The word robot was coined by Czech playwright Karel Capek in 1920. In "Rossum's Universal Robots," Capek imagines an artificial, fully functional servant. Yet for most of the history of robot development, they have always been dumb, vulgar mechanics in factories, out of sight.
Er beginnen dingen te veranderen. De snelle innovatie van smartphones heeft geleid tot goedkope camera's en sensoren, snelle draadloze communicatie, krachtige en kleine computerchips en robots hebben daarvan geprofiteerd. Recente ontwikkelingen op het gebied van machine learning hebben ervoor gezorgd dat de software van robots hun omgeving beter kan begrijpen en weloverwogen beslissingen kan nemen. Robots vinden hun weg van zorgvuldig beheerde fabrieksinstellingen naar het dagelijks leven, met toepassingen die de komende jaren zullen groeien in supermarkten, klinieken, sociale zekerheid en meer.
The timing of the robot's arrival is just right. Many factories are facing labor shortages—demand for workers has recovered much faster than expected due to the changing circumstances of the pandemic, while some people (especially in the U.S.) have left the workforce. Thanks to the boom in e-commerce, cargo space has grown rapidly. Robots are now integral to picking items from shelves and helping people pack (exponentially growing) packages. They even started moving slowly along sidewalks, delivering goods or food to people's doorsteps. In a world ravaged by the pandemic, where workers are in short supply and there are many elderly people to take care of, having more robots to boost productivity is a good thing.
Maar sommigen vrezen dat robots banen zullen vernietigen. Economen van de universiteit van Oxford publiceerden in 2013 een paper waarin ten onrechte werd beweerd dat 47 procent van de banen in de VS het risico loopt te worden geautomatiseerd.
In fact, fears of mass unemployment are overblown. Evidence shows that robots are disruptive to the labor market, but ultimately beneficial. Japan and South Korea have the highest penetration rates for robots, but the labor market is also strong. Yale University studied Japan's manufacturing industry from 1978 to 2017 and found that adding 1 robot unit for every 1,000 workers could increase a company's employment by 2.2 percent. Research by the Bank of Korea found that robotization shifted jobs from manufacturing to other industries, but did not reduce total employment. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others have studied Finnish companies and found that their use of advanced technology has led to an increase in hiring.
All of this suggests that the arrival of robots will bring dramatic changes to jobs, as will the skills and companies that can benefit, but not the catastrophe many feared. An example of a so-called "bad automation" is self-checkout in supermarkets, because it replaces manual labor. But it's not the end of the world at all—robots can do unpleasant or contemptible jobs like slaughtering. Retrained supermarket cashiers can help customers pick items from aisle shelves, and may even find that dealing with people in need is more rewarding than scanning barcodes in front of a laser machine all day.
Het is onvermijdelijk dat, zelfs als robots de samenleving als geheel ten goede komen, sommige mensen zullen lijden onder verandering. Een van de lessen van de liberale globalisering in de jaren negentig en 2000 was dat er ondanks de enorme voordelen van meer handel een politiek verzet was omdat de verliezers zich in de steek gelaten voelden. Dit is een van de redenen waarom bedrijven en overheden de waarde van omscholing en levenslang leren moeten erkennen. Naarmate banen veranderen, verdienen werknemers hulp bij het verwerven van nieuwe vaardigheden, waaronder hoe ze kunnen werken met het groeiende aantal robotcollega's en hoe ze deze moeten beheren.
The potential gains from the robotics revolution are huge. In Capek's play, robots rebel against their human masters, causing mass unemployment and worse. In the real world, the robot's beginning doesn't line up with Capek's satire, and there's certainly no reason to think the end would be the same.