A Helping Hand – Learning to live with robots

MEET 3D in a different guise. If the job is Dangerous, Dirty or Demanding, it will in future more than likely be handed by a robot, says Shinsuke Sakakibara, President of the International Federation of Robotics. Rapid advancement in technology, including artificial intelligence, will see a lot of 3D tasks handled by an army of droids, moving beyond factories into restaurants, into customer relations, and even to the field of elderly care . . .

R2-D2 IN THE Star Wars universe, and that friendly domestic android assigned to look after an ageing jewel thief in the recent Hollywood movie Robot & Frank, may still be figments of imagination.

But robots are no longer confined to the realm of science fiction — or the fertile imagination of movie directors and producers.

Robots are now realities of life in global factories. And they have been developed to perform a range of tasks ranging from bomb  detection to deep sea research to medicine — and many areas of endeavour considered too dangerous or too difficult for human beings.

Certainly, many of today’s robots are not photogenic, like R2-D2, nor do they have endearing personalities, like Frank’s robot butler.

But who knows, in time, given the way today’s technologies advance at such a rapidrate, we may, indeed, be befriending our robotic helpers into the future. Development in robotics is moving ahead at a clipping pace, and having robots perform chores which are not conceivable today may well be possible within 50 years, says Shinsuke Sakakibara, President of the International Federation of Robotics, an industry body based in Frankfurt.

With the rapid advancement of technology, and innovation like artificial intelligence, Sakakibara says that, increasingly, a lot of tasks, especially those in or the 3D (dangerous, dirty and demanding) category, especially in the elderly care fields, will be handled by robots. Asia is already home to hundreds of thousands of robots. But many more — in the millions — will be needed in future as Asians age, and young, educated, affluent Asians spurn lowly menial or front-line service jobs, such as waiting in restaurants.

Already, more than one million industrial robots are building cars in factories in Japan, South Korea, China and the United States, or assembling products in Singapore and Taiwan. Sakakibara told ATI that about 1.2 million industrial robots were employed in factories globally at the end of 2012. He says the use of robots grew by nine per cent annually between 2008 and 2012. “We expect annual growth to continue at a rate between five and 10 per cent in coming years,” says Sakakibara, who is also President of Fanuc Ltd, one of Japan’s largest industrial robots manufacturers.

Asked to comment on his vision of the role of robots in Asia — 10, 20 or 30 years into the future — he responds: “This is a look into the glass bowl (crystal ball).”

But, he concedes: Due to the continued accelerating trend towards automation all over the world, I think it is possible that, in 10 years, between 2.5 and 3 million robots will work in factories. In 20 years, this might be more than five million units.” The worldwide market value for robot systems, including software, peripherals and systems engineering, he says, was estimated at US$26 billion in 2012. The global market for service robots for professional use was about US$3.4 billion, and, for domestic personal robots, US$1.2 billion.

(According to projections from the Japan Robotics Association, the market size by value for robotics will be US$66.4 billion by 2025. More than half of this will be service robots working in homes, while others will be employed in medical and other fields.)

Last year, about 70 per cent of global robot sales went to Japan, China, the United Sates, Korea and Germany. Just one company,  Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, currently employs 20,000 robots in its factories in China, where it assembles Apple iPhones.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, plans to have an army of one million robots on its factory floors, working with human employees who are robot technicians and engineers. Foxconn currently employs one million workers. It turned to robots to combat rising wages in China.

Shinsuke Sakakibara says robots do not replace jobs. He points to the projections of the industry specialist marketing and market research consultancy, Metra Martech, which forecasts that robots will, in fact, create more than one million jobs by 2016.

He explains that growth in the manufacturing industry is highly dependent on having a skilled work force and automation using robots.

“Manufacturing industry worldwide is expected to grow rapidly by 2016, especially in emerging countries,” says Sakakibara. It will definitely need a workforce which ensures high quality and production sustainability. “Industrial robots make high quality as well as sustainable production possible, and will create more jobs as a result.”

Based on statistical data on robot shipments, he expects employment of robots to grow fastest in the automotive and automotive parts industry. This sector was the first to use robots for tedious repetitive assembly work.

Robot manufacturers are making daily efforts to increase the speed of their robots, because the faster the robot, the higher its  productivity, he says. But he declines to quantify the productivity of robots in dollar terms.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), however, estimates that advanced robotics could have a worldwide economic impact of between US$1.7 trillion and US$4.5 trillion annually by 2025. MGI estimates that, by 2025, the use of advanced robots for industrial and service tasks could take on work equivalent to the output of 40-75 million full-time workers.

This could potentially have an annual economic impact of US$600 billion to US$1.2 trillion in developed countries, and US$100 billion
to US$200 billion in developing countries.

MGI says economic value from the use of time-saving household service robots alone would be US$200 billion to US$500 billion a year. Sakakibara says his personal belief is that robots will “100 per cent” help offset workforce shrinkage, due to ageing (in Asia). But he stresses that this is his personal view and not necessarily shared by the International Federation of Robotics, which was set up in 1987 to promote the use and development of industrial robots.

In a small country like Singapore, where labour is both expensive and difficult to find (because of restrictions on foreign labour), restaurants and retailers are having great difficulty finding workers to fill front-line service jobs, including restaurant service and sales.

Does he believe there will come a time when robots are able to perform some tasks, for instance, now performed by waiting staff? Says
Sakakibara: “I personally think these tasks may be performed by robots within 50 years — because safety and cost problems are so big at the moment.”

Indeed, China is taking a lead in this service area. In June this year, a restaurant in the northern Chinese city of Harbin made headlines around the world when it opened for business with a staff of 20 robots. Appropriately called, The Robot Restaurant, it uses robots as waiters and cooks.

Similarly, “Robbi”, developed by the Swiss company BlueBotics SA, recently began work at Geneva Airport as a customer service agent. The robot guides passengers who need information on direction to certain facilities, and can physically lead them there. But it is with a rapidly ageing population in a world of shrinking working-age people that robots will hopefully come into their own in the care of the elderly.

As the country at the forefront of the silver tsunami, Japan is predictably at the leading edge of development of robots for care of the aged. “But Japan is not the only country in Asia with an ageing population, China is now facing an ageing society,” says Sakakibara. In fact, all the countries of Asia — Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan — will are also age rapidly over the next three
decades (see report page 25)  Sakakibara says a lot of effort is now being made to develop robots which can take over the more mundane chores of caring for the elderly and infirm. “Elderly care robots and apparatus with robot technology is now being developed in advanced nations,” he told ATI. While he says it may be difficult to actually put a household robot onto the market for now because of safety reasons and cost problems, he does not rule this out entirely.

Japan stands out for its relationship with robots and their early adoption in industrial applications and will probably also lead eventually in use of domestic robots. Japan’s annual robotics exhibition is the largest in the world. “More than 30 years ago the Japanese manufacturing industry, especially the automotive industry, was growing rapidly — and wages were rising as a result,” explains  Sakakibara.

“Then, robot manufacturers proposed using robots to maintain the competitiveness of our manufacturing industry. That led to  successful results. This is one reason why Japan has taken such an interest in the development of robots.” Another reason, he a ds: “Many engineers and robotics experts in Japan are aged between 40 and 70. They read the robot comic book Tet suwan Atom (known as Astro- Boy worldwide) when they were kids. This comic book was written by Osamu Tezuka, who depicts robots as very intimate friends of human beings, not enemies as we see in most Hollywood films and media today.”

Sakakibara describes himself as an ardent Astroboy fan. “May father bought me a copy of the Astroboy comic when I was about five or six years old. I was very impressed by the story and interested in science, robots, comics, animation, etc. That may be one of the reasons why I created an animation film, Town Musicians of Bremen, in my high school days.”

Sakakibara studied physics in university and entered an industry robot company. He explains that Osamu Tezuka, who has a PhD in Medicine, was regarded the father of not only Japanese comics and animation but robotics in Japan.

Sakakibara’s company, Fanuc Corporation, is one of the largest makers of industrial robots in the world. The company’s un-Japanese name apparently comes from an acronym for factor automatic numerical control. It was founded in 1956 as part of the large Fujitsu Group, and became an independent company in 1972 when it developed and installed its first industrial robot in its own
plant. The company’s clients include US and Japanese automobile and electronics manufacturers.

The use of industrial robots has allowed companies like Panasonic to run factories (in Amagaseki) which produce two million television sets a month, mostly with high-end plasma LCD screens (including a 103 inch model), with just 25 people.

Other major Japanese robot suppliers include Yaskawa Motoman, Nachi and Kawasaki.

The first industrial robot was developed by two Americans — Joseph Engelberger, a physicist, engineer and entrepreneur, and the inventor George Devol, who held the original patent, in 1959. Engelberger later came to be known as the Father of Robotics. According to Wikipedia, the first industrial robot was installed in the General Motors Inland Fisher Guide Plant in w Jersey in 1961.