The Effects of Robots on Society - Essay Example

?The effects of robots on society Introduction People had always the desire to mechanically model living creatures ever since it was first attempted in ancient Greece during the pre-Aristotle era (before 350 BC). The first mechanical artefact was built by the Greek mathematician Archytas, which was a mechanical bird. Newer examples in history included attempted animal-like artefacts such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s “robot” (which resembled a knight) in 1945AD (Sanchez-Martin et al., 2007). However, the exhibition of behaviour inspired robotics was shown in the 1950’s by the inspiring work done by Grey Walter, with an electronic tortoise responding to various light intensities. Since then, due to the immense technological development, robots are capable of interacting with people and being involved in various aspects of modern life. Robots have significantly affected the industry technology, involving in both mechanical and medicinal aspects, integrated themselves in society and had ambiguous effects on the protection of the environment. Effects on Industrial development The first aspect that robots involved heavily is the industrial development, facilitating great innovations and successfully replacing human help. After the inception of robots during the 1950’s, the process of using robots as industrial tools was proposed by George Davol and Joseph Engelberger. The first industrial robots manufacturing company named “Unimate” was made and in 1959, the first industrial robot prototype was made. After the Unimate concept received great interest from companies in Japan, the General Motor automobile factory installed the first Unimate robot in order to serve the assembly line (Engelberger, 2007). The subsequent acquisition of the technology by the Japanese Kawasaki factory marked the development of the first robotic association J.I.R.A (Japanese Industrial Robot Association) in 1971, setting a new milestone for the industrial robot technology. New emerging technologies were implemented to facilitate better control of robots and accelerate production. The positive and negative impacts in the mechanical and medical fields are discussed below. Mechanical involvement Introducing robots in manufacturing companies had a significant advantage both for the companies and the workers. Robots were able to perform repeated and boring tasks for longer periods compared to workers while not needing expensive healthcare insurances and didn’t get sick (Henderson, 2006). This improved many aspects of manufacturing process such as improvement of product quality, avoidance of hazardous accidents by the more precise directions in dangerous tasks and increased productivity while keeping manufacturing costs low. On the other hand, while small companies were benefited from opening new trade perspectives such as selling specialized equipment, most small businesses that could not afford the new technology were led to foreclosure. In workers, while it was originally feared that jobs could be destroyed by replacing human labour with machines, it was later proved that this had a strongly positive impact on improving the working conditions because robots replaced jobs that were dangerous or toxic to humans. An example of this is the robot ANATROLLER ARI-100 which was developed to clean toxic environments. The requirement of maintenance and supervision for the machines opened up new opportunities for work which had a better working life and benefits for workers. The only negative social impact is the replacement of uneducated workers or workers with limited skills, as they could only perform repeated tasks, which still exists until today. Medical involvement When robots were introduced to the medical sector, the first robot-assisted surgery was facilitated in 1985, with PUMA 520 performing a neurological biopsy. As doctors learned to operate the machines better, major operations were made possible by only a few incisions by the robots. The patients benefited from less trauma, decreased healing time and faster release from the hospital. Robot-assisted surgery was also developed for trainee surgeons to gain experience using “supervised trial and error” modules, compromising the safety of real patients depending on the case (Morris, 2005). Modern applications of robots in medicine were able to perfect their implementation in surgery, which had remained minimal for many years. With the introduction of the da Vinci Surgical System in 1998, the failure rates in laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RLRP) were decreased and doctors that used this method decreased their individual failure rate from 2-5% to 0.05%. Novel uses included the use of robots in managing the distribution of medications in hospitals, nursing homes or pharmacies. While the initial purpose was to administrate medication to patients while reducing the instance of errors and number of staff required it was succeeded for some time but newer study proved that these machines committed a number of errors. A percentage of 21.2% error rates for 2,025 medications given prove the use of wrong administration techniques and wrong time errors Effects on society Due to the evolution of the robotic industry in the 21st century and the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (A.I), robots progressed from being used only in the industry to interact with humans. Robots started to be used for entertainment purposes, with the Japanese ASIMO from Honda being able to interact with humans, play and sing while toy dogs such as i-Cybie were capable of interacting with fellow robot dods, self-charge and avoid obstacles, being a perfect choice for families which could not afford to keep dogs for financial or health reasons. Another innovative robot of this time is Roomba made by the American company iRobot, which is a series of autonomous vacuum cleaners able to recognise obstacles and clean surfaces without any supervision – more than 6 million units were sold worldwide by 2011 (Jones, 2006). Its unique ability to adjust between different floor types and self-charge after each session made it an appealing candidate for busy or elderly people that could not clean by themselves. The precise effect of robots on society can be clearly seen in Japan. Being home to more than half of the 1 million world robot population and plans of raising up to 18.6 million robot units in 2016, Japan implements robot technology in may aspects, ranging from entertainment to surveillance, nursing and cleaning . Robots are already considered to be a common site in factories and humans are advised to interact with them – sometimes robots are even welcomed in the first day of work by religious ceremonies known as Shinto. Humanoid robots, such as a child-robot created in Osaka University help researches to understand how children develop and inserting artificial intelligence programs will enable the robot to learn by itself. Environmental effects The impact of robots on environment is highly connected to the manner of the robots are made and used. The minerals needed to build robots and computer devices are mined in ways that are considered to be damaging to the local environment, usually in countries with low environmental regulations. These so-called ‘conflict-minerals’ are resourced from war-torn countries under unpleasant working conditions which are destructive to the environment. While large companies like Apple deny the use of such minerals, the process of tracking them on robots and connecting to the mine that produced them is deemed difficult. Robots have been developed for environmental investigation. After the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, robots were used to measure radiation levels and explore the facility while when the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ensued, the “Seaglider” model made by the company iRobot monitored the presence of oil up to 1,000 metres deep. Researchers at University of Bristol have shown the development of a robot that is able to decompose when reaching the end of its mission, making the first biodegradable robot (Caprari et al., 2012). Conclusion Overall, the evolution of robotics was associated with novel changes in industry, society and the environment. As technology progresses, robots become intertwined with the everyday human life and can take place in many processes that were taken up by people until now. This progress can be both harmful and beneficial, but the benefits greatly surpass any minor damage that can be caused by improper handling. By using Japan’s example in integrating robots in our lives, learning to accept and actively involve them could prove favourable. The new era in technology has come and people must stop becoming opposed to it and start accepting it in their lives. Bibliography CAPRARI, G., BREITENMOSER, A., FISCHER, W., HURZELER, C., TACHE, F., SIEGWART, R., NGUYEN, O., MOSER, R., SCHOENEICH, P. & MONDADA, F. 2012. Highly compact robots for inspection of power plants. Journal of Field Robotics. Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company. ENGELBERGER, J. F. 2007. Historical Perspective and Role in Automation. Handbook of Industrial Robotics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. HENDERSON, H. 2006. Modern robotics : building versatile machines, New York, Chelsea House. JONES, J. L. 2006. Robots at the tipping point: the road to iRobot Roomba. Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE, 13, 76-78. MORRIS, B. 2005. Robotic surgery: applications, limitations, and impact on surgical education. MedGenMed, 7, 72. SANCHEZ-MARTIN, F. M., JIMENEZ SCHLEGL, P., MILLAN RODRIGUEZ, F., SALVADOR-BAYARRI, J., MONLLAU FONT, V., PALOU REDORTA, J. & VILLAVICENCIO MAVRICH, H. 2007. [History of robotics: from archytas of tarentum until Da Vinci robot. (Part II)]. Actas Urol Esp, 31, 185-96.  Read More