UN report points to a surge in use of robots for work and home - 22-Oct-04 - Generational Dynamics

In Japan's auto manufacturing plants, there is already one robot for each ten human employees.

Japan's auto industry has been leading the way in the use of robots, but today robots are being used in numerous industries throughout the world. In 2003, robot use increased by 28% in North America and 25% in Japan. The European Union's use is growing far less quickly, increasing by only 4% in 2003. (Although political aspects are not addressed by the report, this appears to me to be an ominous sign that Europe's industrial capabilities will be falling behind North America and Asia for years to come.) Altogether, there are over a million industrial robots hard at work worldwide.

Robots are rapidly improving in performance and coming down in price, just as desktop computers have been doing for over twenty years. And just as desktop computers have eliminated large categories of desk jobs, starting in the 1980s, we can expect to see automated robots eliminate large categories of labor-based jobs, especially manufacturing jobs.

The report does not discuss the issue of increasing intelligence of computers, that we discussed in conjunction with the release of the movie I, Robot. Supercomputers will be as intelligent as human beings by 2010 or so, and autonomous super-intelligent desktop or mobile computers will be surging in the 2020s, and will take over a variety of jobs: a computer plumber, a computer nursemaid, a computer soldier.

However, the report highlights a point that I hadn't considered: That even without super-intelligence, autonomous robots will be taking over many human tasks by 2007, far earlier than the 2020s dates that I estimated. In the home, robots are just getting started with tasks like automated vacuum cleaning and lawn mowing. Before 2010, we can expect to see robots that aid the handicapped, clean hazardous waste sites, and, of course, prosecute war.

The following table, abstracted from the report, lists the major categories of professional and domestic robots that installed in each category, today and in 2007. If a field is blank, it means that the UN report didn't provide data.

2007 isn't very far off. If these projections hold, then we can expect a real explosion of these devices into the 2010s, for many more categories of work.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 22-Oct-04
UN report points to a surge in use of robots for work and home

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 22-Oct-04 UN report points to a surge in use of robots for work and home

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 22-Oct-04
UN report points to a surge in use of robots for work and home