a Czech writer, Karel Capek, became famous for his play entitled “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” Here, for the first time, the word “robot” was coined and introduced to the world to describe us, the mechanical characters that warred against humans in a highly technical machine age. At last, we robots were emerging from the cocoon of our long metamorphosis.

As toymakers developed their dolls to walk and talk and cry and amuse and entertain, highly skilled technicians became obsessed with developing their “toys,” or “robots,” as we are now called, to have almost humanlike abilities. To amuse and entertain was not their aim. Farsighted men envisioned us as becoming their slaves.

We must be developed to be more than a mere machine. After all, machines have been around since the invention of the wheel and axle. For example, an eggbeater is a simple machine. In the hands of a woman it is a quick gadget to homogenize an egg. But if robots are to beat eggs, we must do it entirely on our own, without the aid of a woman. In addition, we must also follow it up with pouring the egg into a bowl or a pan. If the egg is for frying, then we must see to it that it is just as milady wishes it​—over easy or sunny-side up. Our job would not be complete without serving milady this gourmet’s delight on her favorite plate, possibly with fried potatoes and buttered toast. Could all of this be the work of a mere machine? Do not insult our intelligence. We are robots!

As I view this in retrospect, I realize that we were like the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” running around without a heart​—only we had no brain. Ah, but the grand wizard of technical science came to our rescue! With the development of the computer and the miniaturization of computer components, we were given a “brain,” second only to the real thing. For example, on a silicon wafer just four inches (10 cm) square are 200 microcomputer chips, each able to process eight million bits of information per second. This is our “gray matter.” This is our memory bank. If you teach us how to prepare an omelet to suit your exquisite taste, we won’t forget it. Once the rancher in Australia teaches one of us how to shear a sheep, he can count on our always doing it with the same gentle finesse as the teacher himself.

Dear reader, if you only knew our potential you would not cease to be amazed, and possibly concerned. As one of my robot brothers said in the aforementioned play by Karel Capek: “The power of man has fallen. A new world has risen. The rule of the Robot.” As I dictate this now, I am convinced that we are indeed infallible, click, infallible, click, infallible, click, click . . .

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“With the development of the computer and the miniaturization of computer components, we were given a brain”

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“I am convinced that we are infallible, click, infallible, click, infallible, click, click . . .”

[Picture on page 5]

“I can lift 500 pounds with ease or pick up an egg without cracking the shell”

We’re Being Invaded​—By Robots!

Are steel-collar workers threatening your job?

IN A darkened warehouse a sinister prowler gropes his way through aisles of boxes and crates. Vapor lights from street lamps outside cast eerie shadows on the walls and ceiling. The prowler catches sight of his own silhouette on the wall. Its grotesque, hunched shape is a mute reminder of his evil intent. Suddenly he becomes aware of a second silhouetted shadow moving steadily behind his. He is being followed. His pace quickens. So does that of the trailing shadow. He breaks into a run. Now two shadows are running. He bounces off a wall in front of him and falls helplessly to the floor. The trailing shadow is no longer a mere silhouette. Menacingly it stands over him. The would-be thief, his face a twisted mask of fright, cannot believe what he is seeing. A life-size mechanical man looks coldly down on him. He is being captured by a robot!

In a candy factory in England, a tired and weary worker looks at the clock. His aching body tells him that his workday should be over. The clock says four hours more remain. He laughs to himself when he remembers that movie comics have for years used this same routine to make audiences laugh​—picking up and boxing chocolates from a conveyor belt in a never-ending stream at the rate of two a second. The worker has mixed emotions. Within the hour a new employee will take over his nerve-wracking job. “He has superspeed,” his boss says of his replacement. “He will never tire out and complain,” brags the head of personnel. Make room for the steel-collar worker. It’s another robot!

For some time now robots have been competing with blue-collar workers in the cosmetic industry in almost the same routine​—picking up jars of hand lotion and putting them in cartons as they speed off the assembly line. Their delicate agility is also matching their human counterparts in testing tiny thermometers, a process that includes shaking almost microscopic gas bubbles from the fragile glass cylinders.

In a quick change from bib and apron to overalls of steel, even the legendary smithy pales into a distant second place to the robot. Standing an arm’s length from forging furnaces that are heated to a blistering, breathtaking 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930° C), these mechanical men remove white-hot chunks of metal and carefully place them in machines that will shape them into turbine blades, while men, whom they have replaced, look on with relief and wonderment.

Robots have invaded the automotive and aviation industry, performing difficult tasks that, again, leave their human working companion shaking his head in disbelief. They have competed with the best welders and painters in the car industry. They have gone to other planets and dug soil. Soon they will be sent down to the sea to inspect ship bottoms and pier pilings. Fifteen years from now, experts say, robots will mine every chunk of coal that comes up from the ground.

Already great plans are under way to employ robots in ways ranging from the mundane to the sublime​—so lofty that it would again send them rocketing out into space. According to published reports, if all goes well with the shuttle flights, officials of NASA plan to launch a robot into space aboard the space shuttle about 1986. The robot would be tested in simple operations; thereafter it could do more complex jobs, such as repairing satellites already in space and building space stations. The invasion of the robots is on!

To what extent are we being invaded by these mechanical men? According to some reports, the world population of robots stands at about 17,500. Other reports put it as high as 20,000, with Japan ranking number one in production and utilization, United States a trailing distant second, followed by the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, Poland, Great Britain, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. However, these figures are changing almost daily. In the United States alone the production of robots has been climbing at the rate of 35 percent a year. One company boasts of robots walking off their assembly line at about 55 a month, and of selling them as fast as they can be produced. Other large companies, seeing the demand for these steel-collar workers in industry, are jumping on the bandwagon and are tooling up to produce robots.

Japan, for instance, in January 1981 opened a factory that can turn out 350 robots every month. To add to this, in Japan robots are building other robots 24 hours a day. Until recently Britain had very little interest in the mechanical men. Today, however, the situation has changed. Firms that sell robots have been deluged with inquiries from factory owners and managers, and the rate of robots moving into the work force in Britain is climbing.

The Robot Institute of America, a trade group in Dearborn, Michigan, testifies to the invasion of the mechanical men by predicting that sales of robots in the United States will soar from 70 million dollars in 1980 to 225 million dollars in 1985.

To understand best this sudden invasion of robots into the work force in industry is to understand the difference between automated machines, which have been used in industry for generations, and machines that are called robots. The Robot Institute of America possibly sets forth the best definition of what makes a robot a robot: “A reprogammable and multi-functional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.”

A simple automated machine is solely designed to do one thing. For example, if you are a subscriber to this magazine, then, likely, the magazine you are reading was individually folded and wrapped by a machine especially designed for that purpose. This is its sole function. It cannot perform any other operation. A robot, on the other hand, can be programmed to do many things. It could clean windows, it could fry an egg, it could paint or weld, it could wrap this magazine. Herein lies the robot’s real value to the industrial world.

The motions of a robot themselves are flexible and can be described in human terms: waist, shoulder, elbow, wrist, flange rotation and arm and wrist bend. They are able to duplicate almost all motions of a human arm and wrist, even stirring a cup of coffee. To the delight of their employer, all their movements are fully programmable​—to do a job again and again or stop and do something else. They are designed to work with humans, at human tempos so as not to conflict with existing operations. Could this be the ultimate servant of man?

Ah, but this is not all! The robot’s assets go on and on. The robot is easily taught even the most complicated operations. Note just how easy it is, as described by a manufacturer’s own robot manual:

“Using a hand-held teach control, the robot is taught its job by literally leading it by the hand through its assigned task. Playback speeds are independent of teaching speeds so operations taught slowly can be performed accurately at high speeds. This method of teaching assures fast setup time, rapid changeover to new jobs, and quick program adjustments. Many programs can be stored in the memory and called up as needed. Subroutines can be taught to facilitate complex jobs and portions of programs can be altered without interrupting production. Programs can be stored on magnetic tape for future use. Memory capacity can be expanded for more complex tasks.”

Did you once have the feeling that as a human worker you were quite necessary? Are you suddenly feeling threatened? If you are a factory worker, what percentage of the working day do you really give to your job? Are you a complainer? Are you out “sick” more than your fellow workers? Beware. You may be replaced by a robot. Your employer may already be studying the fine features of hiring a robot. They never weary of their job. They can work all day and all night. They never complain, never ask for raises, are never out sick, always start on time, never take vacations, never have to be pulled away from the water cooler by their boss​—and no coffee breaks. Consider: something is causing the robot invasion.

General Motors has about 400 robots in their plants. These are used primarily for welding, painting and spraying, parts handling and die casting. One of the newest robots is being used for auto body inspection. Equipped with cameras, the robots have “seeing” ability that humans are not able to match. Only 400 now, but General Motors predicts 5,000 will be installed by 1985. According to published reports, they plan to install more than 14,000 by 1990. A word to the wise: These robots can be operated at a cost of $5.50 (U.S.) an hour. This includes purchase price and maintenance. Compare this with the $18.10 an hour paid the blue-collar auto worker in wages and benefits, and the lure of robots speaks for itself.

It must be considered that when robots are moved into the work force people are replaced. For example, when an electric company in Japan moved in a computer-robot to produce vacuum-cleaner parts, it was found that the robot and four people could do the work formerly done by 120 workers. With the aid of robots, the labor force required to assemble television sets in Japan is less than half that required by most United States manufacturers. In the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Federal Republic of Germany, four robots “hired” as welders have replaced 22 human welders. Studies conducted there on the use of robots in the work force indicate that for every job filled by robots, between five and seven jobs are eliminated.

Supporters of robots in industry argue that workers should welcome the steel-collar workers in their plant, particularly for tasks where danger in handling materials are involved or for menial jobs that workers find boring. On the face of it, this argument may sound praiseworthy. But the argument becomes dubious when one considers that it is the employer rather than the worker who determines which are the boring and the dangerous jobs.

There is also the argument put forth by management of industries, already using or anticipating the use of robots, that the blue-collar workers replaced by robots will simply be transferred to white-collar jobs. This, too, has a fine ring as it drops from management’s tongue. But how many displaced blue-collar workers will be qualified to handle the white-collar jobs that may develop?

While robots in the work force may be responsible for greater productivity and a higher quality of workmanship, at the same time they present problems for the displaced workers. Addressing the subject of automation, Robert T. Lund, assistant director of the Center for Policy Alternatives at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there would be “problems across the board for everyone affected by new technologies in the factory and the office.” Then he added: “Workers will have to move, learn new skills, change jobs​—all these things produce hardships.” Who will be faced with the greatest hardships? The young blue-collar worker may accept the move, the learning of new skills, the change of jobs, as an adventurous challenge. But what about the middle-aged workers, and those who can look back on their middle age? Will the move and the change be welcomed by them?

At present, the greatest number of robots are being used in the automotive industry. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler all “hire” robots. Many European countries also employ robots in the manufacturing of autos. Business Week magazine of August 3, 1981, comments on a study conducted by Carnegie–Mellon University on the impact of robots. The study concludes “that robots, plus those being developed with crude sensory abilities, could perform about 7 million existing factory jobs, at least 45% of which are covered by union contracts.” Business Week adds: “The United Auto Workers, one of the few unions that tries to anticipate automation, expects its auto industry membership to drop to 800,000 from 1 million between 1978 and 1990, even assuming a 1.8% annual increase in domestic auto sales.”

In Europe, where the famous Volkswagen and Fiat automobiles are made, there are growing fears that with the invasion of robots into their factories, displaced workers will abound. Already, Fiat has decided to eliminate 7,500 jobs. Volkswagen workers, who welcomed the integration of steel-collar workers to perform the more unpleasant jobs, are now having second thoughts. They see the robots being made with a higher I.Q., with the ability to “see” and “feel,” and thereby to push the human worker out and into more menial jobs​—integration in reverse.

Almost weekly, in some form of news media, the pros and cons of robots are discussed. Some argue that a four-day workweek is the solution. With inflation ever on the rise, others argue that people are wanting more overtime pay rather than less work time. But whatever be the pros and cons, the robot stands squarely in the middle. However innocent he is, he is one to be reckoned with. Indeed, it is true: Robots are no longer coming​—they are here!

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Robots have gone to other planets and dug soil. Soon they will be sent down to the sea to inspect ship bottoms

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In Japan, robots are building other robots 24 hours a day

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They never complain, never ask for raises, never are out sick, always start on time, and take no coffee breaks

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These robots can be operated at a cost of $5.50 an hour. Compare this with the $18.10 an hour paid the blue-collar auto worker in wages and benefits

[Blurb on page 11]

The robot and four people could now do the work formerly done by 120 workers