Happy Thanksgiving To All - Especially to Robot Toys

To all my US friends and readers - have a fantastic Thanksgiving Holiday and long weekend. 

This year I am especially thankful for all the great friends I had the chance to see and spend time with, and for all the new friends and colleagues I have met along the way as well.

And I am also thankful for the recent increased interest in this blog, which I attribute almost completely to people landing here after searching on Google for the words 'robot' or 'robots'. Go figure.

So with that, I will leave you with one of the coolest and most moving little robot videos you will ever see, a short piece called 'Address is Approximate' by The Theory. It's for everyone that has journeyed today to be with family and friends, and even for those of us who couldn't make the physical journey, but are still thinking about the people that mean the most to us. Note - Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through to see the video.

Enjoy!

Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Go Gamecocks!

Never takes a day off, follows instructions, and is more empathetic?

I've noticed at least two things since I have gone off on my recent 'robots are going to take away all our jobs' kick. One, oddly enough my blog traffic is way up, something like 33% or so, as I seem to be getting a fair number of hits from Google searches for the word 'robot'. Which is pretty cool. So if you've found your way here looking to actually learn something about robots - how they work, their manufacturing process, or you were seeking information about Robocop or the Robot from 'Lost in Space', all I can say is 'Welcome!' and 'I apologize for possibly wasting your time.'  The second thing that I have noticed is just how many of these robot stories are out there, it is getting a little ridiculous and I swear that I am not going to great lengths or scouring obscure sources to find them.Robot - 'So, what's on your mind?'

The latest article on the growing, (and I think concerning) trend is from the MIT Technology Review, titled 'The Virtual Nurse Will See You Now', a review of a new virtual nurse and exercise coach technology program developed at Northeastern University. The virtual nurse interacts with patients, helps them to understand their diagnoses and aftercare programs, and by virtue of some additional programming, even can engage in rudimentary small talk about sports or the weather, a capability that helps to increase patient's comfort level interacting with the virtual nurses.

According to the MIT Technology Review piece, the virtual nurses are proving effective, with patients that had interacted with the nurse more likely to know their diagnosis and to make a follow-up appointment with their primary-care doctor than patients who had not worked with the virtual nurse. The second set of trials with overweight, sedentary adults that were exposed to the virtual exercise coach, (named Karen), were also successful, with users reported to have "checked in with Karen three times a week, while she gave them recommendations and listened to their problems. Over 12 weeks, those who talked to the coach were significantly more active than those who simply had an accelerometer to record how much they walked."

While it's not surprising anymore to read about how robots and other automation technologies like the virtual nurses are fast becoming so advanced, powerful, and capable to the extent that they can perform more and more traditional human jobs faster, more accurately, and cheaper than us mere mortals, some of the comments in the virtual nurse piece were striking for their assessment of the need and benefits of these new tools. Here's a sampling, (but you really should read the entire piece):

Patients who interacted with a virtual nurse named Elizabeth said they preferred the computer simulation to an actual doctor or nurse because they didn't feel rushed or talked down to.

Dang, that's not a ringing endorsement for patient care and bedside manner of our health care professionals. But once we get more people in the field I am sure the standard and quality of care will improve. After all, health care is one of the few consistently growing career fields.

Not so fast though, check out this quote:

Such technologies will become increasingly important with rising health-care costs and an aging population. "We already know we don't have enough health-care providers to go around, and it's only getting worse," says Kvedar. "About 60 percent of the cost of delivering health care comes from human resources, so even if you can train more people, it's not an ideal way to improve costs."

That doesn't sound good. When even health care, one of the most hands-on, high touch, and needs the human element to be effective, kinds of fields is under pressure to cut costs via increased automation, well that does not seem to bode well for the long term employment prospects for a field most of us have come to see as safe, secure, and even in more demand as our population ages.

But beyond the simple automation and efficiency play here, more alarming is the idea that the virtual nurses and coaches can be seen as more understanding, attentive, and even empathetic. How can a robot or a computer actually demonstrate empathy? It's probably a question for another day, but if the robots can start beating us on empathy, well, it's going to be tough to find something else we can still do better than them.

In which I admit to my robot obsession...

Just a quick one today, and yes just like yesterday's post the subject is robots, and their slow, steady, inexorable march to world domination. And quite frankly I don't have a problem with all the robot posts, since my favorite source of inspiration and content, the National Basketball Association, seems intent on remaining in a labor impasse for who knows how long, and I have to write about something.How are you feeling? That will be a $50 co-pay.

So for a busy Friday, the day before getaway day to Las Vegas and HRevolution (tickets still available), and the HR Technology Conference, another dispatch from the Robots vs. Humans front lines, this time from Slate.com:

Will Robots Steal Your Job? - Why the highest-paid doctors are the most vulnerable to automation

Yep, another take on the upcoming, heck already started process of further automation and supplementation of traditional careers and functions by complex and dedicated robot technology. But like yesterday's post where I featured robot technology beginning to make inroads into farming, the piece from Slate shows us even highly specialized, highly paid, and highly complex tasks like the evaluation of medical samples for signs of cancer can and are beginning to be encroached by robot labor.

I don't keep reading and posting about these 'robot stories' here because I find them to be surprising, or that most readers might not be aware that automation in all facets of industry, from low-tech to high-tech is an unstoppable boulder rolling down hill. It can't and won't be stopped.

But why I like to read these pieces, and think about them, is more about our reaction and response to these developments.  And on that note, I'd like to end this post with the most compelling point from the Slate.com piece:

By definition, specialists focus on narrow slices of medicine. They spend their days worrying over a single region of the body, and the most specialized doctors will dedicate themselves to just one or two types of procedures. Robots, too, are great specialists. They excel at doing one thing repeatedly, and when they focus, they can achieve near perfection. At some point—and probably faster than we expect—they won't need any human supervision at all.

There's a message here for people far beyond medicine: If you do a single thing—and especially if there's a lot of money in that single thing—you should put a Welcome, Robots!doormat outside your office. They're coming for you.

Boom. Specialization, even high-touch, highly complex, valuable specialization that requires spending years training, developing, and perfecting, still that is no guarantee or security against a robot that van do it better, cheaper, and faster. Even if those skills are ones that society needs and highly values, that's no protection in the long term.

The message? Invent something new, stay one step ahead of the robot masters? You'd better be prepared to keep inventing.

Or possibly the message is to continuously explore, challenge, and differentiate yourself as being more than a highly trained, highly skilled one-trick pony. Because if all you are only bringing one thing to the table, no matter how wonderful and complex that one thing is, chances are, eventually, someone else, maybe ever a robot, can do it better.

I promise no more posts about robots for a while, unless the NBA season gets canceled!

Have a great weeekend and if you are heading out to HRevolution or the HR Technology Conference be sure to find me and say hello.

When the Robots Are Driving the Tractor

Last evening, as I stayed up far too late reveling in the latest Red Sox baseball club disaster, (sorry Red Sox fan - but your 'nation' has now surpassed Yankee fan for sheer obnoxiousness. You used to be able to pull off that 'lovable loser' angle pretty well, but ever since you won the World Series you have taken on this entitled and smug attitude that is really off-putting. So there.), I was skimming through a few blogs and caught this article on the Endless Innovation blog that stopped my cold:

'When Robots Run Our Nation's Farms'.

The piece is, obviously, about the development of robotic and other automated machinery to improve the speed and efficiency of many time, labor, and capital intensive farming practices. Additionally, this latest generation of agricultural robotics will also help farmers with higher-value and complex decision making. From the Endless Innovation piece:

A new generation of robot drones is revolutionizing the way we farm in America, with Kinze Manufacturing and Jaybridge Roboticsrecently announcing the first-ever robot drone tractor capable of farming without the need for a human operator. Video clips are already circulating online of the Kinze tractor, gracefully coordinating its harvest dance with other autonomous machines. Once this robot drone tractor becomes part of the agricultural mainstream, robots will decide where to plant, when to harvest and how to choose the best route for crisscrossing the farmland. Humans, except perhaps as neutral trouble-shooters, will be all but unneeded. So what does it mean when robots run our nation’s farms? 

It is a good question, and one the piece doesn't really have a good answer for, probably because these trends are still relatively new in large-scale commercial farming. But technology improving, enhancing, or replacing what was formerly human, manual labor and effort is certainly nothing new. We deal with this phenomenon every day practically in our homes and workplaces.

Last night I ordered a pizza online from a local shop, the order was automatically transmitted and printed out in the store, someone (it might have been a robot), made the pizza, and I received an email when the pizza would be ready for pickup. Since I had pre-paid online with a credit card, all I did when I arrived at the shop was tell them my name and walk away with the food. If we add in some theoretical process efficiencies in the shop, (RFID codes, automatic supply replenishment, delivery driver dispatch tools, etc.), it is pretty clear that the modern pizza shop could, like the modern farms described above, produce much more output that ever before, while employing far fewer people to do the work.

Since many of the folks reading this are involved in the development, analysis, implementation, and advocacy of the latest and most wonderful technologies that we believe will enable organizations and individuals to derive increased value, benefit, and (hopefully) profit assisted by our efforts, we'd also be wise to think about the longer-term effects of these technology-enabled improvements. What legacy to these technologies help shape and what happens to the organization left behind?

Going back to the 'robot-farmer' example - someone used to have to drive the tractor that we've now turned over to the new, unmanned system. Hopefully as a result of this breakthrough new technology, that farmer is now able to spend more time studying the markets, providing customer service, volunteering in the community, helping his kids with their homework, or heck, even getting to know his cows better.

Because that would be probably the only real and meaningful benefit of handing the keys to the tractor over to the robots. If the technology only serves to make the process more efficient, but not so efficient that the farmer needs to find another line of work to survive - well then I'd think most of us would be happy to pay a few extra cents for our tomatoes next year.

In case you are interested - below is a video of one of the 'robot driven tractors' in action - (email and RSS subscribers click through)

Have a great day!

Career advice for kids? Learn how to build robots

By now you probably have caught the story of the latest step in what some might see as the inevitable 'Terminator'-like march towards the complete and total domination of the human race by our robot overlords - Foxconn Planning To Hire 1 Million Robots.I'll be back - with your iPad

You know Foxconn right? According to Wikipedia, they are the largest maker of electronic components in the world. Foxconn is probably where that little iPhone or iPad that you are so attached to was assembled. Apple, like so many tech hardware organizations has long realized that design, development, and writing software were the keys to success and competitive advantage, but the actual manufacturing and assembly of its gadgets was better positioned elsewhere, with a company like Foxconn that has clear labor cost (and likely other) advantages over domestic manufacturing.

It is an old story, chase less expensive manufacturing labor and capacity offshore, while keeping the essential elements of the organization stateside. As long as the good ideas keep coming, and the manufacturing operation can keep up with demand, maintain quality standards, and hold the line on costs, well, you have the Apple story essentially.

But as we see from the Foxconn/Robots story, even a seemingly inexhaustible supply of lower-cost labor might not provide the competitive edge forever, and whether it is labor cost pressure, difficulty in meeting the insatiable demand for Apple toys, or internally driven profit motives, even a company like Foxconn is looking to aggressively manage labor costs via automation.

We have all heard, and have advised students and others for ages - if your job can be replaced by a computer, or a robot, or an offshore worker willing to do the same job at half the cost, then you probably ought to have a backup plan in the works. Now it seems like we might have to start giving that same advice to the proverbial 'half the cost offshore worker'. When the robots start replacing the low-cost labor at Foxconn, well it is probably time to think about a new career in robot design. Or landscaping.

So kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? (Hint: say 'Robot Designer').

Until of course the robots figure out how to design and build themselves...

Aside: I like in the TechCrunch piece about the Foxconn story, they refer to the acquisition of the robots using the term 'hire'.  Makes me think about the questions the recruiter would ask the robot during the interview.

'So tell me your biggest weakness?'  

'Well, people say I am a workaholic, and I don't know how to unwind. I say that is silly. I had 30 minutes off for maintenance and a software upgrade last year.'