The History Of Robotics - Prehistory, Employment & Development

The History Of Robotics is part of the more extensive, the development and proliferation of machinery , which begins in 18th  century with the Industrial Revolution . It therefore begins with the automaton . The fundamental difference between the controller and the robot that will become the 20th  century is that the first follows a strictly pre-established program, either mechanically or electrically, while the second has sensors and equipment electronic , so that its actions flow of his contacts with his environment, which - unlike the automaton - makes him autonomous , "intelligent", to the point that we will speak later of artificial intelligence .

The robot starts at the beginning of 20th  century. The electric dog designed by John Hammond and Benjamin Miessner in 1915 , the machines of the engineer Bent Russell (1913), of the psychologist John Stephens (1929) and of the electrochemistry Thomas Ross (1935), the cybernetic turtles of William Gray Walter (1950), the electronic fox by Albert Ducrocq (1953) or the homeostat by W. Ross Ashby (1952). These robots are, in general, more or less successful simplified replicas of existing animals. These are, however, the first achievements of the artificial reproduction of the conditioned reflex, also called Pavlov's reflex , which constitutes the basis of adaptive behaviors, which are at the basis of living behaviors.

The appearance of robots intended for war dates from the Second World War, with the Goliath , a wire-guided mine that can be operated remotely.

The robotization of the industry begins in the 1960s, in the automotive sector, then will spread until we know today.

At the end of the 20 th  century, transport robotics (for people) appeared with the Lille Métropole metro , which is the first metro in the world to use light automatic vehicle (VAL) technology , or line 14 of the Paris metro , the only line in the Paris metropolitan network to operate fully automatically as soon as it is put into service (October 15, 1998).

The History Of Robotics

Domestic robots intended for the general public, meanwhile, appear later, at the start of the 21st century , with, for example, vacuum cleaners or autonomous mowers.

Still at the start of the 21st century, but at the military level this time, automatic turrets were developed on warships, unmanned flying devices (see drone ), motorized exoskeleton or even "mules" (BigDog is an example).

PREHISTORY

We find in the stories mythology of ancient Greek references to humanoid artificial and mechanical wizard made by the god Hephaestus . In the 1 st  century, Hero of Alexandria invented the first automated, if one believes at least the equipment he describes in his Treaty of tires ( Πνευματικά ). We owe him, for example, a machine project using the contraction or rarefaction of air to open the doors of a temple or to operate a clock, this in order to "arouse astonishment and wonder".

Another prefiguration of the robot, this time in Jewish mythology, the golem: to be artificial, generally humanoid, made of clay, incapable of speech and devoid of free will but designed to defend its creator.

Much later will come the machines Leonardo da Vinci , the 16th  century 10 then, xviii th  century and those of Jacques de Vaucanson , who built his first robot in 1730 for games and in 1750, perfected the looms by automating them by hydraulics.

Application & Development Criteria Of Robotics

Certain applications of robotics already know a multitude of exploitation, while others are still at the stage of project or idea. The commercial development of these projects depends on several factors:

Promotion Of The History Of Robotics:

• role of demos, prototypes, more or less humanoid, and speeches of promises from robotics (what imaginary mobilize robotics?),
• role of scientific, professional and general public publications,
• role of consultants, technology fairs and robotics competitions,
• role of education,
• lobbying activities.

Acceptability:

• the added value, or the relevance of the application, is at the heart of the acceptability of robots and their commercial success. It can be of the order of the service rendered, of the performance, of the valuation of its user, etc.
• the meanings and values ​​associated with robots: how to impute meanings and values, what influence of societies (in particular the anthropological relationship to techniques, animism ).
• ethics: depends on the individuals or companies in which the products are marketed.
• the legal aspect, which raises the question of responsibility and the transfer of responsibility between the manufacturer and the user, and the question of the possible legality of certain devices, for example in relation to individual freedom (respect for personal data, medical confidentiality, etc.)

Techniques :

• technology, or technological maturity, which judges functional performance, autonomy, dependability, etc.
• industrialization, the ability to move from laboratory devices or small series production to large-scale industrialization.

Economic:

• security, operation, crucial point of application development.
• economic model, sales model (purchase, rental, etc.) and price of the service.
• norms and standards, standardization is today mainly focused on security.
• interactions with the environment, is based on the robot's perception capabilities, and also on the adequacy of this environment for the functions that the robot must fulfill.

Social:

• demographic evolution ; determines demand for certain market segments. For example, the aging of the population increases the importance of the robotics assistance market.
• labor shortage; can be problematic in certain aging populations, such as in Japan for example.
• security request; more and more robotic applications concern security, in the home for example.
• an appetite for technology; increasingly advanced interactions between humans and machines, promotes the development of robots.

The human-robot social interaction raises the crucial question of confidence, particularly for assistants robots but also for work in human-robot team. For the interaction to be viable and productive, it is necessary that users can trust the robots with which they come into contact. One of the goals of researchers in social robotics is to try to prevent a deficit of confidence on the part of users, but also to prevent overly blind confidence in the robot.

Two interesting publications on this subject are the article by CITC - EuraRFID entitled Industrial, defense and service robotics - What opportunities for economic development? , published in April 2014, which provides a summary of advances in robotics, its high potential markets, etc. As well as The History Of Robotics initiatives project , launched and then validated in July 2014 by the French government and the Ministry of Productive Recovery (Arnaud Montebourg), which provides for a total of 100 million euros of investment, divided between companies and the world of research, with the aim of placing France in the position of "world leader" by 2020. The takes stock of the market, development and business sectors of the robotics industry.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE HISTORY OF ROBOTICS ON EMPLOYMENT 

Since the 1970s, IT and robotics have become increasingly important in many production environments (chains of industrial and sometimes service activities such as postal sorting or medical analysis for example). Correlatively the employment directly induced by robotics (design and manufacturing, when the robots are not themselves built by robots) increased, but on the other hand the robots (tireless, never going on strike, not doing break, able to work 24/7) are replacing an increasing number of other jobs.

In the 2000s , some analysts, such as Martin Ford , author of Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Acceleration Technology and the Economy of the Future 36 claim that robots and other forms of assisted automation by computers will eventually lead to high unemployment (unless the economy is designed to absorb them without displacing humans, since machines exceed the ability of workers to perform most jobs [ [not clear] ).

Until the 2010s , the negative impacts on employment seem mainly to concern menial and repetitive or arduous jobs, and it is often postulated that robotization would compensate for these job losses by other jobs of highly qualified technicians , engineers and specialists.

Alongside similar technologies, those of artificial intelligence and information processing in particular) also cause some other job losses to be feared, in functions this time considered to be qualified, in certain sectors generally outside the scope of industrial production.

According to classical economic theory [Which one?] , Robotization increases the productivity of the industries concerned and therefore lead to a drop in product prices, which would increase the demand for these goods, and therefore a higher demand for labor in these sectors ( however, this "extra work" could also be done by robots).

In 2013, the IFR ( International Federation of Robotics ) published a study ( Positive Impact of Industrial Robots on Employment going in this direction ). But a new American study (in March 2017) concluded that the highly skilled jobs supposed to accompany robotization were not produced in sufficient numbers to compensate for the job losses.

This concern is emerging in the political world and among certain decision-makers: In 2016, Barack Obama expressed his concern about this subject at the end of his mandate. In 2017 Bill Gates in an interview with Qwartz explained that “right  now, if a human worker produces, say, $ 50,000 in wealth in a factory, that income is taxed. If a machine comes and does the same thing, you would think that we would impose the robot on a similar level  ", which would allow" to  take advantage of the liberation of the workforce to be able to do a better job towards people elderly, having fewer classes of pupils, helping children with special needs Explains the creator of Microsoft ). In France, Benoît Hamon , during his electoral campaign in 2017, also proposed that robots and machines could be taxed on the basis of a notional, virtual salary in order to contribute to the financing of social protection and universal income.

The study of MIT published in October 2017 concluded that the substitution effect to the human employment is real in the United States: Where they are used, the robot actually tend to substitute for human use (670 000 jobs lost in the United States in 17 years, a figure that remains modest compared to the millions of jobs in the country, but the authors specify the trend continues to accelerate and that this movement could be amplified: A prospective work by Boston Consulting Groupconsiders that between 2015 and 2025 the share of robots could still quadruple in the labor market; The MIT study also points to a side effect already observed: a fall in wages linked to robotization; each new robot introduced into the labor market per 1,000 workers corresponds on average to 0.25 to 0.50% reduction in average wages. The MIT study was limited to strictly industrial robots, not taking into account ATMs, autonomous cars, household robots, domestic 3D printers, AI, etc. ; its results could therefore underestimate the total weight of jobs lost.

In Europe, a study by the McKinsey Institute focused on 46 countries representing 80% of the world labor market, concluding that around 50% of the remunerative activities of the world economy could already be performed by existing technologies (the equivalent of 1.2 billion jobs and 14.6 trillion US dollars in wages). The most industrialized countries are the most affected. France, which is deindustrializing in favor of the tertiary sector and services, would be among the least affected countries with "only" 43.1% of jobs that can be replaced by a robot or a machine, while in Japan 55.7% of jobs could still be replaced by The History Of Robotics). The United Kingdom and Norwaywould be the least at risk countries because the least industrialized. However, finance itself is increasingly governed by algorithms and automated processes. Within the 5 major European economies ( France , Germany , Italy , Spain and the United Kingdom) 60 million employees (and $ 1.9 trillion) could be replaced by robots. This could have positive impacts on GDP, but catastrophic for employment and problematic for the economy because robots do not buy. Among the solutions put forward are taxation of the work performed by robots, possibly associated with a reduction in working time, in favor of the establishment of a basic universal income (idea notably defended by Elon Musk who is certain "that there will be less and less jobs that a robot will not manage to control better.

We are just beginning!😊