Robotics in Our Future

If the last 50 years has taught us anything about robotics, its that the rate of growth of use and capabilities of them is increasing every day.  When robots were first brought into the production industy, they simply aided humans in doing tasks they could not do themselves.  Today, there are fully autonimous robotic manufacturing plants that require little to no human intervention.  Some plants have systems in place where the robotic components are able to self-diagnose and even fix themselves or other robots.  While there are clearly many benefits to giving certain tasks to humans, there are many reasons to give the repetitive, precise jobs to robots.  Robots have a greater ability than humans to replicate tasks with greater precision as well.  Whether society accepts it or not, robots are becoming a staple in the manufacturing industry.

      Let's face it, simple repetetive jobs are boring and sometimes can be dangerous. In Robert Lamb's article "How have robots changed manufacturing?", he discusses the first time factories started using modern industrial robots in 1961.  The managers, supervisors, and owners all grew to love this new asset to their plant.  It never called in sick, never got tired, could work 24 hours a day and never have to be paid overtime, and was stronger and more precise than any human could be.  For these simple facts alone, robotics popularity grew rapidly in the manufacturing industry.

     In a Time Magazine article by Christopher Mathews, it is argued that robotics in manufacturing will actually help bring jobs back to America.  While they admit this seems counterintuitive, they refer to a Boston based company called Rethink Robots.  Here they have developed a relatively cheap robot that is able to simple, repetetive tasks efficiently and can learn tasks as well.  What this will do is allow manufacturers an American option to the cheap labor they pay for overseas.  With higher energy costs, and the growth of these developing countries manufacturers are looking to the U.S. to make products they plan on selling her anyways.  By utilizing this cheaper robot for repetetive, simple tasks, humans will be better utilized doing the more complicated tasks involved in the manufacturing.  While other students have claimed that robots will rob Americans of jobs, this robot, Baxter, is already helping American manufacturers gain an edge in the global market.  A plastics company in Connecticut has shown the robots veratility in doing tasks that would under-utilize a human.  To program the robot to do a new task, someone just has to show it how to do it, as if they were showing another human.  This just shows that robots may not be the death of manufacturing jobs in America. 






http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429248/this-robot-could-transform-manufacturing/

Lamb, Robert.  "How have robots changed manufacturing?"  10 November 2010.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/robots-changed-manufacturing.htm>  15 January 2013.

http://business.time.com/2012/09/27/can-robots-bring-back-manufacturing-jobs-to-the-u-s/