Weiye Loh's Library tagged Robotics → View Popular, Search in Google

Jan

2012

Surgical robots: The kindness of strangers | The Economist

Robot-assisted surgery today is dominated by the da Vinci Surgical System, a device that scales down a surgeon’s hand movements in order to allow him to perform operations using tiny incisions. That leads to less tissue damage, and thus a quicker recovery for patients. Thousands of da Vincis have been made, and they are reckoned to be used in over 200,000 operations a year around the world, most commonly hysterectomies and prostate removals.

But the da Vinci is far from perfect. It is immobile and weighs more than half a tonne, which limits its deployability, and it costs $1.8m, which puts it beyond the reach of all but the richest institutions. It also uses proprietary software. Even if researchers keen to experiment with new robotic technologies and treatments could afford one, they cannot tinker with da Vinci’s operating system.

www.economist.com/...surgical-robots

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Medicine Robotics Open Source Software

Jul

2011

Are Robots Going to Take Your Job? | The Utopianist - Think Bigger

utopianist.com/...-robots-going-to-take-your-job

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Job Robotics Society Technology

. The Fiscal Times recently talked with Martin Ford, author of The Lights In the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, about how advances in robotics will affect future job markets.

Ford’s prediction?

Machines and computers are getting better at an accelerated rate, and I think within maybe 5 to 10 years things are going to get to the level where machines begin to surpass the ability of most people to do routine work. I base this partly on my belief that most of the work out there in the economy is routine in nature. There aren’t that many people that are paid to think creative thoughts
while we certainly like to think that the jobs we do are important and that we are good at them, the reality of the situation is that most jobs could feasibly be done by machines (journalism included).
3 more annotation(s)...
- True, these worries have been around for years, but Ford points out that while the robotics have existed for awhile, the computers to direct and manage them have not.
  
  This is all changing. Ford points out that aside from CEOs, nobody has secretaries anymore–they have computers. I deposit my paychecks not with a bank teller but with an ATM. Law firms are already using software to sort through massive amounts of documents. Data entry and IT are both increasingly being automated. Even salespeople are in danger of being replaced by advanced computers.
- When we talk about the decline of the middle class, these are the jobs we should really be looking at. In the post-war boom, it was things like secretarial work, manufacturing and other moderately skilled positions that allowed people to achieve the “American dream,” i.e. house ownership, money for college, etc.
- People might dismiss this talk as hyperbole, but that’s mainly because robots have, so far, mostly been limited to low-paying work like factory jobs. What happens when lawyers and other white-collar professionals start losing their jobs? Then you’ll start seeing a much more heated discussion. When all of the mid-range jobs that use to provide a middle-class lifestyle are gone, we’re going to have to start seriously thinking about how to restructure our economy–or face civil unrest.