Knoxville's Joker
Has No Life - Lives on TB
With the lockdown and staffing shortages there is a new elephant in the room. Full on job automation of high turn over, hard to fill menial labor based jobs. So where does the industry stand right now? I will give you the short answer, not anywhere for a while, but that is quickly changing, but do not worry about your jobs just yet.
First, floor cleaning has always been the number one area where I would have seen automation start as it is a very dangerous and laborious job. Leading up to full on automation great strides have been made in mnimizing repetitive stress injury and maximizing output of employees.
www.nanalyze.com
Brain Corp is leading the way and will soon be cleaning the floors in walmarts. SoftBank of japan working with Brin Corp has come up with their Whiz to vacuum commercial spaces. AvidBots is German company that is working on releasing a whole range of floor scrubbing and cleaning equipment. A&K Robotics hailing from Vancouver does retrofits of existing machines with an eye towards complete automation. TaskiIntellibot hailing from Portland Oregon now acquired by Diversey has been around since 1985 and claims to be an industry leader.
Walmart has also been pushing for completely automated self check-out. Merely with staff there to minimize pilferage and other issues maximizing productivity. In some areas of high theft rates self-checkout is removed completely.
www.history.com
Fastfood really started with the automat, the coin operated eatery in Philadelphia in 1902 by Horn & Hardart who eventually purchased Burger King, Arby's, Bojangles. The last Automat was shuttered in New York City in 1991. McDonalds was the next success story and pretty much everyone copied them. The book behind the arches details the story and rise of the franchise and the many innovations they made to fast food over the decades.
It was said in the 80s and 90s fast food tried to look at completely automating their entire process line. Right now the bulk of automation is in the order kiosks that are not used due to hygenic concerns at mcdonalds. The tech is almost there to start taking over fast food by veritible storm but it will be a few years before the robotic costs come down.
Japanese vending machines, will we see them here?
tokyocheapo.com
www.insidejapantours.com
interestingengineering.com
favy-jp.com
The other thing is a thing specific to Japan. Vending machine stores. Only possible because of super low crime rates thanks to a culture that does not have crime as a piece of it really. Automated food vendors are only really possible there and in China due to the cultural importance placed on cleanliness first. Stateside and in Europe I do not see the concept of unmanned fully automated stores due to issues with pilferage. I do see a niche in highly secured environments as the intrinsic interest is a thing and it is growing.
www.eater.com
BratWurst Bot by FZI in Germany took orders, cooked and served meals using tablets to take and communicate order status with no issues in 2016. Momenttum Machines of Silicone Valley has a fully automated restaurant system capable of making 400 burgers per hour. MIT students made and installed a robotic Spyce Kitchen that makes and serves food on MIT campus completely autonomously sans the need to restock periodically and occupies less than 20 square feet. Moley Robotics has two full robotic arms and replicates the actions of master chefs. Zume Pizza of silicone valley uses automated machines to assist workers in making pizzas. That elusive tossed dough is not quite something they automated yet. Moley robotics cost for its robotic kitchen chef was around 75k as of 2016 and they are hoping to get it to around 15k by 2017. The driving factor for automation is the 15/hour wage.
Next lets look at retail and other things that can be automated there.
emerj.com
www.unicarriersamericas.com
www.westfaliausa.com
www.wired.com
www.wired.com
The main key to retail is the Just in Time Supply chain. Although driverless cars and semis are not quite there yet as the AI still has issues grappling with poorly marked roads and pot holes and collision avoidance of the occasional bung hole driver. Next is the warehouse supply and picking aspect. That has been developing since the 80s. I remember my father talking about a job he did in the 80s to run electrical wire in a ware house in the concrete so stock picking robots had reference points to pick stock automatically with no human interaction. This has gotten even more automated thanks to efforts by amazon to increase productivity and lower worker fatigue.
Lowebot being tested in San Jose and San Francisco is a mobile automated self help kiosk to help customers locate items. Target in 2016 used a robot called Tally by Simbe Robotics to verify inventory levels in the store. A vital painful task, compeltely automated. Softbank Mobile stores in Japan are using a robot called Pepper to chat, give direction, and answer questions and can do cool things such as play music, light up, dance and take selfies due to its humanoid form factor. Best Buy is testing a robot called Chloe by PaR Systems that picks product from a vertical arrangement (adding 1k sq feet of floor space,) and uses a touch screen to interact with customers and functions behind a clear partition where storage racks are. Dominos in Australia is using a robotic unit, DRU as a ground based unit and they are looking at drone based options as well for deliveries using years of accumulated driver GPS tracks and much of things are pending regulatory approval but the process is underway as they try to stay ahead of the curve.
exoskeletonreport.com
exoskeletonreport.com
www.technologyreview.com
Now so we automate the menial jobs. This frees up space for higher paying analyst and repair type jobs. But how do we lower operator fatigue? Exosuits? Exoskeletons? The movie Aliens was very much prophetic with James Cameron vision as the control arm setup seen on the vest mounted smartgun has been replicated in the military and off shoots of it are rolling over into manufacturing with antifatigue suits that transfer the fatigue loads. The military has been testing battlefield exosuits that increase carrying capacity by 250 pounds and eliminating a majority of operator fatigue only with the need to have a new battery pack used every few hours of use. And now it is even giving the disabled access to greater options of mobility by allowing the paralyzed people to have more options for mobility by being able to walk in some cases.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
homehealthcarenews.com
www.findcnaclasses.com
www.extremetech.com
What about healthcare and nursing homes? We already have the DaVinci robots that are in use in surgery suites across the world that allow for precise surgeries that decrease time in the operating theater and dramatically lower recovery times as the incisions can be much smaller and damage required to make the repair ever lessenond. Even now with a full pandemic Zoom and other tele conferencing is proving absolutely useful and vital to diagnose and treat patients remotely from the safety of their home. It is also enabling much more accurate diagnosis and treatment with mental health cases as remote psychiatric medicine has been in use for quite some time now as the insane asylum system has more or less been dismantled world wide. Geriatric and nursing home care is starting to pilot the use of robots on a very small scale. There are hopes that robotic caregivers for the elderly grows as the need is so great and the ability to field caregivers, so difficult. There are even solutions being persued to supplement nurses with robot caregivers to help fill the critical need and chronic deficiency of nurses. Will we ever replace clinical staff? No, there are too many aspects that will take decades to program into adaptive AI structures. From what I have found doctors will be aided by AI, not replaced as diagnosis suggestions and treatments are displayed based upon the patient, but robots are not currently capable of the full range of motions, thinking, and feeling (tactile and emotional) that are required to complete the full healing process for children and adults.
View: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156371765849705
(1m1s)
View: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=417821148817218
(3m45s)
Now comic books are giving us great ideas and were honestly paragons paving the way for technology to follow in the coming decades. From a real life Dr. Octopus suit to a fully functional iron man repulsor with arc reactor. To Dick Tracy inspiring the Apple watch. Elon Musk creating space ships that look eerily similar to iconic 40s and 50s space movie rocket ships that will soon take mars and the moon by storm.
Dabbling in prototyping and animatronic costume builds myself it is becoming insanely easy to build your own robot. Servos are both decreasing in size, cost, and increasing in power with less voltage needs. We are at a real cross roads in history where science fiction is becoming science fact.
From all the linked articles and what I have concluded it does appear that we are just a few years away from fully automated stores and restaurants. But the costs and maintenance will spring entire new sectors of support industries so I would not say that the jobs are disappearing. The unfilled jobs will disappear and the existing workers would end up transitioning to the next phase.
First, floor cleaning has always been the number one area where I would have seen automation start as it is a very dangerous and laborious job. Leading up to full on automation great strides have been made in mnimizing repetitive stress injury and maximizing output of employees.
6 Robot Janitors Doing Commercial Floor Cleaning - Nanalyze
It's the boring stocks that let you sleep well at night, and that's because there is a lot of money being made in boring industries. Take the cleaning industry for example. It's an often-overlooked field, but surprisingly one of the most profitable and sustainable. Nobody wants to work in an...
www.nanalyze.com
Brain Corp is leading the way and will soon be cleaning the floors in walmarts. SoftBank of japan working with Brin Corp has come up with their Whiz to vacuum commercial spaces. AvidBots is German company that is working on releasing a whole range of floor scrubbing and cleaning equipment. A&K Robotics hailing from Vancouver does retrofits of existing machines with an eye towards complete automation. TaskiIntellibot hailing from Portland Oregon now acquired by Diversey has been around since 1985 and claims to be an industry leader.
Walmart has also been pushing for completely automated self check-out. Merely with staff there to minimize pilferage and other issues maximizing productivity. In some areas of high theft rates self-checkout is removed completely.
The Automat: Birth of a Fast Food Nation | HISTORY
Over a century after Horn & Hardart opened its first Automat in New York City, take a look back at America’s first fast food chain.
www.history.com
McDonald's: Behind The Arches: Love, John F.: 9780553347593: Amazon.com: Books
McDonald's: Behind The Arches [Love, John F.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. McDonald's: Behind The Arches
www.amazon.com
Fastfood really started with the automat, the coin operated eatery in Philadelphia in 1902 by Horn & Hardart who eventually purchased Burger King, Arby's, Bojangles. The last Automat was shuttered in New York City in 1991. McDonalds was the next success story and pretty much everyone copied them. The book behind the arches details the story and rise of the franchise and the many innovations they made to fast food over the decades.
It was said in the 80s and 90s fast food tried to look at completely automating their entire process line. Right now the bulk of automation is in the order kiosks that are not used due to hygenic concerns at mcdonalds. The tech is almost there to start taking over fast food by veritible storm but it will be a few years before the robotic costs come down.
Japanese vending machines, will we see them here?
Jihanki Shokudo: Vending Machine Restaurant in Japan | Tokyo Cheapo
Our friend John Daub from Only in Japan visits Jihanki Shokudo - a vending machine restaurant in Japan with no staff.
tokyocheapo.com
Guide to Japanese vending machines | InsideJapan Blog
Vending machines, useful but mundane? In Japan, they're a tourist attraction in their own right selling everything from hot coffee in a can to clam miso soup...
www.insidejapantours.com
17+ Interesting Vending Machines in Japan You'll be Surprised to Know Exist - Interesting Engineering
Egg vending machines? Milk vending machines? Popcorn vending machines? Welcome to the vending machine capital of the world.
interestingengineering.com
Only In Japan! Food Vending Machine Restaurant!
Japan has a plethora of quirky restaurants, shops, and hot spots. This vending machine cafeteria restaurant in Gunma prefecture, about 2 hours from Tokyo, is one of a kind! It'll definitely make an interesting day trip. You'll be surprised with what you can order!
The other thing is a thing specific to Japan. Vending machine stores. Only possible because of super low crime rates thanks to a culture that does not have crime as a piece of it really. Automated food vendors are only really possible there and in China due to the cultural importance placed on cleanliness first. Stateside and in Europe I do not see the concept of unmanned fully automated stores due to issues with pilferage. I do see a niche in highly secured environments as the intrinsic interest is a thing and it is growing.
Are Robots Really Destined to Take Over Restaurant Kitchens?
Where automated workers are most likely to become reality
www.eater.com
BratWurst Bot by FZI in Germany took orders, cooked and served meals using tablets to take and communicate order status with no issues in 2016. Momenttum Machines of Silicone Valley has a fully automated restaurant system capable of making 400 burgers per hour. MIT students made and installed a robotic Spyce Kitchen that makes and serves food on MIT campus completely autonomously sans the need to restock periodically and occupies less than 20 square feet. Moley Robotics has two full robotic arms and replicates the actions of master chefs. Zume Pizza of silicone valley uses automated machines to assist workers in making pizzas. That elusive tossed dough is not quite something they automated yet. Moley robotics cost for its robotic kitchen chef was around 75k as of 2016 and they are hoping to get it to around 15k by 2017. The driving factor for automation is the 15/hour wage.
Next lets look at retail and other things that can be automated there.
Robots in Retail - Examples of Real Industry Applications | Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research
It’s no secret that e-tailer Amazon has an army of robots at its warehouses to fulfill orders; currently its robot detail is 45,000 strong. The company
emerj.com
UniCarriers Forklifts – Warehouse & Industrial Lifts | Unicarriers
UniCarriers manufactures a full line of IC and electric-powered, cushion and pneumatic tire forklifts that set the standard for reliability and uptime.
Automated Warehouse Picking System | Westfalia Technologies - Westfalia Technologies, Inc.
Streamline your order fulfillment process with Westfalia Technologies. Discover the advantages of our automated warehouse picking systems on this page.
www.westfaliausa.com
The World's First Self-Driving Semi-Truck Hits the Road
If the truck encounters a situation it can’t confidently handle, like heavy snow, it will alert the human that it’s time for him to take over via beeps and icons.
Will Tesla's Automated Truck Kill Trucking Jobs?
Well, that kind of depends on what you mean by "trucker."
The main key to retail is the Just in Time Supply chain. Although driverless cars and semis are not quite there yet as the AI still has issues grappling with poorly marked roads and pot holes and collision avoidance of the occasional bung hole driver. Next is the warehouse supply and picking aspect. That has been developing since the 80s. I remember my father talking about a job he did in the 80s to run electrical wire in a ware house in the concrete so stock picking robots had reference points to pick stock automatically with no human interaction. This has gotten even more automated thanks to efforts by amazon to increase productivity and lower worker fatigue.
Lowebot being tested in San Jose and San Francisco is a mobile automated self help kiosk to help customers locate items. Target in 2016 used a robot called Tally by Simbe Robotics to verify inventory levels in the store. A vital painful task, compeltely automated. Softbank Mobile stores in Japan are using a robot called Pepper to chat, give direction, and answer questions and can do cool things such as play music, light up, dance and take selfies due to its humanoid form factor. Best Buy is testing a robot called Chloe by PaR Systems that picks product from a vertical arrangement (adding 1k sq feet of floor space,) and uses a touch screen to interact with customers and functions behind a clear partition where storage racks are. Dominos in Australia is using a robotic unit, DRU as a ground based unit and they are looking at drone based options as well for deliveries using years of accumulated driver GPS tracks and much of things are pending regulatory approval but the process is underway as they try to stay ahead of the curve.
Following the U.S. Military Exoskeleton Trends – is it going anywhere?
Where are they today? In a letter signed by the Army Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Army on October 3, 2017, the Army stated that their Soldier lethality priorities include: “…lethality that s…
exoskeletonreport.com
Passive Exoskeletons Establish A Foothold In Automotive Manufacturing
Just two years ago, it would have been next to impossible to find a wearable exoskeleton on an automotive production line. In just a couple of years, the number of exoskeletons in auto plants has g…
exoskeletonreport.com
This $40,000 Robotic Exoskeleton Lets the Paralyzed Walk
Still pricier than motorized wheelchairs, SuitX’s Phoenix exoskeleton weighs just 27 pounds and is custom-fit to the user’s body.
www.technologyreview.com
Now so we automate the menial jobs. This frees up space for higher paying analyst and repair type jobs. But how do we lower operator fatigue? Exosuits? Exoskeletons? The movie Aliens was very much prophetic with James Cameron vision as the control arm setup seen on the vest mounted smartgun has been replicated in the military and off shoots of it are rolling over into manufacturing with antifatigue suits that transfer the fatigue loads. The military has been testing battlefield exosuits that increase carrying capacity by 250 pounds and eliminating a majority of operator fatigue only with the need to have a new battery pack used every few hours of use. And now it is even giving the disabled access to greater options of mobility by allowing the paralyzed people to have more options for mobility by being able to walk in some cases.
Robots Like Me: Challenges and Ethical Issues in Aged Care
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Comfort Keepers Pilots Affordable Home Care Robot
A Washington, D.C.-area technology company is teaming up with a private duty home care franchise to deploy a new robot at a price many seniors can afford.
homehealthcarenews.com
Robots to Help Alleviate High Demand for Nurses
An ongoing shortage of nurses is causing hospital administrators to get creative. With approximately one million nursing positions expected to go unfilled by 2022, the problem is more serious than ever. That's why some are
www.findcnaclasses.com
This autonomous medical robot can assist nurses - ExtremeTech
Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have developed Terapio, a medical robotic assistant that relieves nurses from some of the mundane tasks of collecting patient data and vital signs.
www.extremetech.com
What about healthcare and nursing homes? We already have the DaVinci robots that are in use in surgery suites across the world that allow for precise surgeries that decrease time in the operating theater and dramatically lower recovery times as the incisions can be much smaller and damage required to make the repair ever lessenond. Even now with a full pandemic Zoom and other tele conferencing is proving absolutely useful and vital to diagnose and treat patients remotely from the safety of their home. It is also enabling much more accurate diagnosis and treatment with mental health cases as remote psychiatric medicine has been in use for quite some time now as the insane asylum system has more or less been dismantled world wide. Geriatric and nursing home care is starting to pilot the use of robots on a very small scale. There are hopes that robotic caregivers for the elderly grows as the need is so great and the ability to field caregivers, so difficult. There are even solutions being persued to supplement nurses with robot caregivers to help fill the critical need and chronic deficiency of nurses. Will we ever replace clinical staff? No, there are too many aspects that will take decades to program into adaptive AI structures. From what I have found doctors will be aided by AI, not replaced as diagnosis suggestions and treatments are displayed based upon the patient, but robots are not currently capable of the full range of motions, thinking, and feeling (tactile and emotional) that are required to complete the full healing process for children and adults.
View: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156371765849705
(1m1s)
View: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=417821148817218
(3m45s)
How Dick Tracy Invented the Apple Watch
Apple’s CEO says he’s been dreaming of unveiling a gizmo like the one in the comic strip since he was a kid. This is the true story of the unknown inventor who created Dick’s watch.
www.thedailybeast.com
Now comic books are giving us great ideas and were honestly paragons paving the way for technology to follow in the coming decades. From a real life Dr. Octopus suit to a fully functional iron man repulsor with arc reactor. To Dick Tracy inspiring the Apple watch. Elon Musk creating space ships that look eerily similar to iconic 40s and 50s space movie rocket ships that will soon take mars and the moon by storm.
Dabbling in prototyping and animatronic costume builds myself it is becoming insanely easy to build your own robot. Servos are both decreasing in size, cost, and increasing in power with less voltage needs. We are at a real cross roads in history where science fiction is becoming science fact.
From all the linked articles and what I have concluded it does appear that we are just a few years away from fully automated stores and restaurants. But the costs and maintenance will spring entire new sectors of support industries so I would not say that the jobs are disappearing. The unfilled jobs will disappear and the existing workers would end up transitioning to the next phase.
