Tokyo’s World Robot Summit Reveals Increasing Capability of Automation
10/21/2018
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CBS found plenty of amusements at Japan’s World Robot Summit, like an automated ping-pong partner and a mechanical sniffer dog that checks for foot odor.

But if you watch closely, the coming social and economic revolution can be seen. Japan is a leader in automation in part because of its slow-growing population (no immigration!), and the work still needs to get done.

Below, a robot and human work together in the “co-bot” mode as industry has called it.

There is not a lot that can be done about the approaching wave of job-destroying automation, but we should certainly end immigration as an obsolete institution.

Machines at Japan’s World Robot Summit host TV shows and help you pass the sniff test, CBS This Morning, October 20, 2018

Tokyo is hosting the World Robot Summit this week and it’s packed with the usual assortment of the practical, the weird, and the entertaining.

When it comes to factory robots, Japan is king. More than half of all industrial robots sold last year were made in the country.

The hazardous behemoths of old are getting kinder and gentler. Once corralled behind fences, factory bots are now working side by side and even collaborating with humans.

“Lifting 40-pound components is a real strain on human bodies. So robots do the heavy lifting and people do the light, complex work,” one developer told CBS News’ Lucy Craft.

Modern robots now have a light enough touch to grab — and delicately box — potato chips. The world’s first high-precision, tactile robot arm enables users to remotely sense what’s being touched, even from 3,000 miles away.

The technology could transform fields from agriculture to medicine and disaster response.  (Continues)

Euronews has an interesting piece about the Summit where a robot is shown installing sheetrock, after which a Japanese man says, “We hope to use this sort of robot in place of humans in fields such as aircraft and sea vessel construction.”

 

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