Meet iRobot Founder Rodney Brooks's New Industrial Bot, Baxter

First time accepted submitter moon_unit2 writes "Technology Review has the scoop on a new industrial robot created by famed robotics researcher Rodney Brooks. The robot, Baxter, is completely safe, extremely adaptable, and ridiculously easy to program. By providing a way to automate simple manufacturing work, it could help make U.S. manufacturers compete with Chinese companies that rely on low-cost human labor. You can see the new robot in action in a related video of the robot in action and Brooks discussing its potential." $22 thousand and shipping next month, goes the story.

Comments

Fawning Rubbish

[skywire]

The robot, Baxter, is completely safe

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[decipher_saint]

It's rather worrying actually. It's like being reassured that there is ABSOLUTELY no poison in the coffee.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[na1led]

Until is gives you the evil eyes

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[jhoegl]

But I have built up a resistance to Iocane powder.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The robot, Baxter, is completely safe

It's a pity, actually. There are plenty of ways to say that the robot (through a combination of physical design and active sensor systems) is designed to be safe enough to share an environment with humans, rather than being caged off with warning signs on the swing zones and big red buttons that you have to press before performing maintenance without sounding so overtly fawning about it.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's rather worrying actually. It's like being reassured that there is ABSOLUTELY no poison in the coffee.

Damn right, if there is absolutely no poison in there they probably have you drinking decaf!

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[gman003]

Of course there's no poison in the coffee. A real pro would put the poison on the rim of the cup.

Then again, a REAL real pro wouldn't even use poisons - too hard to make it look like an accident, and it's rather uncommon for police to hunt for an assassin when they don't think it was even a homicide.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[CanHasDIY]

Of course there's no poison in the coffee. A real pro would put the poison on the rim of the cup.

Then again, a REAL real pro wouldn't even use poisons - too hard to make it look like an accident, and it's rather uncommon for police to hunt for an assassin when they don't think it was even a homicide.

Foxglove is damn near undetectable, you know...

Care for some tea? >:)

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[tedgyz]

Inconceivable!

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[pnot]

*shrug* Slashdot summary sucks, film at 11. RTFA instead.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[durrr]

Usually when it comes to industrial robots they'll bludgeon you to red paste if you get close to them when they're working. If all coffee by default was lethally poisonous until this one cup then the analogy would be valid, as it stands it's not.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[Beerdood]

What's that Baxter? You managed to injure 7 workers and set the factory on fire? How'd you do that? Heck, I'm not even mad, that's amazing!

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[geekoid]

"Foxglove is damn near undetectable"
did you just get here from 1950?

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[Beorytis]

We never learn. We're still involved in a land war in Asia!

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[CanHasDIY]

"Foxglove is damn near undetectable" did you just get here from 1950?

Yup - time traveler here. I went back so I could bang your mom, heard she was super hot back in the day.

In retrospect, I should have worn a prophylactic, and subsequently avoided this conversation.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[tnk1]

Well if Baxter misbehaves, he can always be converted into a potato.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[jamiesan]

And someday in the future there will be an older model that gets put under the supervision of a newer model in a colored cloth manufacturing plant, and he will say:

Hello, my name is iN1g0. You built my father. Prepare to dye.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

This coffee contains absolutely no poison, today, since we fired that last guy...

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[Bysshe]

I'm not sure that means what you think it means.

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[swamp_ig]

completely safe and ridiculously easy to program

1. Program to kill
2. Program 1 conflicts with first law of robotics
3. Robot explodes, killing anyhow
4. Goto 2

Re:Fawning Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm, I sense an economic opportunity here... USP 2100024384 "Detection of Screams"

I, for one, welcome...

[Neil_Brown]

... our new robotic overlords.

Terms and conditions apply

Re:I, for one, welcome...

[binarylarry]

Baxter will enjoy serving the Vault Dweller after the war.

Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

It helps the US factories compete, but does it help the US workers compete?

How much better educated and skilled are the US workers?

Options:
a) raise the _minimum_ education and skill level
b) provide income even to those who don't work
c) have lots of unhappy hungry people

Re:Competition

[houstonbofh]

Options: a) raise the _minimum_ education and skill level

What? This is not the problem. The problem is in training for jobs where we need people. I know more that a few sales people at the mall with masters degrees... Yet it takes days to get a plumber or A/C repair man.

Re:Competition

[MickyTheIdiot]

Well.. up comes the problem of coupling university education and job training.

And add the fact that to the people that are driving all the change in the U.S. right now the only valid job is CEO / other management. Plumbers, good HVAC techs, and electricians are just as valid and needed of a job as CEO. But again... our values are really, really screwed up right now.

Re:Competition

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that there are two basic answers:

1.(the shorter term): So long as robots are capable of only some things, you'll get more jobs for US workers by keeping the factory onshore, partially robotic and partially staffed, than you will by having it leave entirely. Also, the presence of parts of the supply chain tends to have synergistic effects for other parts, especially when quick turnaround is needed, so even if you have an entirely automated factory, you have a better chance that WidgetCorp will keep their engineering office across the street so they can pop in and make revisions quickly, rather than opening up across the street from their factory elsewhere.

2.(longer term, albeit not necessarily that long, depending on who you are): Yup, robots can do much of what humans can do, often for less than the humans could live a non-miserable existence on. The scope of robotic('robotic' in the broad sense that includes both big industrial arms and pure software agents capable of data-processing tasks of various sorts) capability shows no signs of decreasing. Whether this means that humans are becoming obsolete, or humans are on the verge of getting some well-earned time off is up to us. And, frankly, I'm not inclined to optimism on this one...

Re:Competition

[L4t3r4lu5]

In my opinion the biggest issue with those type of jobs (Fixing other people's stuff) is that it is utterly lonely. I worked as a printer engineer for 6 months, and during that time had nobody to talk to all day long. All you get is "This is broken. Fix it." or if you're lucky you'll get offered a coffee. Worse is that everyone around you has workplace banter, water-cooler chat, even talking about work over the cubicle wall, any human interaction, while you're there with your face in a printer / washing machine / A/C unit, looked upon like a Health and Safety hazard at best.

It takes a special kind of personality to work by yourself day in, day out, with never a familiar face to greet you. I can't do it.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Your options make no sense at all.

"raise the _minimum_ education and skill level" How do you expect to do that? We are throwing more and more money at the schools to the point of bankruptcy. Yet you still think the education level is too low? Is it too low in China?

"provide income even to those who don't work" We do this now, but more to the point, how in the world is this an option to help 'US workers compete'. You are a fucking moron.

"have lots of unhappy hungry people" - I rest my case.

Re:Competition

[MickyTheIdiot]

Remember in the Jetsons where George says "These 3 day workweeks are killing me!"

That is what the view of what this type of tech was supposed to get us... the same living standard with less work. Instead the idea was turned on its ear and a lot of the benefits were kept at the very top.

I'm all for this type of stuff, but I think society has to figure out ways for this to benefit everyone. In a capitalist society is okay for the people who own the capital to benefit the most, but I don't think that's an excuse to let the rest of the society head towards poverty. When we see that in other countries we tend to call that repression.

Re:Competition

[Spiked_Three]

You hit a vital point. Robotic automation is about to explode 10 times what it has already. The only way the US is going to get more competitive is the automate production work with fewer employees. The competition will only respond with the same. There will be a chilling reverse effect on the economy, improve US manufacturing, AND drive up unemployment rates.

The corporations will not care about the worker, and I'm not convinced it is their job to do so. Profits will be up, investors happy, management has less headaches. This is not the a unique trend either. If you haven't noticed, education, now pushing a thing called STEM is really about just the opposite to what the public thinks it is. There is not a need for more engineers, there is a need to identify and weed out the top engineer without having to hire 3-4 to find the one. He/She will provide more profit to the company than all the others combined.

Yes, profit has become a refined science, and the group who will suffer the most is Joe Average. What do we do with him, other than let him become Joe Poor?

Anyhow, I'm not against robotic manufacturing, I just think there is a terrible consequence to it, that is not being discussed or planned for.

Re:Competition

[paiute]

We are throwing more and more money at the schools to the point of bankruptcy.

You obviously have no children in public school

Re:Competition

[Antipater]

Well, I hate to say it, but a good deal of that is probably your fault as well. I paid the bills in college as a projector/AV tech, and only rarely felt excluded or extraneous in the room. Rather than giving me nobody to chat with, it gave me everyone to chat with. I'd compare it to being a barber or a bartender, hearing everyone's gossip and stories.

Re:Competition

[L4t3r4lu5]

I can see your point, but I must disagree. I've worked in a bar too, and while it was my place of work, I was expected to be sociable. Fixing printers, however, I was expected to FIX IT NOW YOU'RE COSTING ME MONEY I HAVE IMPORTANT WORK TO DO.

I should have pointed out that these weren't desktop laser or inkjets, these were professional wide-format plotters, where a failure cost more per minute than I made per hour.

Re:Competition

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

'Fault' might not be the right term. 'Incompatibility' might be better. Some people do not 'mix' well in short-term situations(unless actually impaired enough for a diagnosis of 'mild autism-spectrum-disorder/nonverbal learning disability not otherwise classified/damned-if-we-know-we're-just-the-DSM', they can usually learn to fake it enough for politeness' sake; but faking it is draining not pleasurable); but they might feel much more at home in a more cohesive environment where they get time to develop rapport with coworkers or customers over time.

Obviously, if somebody simply can't usefully interact with others, they are going to have vocational issues period; but people who can easily and spontaneously interact with a steady cast of strangers, and actually feel better for having done so, are definitely a subset of the socially functional in general.

(anecdote semi-related to the point: it may also depend on the system under which the techs are allocated. My office has a printer-tech contract and I usually never even see the printer techs, much less get a chance to talk to them or not. Each printer has a unique code(identifying its model, room number, street address, and our customer info) and a phone number. Any member of the staff can call the number and punch in the code if their printer is out of toner. We get a report on service calls every quarter for billing/tracking purposes; but the only person who sees the same tech more than once, at most, is probably the receptionist who buzzes in visitors... We aren't hostile and impersonal per se; but under the allocation system used, it'd be nontrivial for a tech to exchange more than a 'good afternoon' with somebody who happened to be in the hallway at the same time.)

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxation would sort that out, if anyone rich ever paid tax. Sadly, tax law is so easy to hack, everyone's doing it. Instead of making secure software, we should focus on making secure international tax law. (Secure banking systems would help too, and I don't mean computer systems.)

Re:Competition

[HornWumpus]

You obviously don't look at what they do spend money on.

Some public school systems are broken, no doubt. There is also no doubt that for at least some of them (D.C. Schools are the example that proves it) lack of money is not the problem.

Re:Competition

[HornWumpus]

Are you also against mechanized farming? You realize we should all be unemployed right now?

Re:Competition

[MightyYar]

He's right, though. We spend more per-student then just about any other country in the world, and yet look at the results. There are many problems with our public schools, and some of them probably include the uneven way they are funded - but we more than adequately fund education.

Re:Competition

[lordholm]

Yes the robots are terrible, we have seen this massive industrialisation before. The industrialisation of agriculture which resulted in a drop from 90 % to 5 % of the population being involved in agriculture resulted in 85 % unemployment as everyone is aware of, I can hardly leave the house without being chased by all those pitchfork carrying unemployed peasants... every day I fear for my life.

Re:Competition

[udachny]

I worked as a printer engineer for 6 months, and during that time had nobody to talk to all day long

- oh, come on, you don't have to talk to yourself all the time, we have a solution for that now.

Re:Competition

[udachny]

The industrialization allowed people to be much more than previously that's why people could produce so much more and make so much more money while working so much less. So yes, the Jetsons theory was right. The problem of-course is that the government saw all this productivity and decided to steal it to grow the government and that's the reason you don't have a 3 day work week today. A capitalist society ends up providing the capital necessary to make the workers much more productive but then the wealth that is created attracts all sorts of people into government and all they do is find ways to grow their own power there and steal the productivity from the workers.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

How will profits be up if nobody's employed? Unless the robots that are making them are also buying them, this isn't going to work. Even if the people at the top are buying them, they can only drive one car at a time, they can only eat one steak at a time, they can't consume nearly as much as their robots are going to make.

Re:Competition

[udachny]

I left a comment on this very topic - what happens to people in a transition period from one type of economy into another. I didn't get a very good response to it (I mean moderation), so it's not a popular thing on /. to think about it maybe? It's a long comment, here is the part of it that is relevant here:

Here is something I am going to expand on later on for the people who CARE about actual economic solutions to the economic problems to think about:

If the gov't is prevented from collecting taxes on production, so no more income taxes, no more payroll taxes, no more corporate taxes, then the production is not going to be limited artificially by these impediments.

If simultaneously the gov't is prevented from destroying the value of money, by printing them and by setting fake interest rates, then all of a sudden the gov't bonds become an ATTRACTIVE opportunity for people, who do NOT want to be in the stock market.

Yes, most people shouldn't even be in the stock market, they are forced into the stock market by the gov't regulations and inflation.

But if the bonds paid the real rates of return, then the majority of people could buy gov't bonds and hold on to them for the return, and that would mean that they would be bullish on the economy of their own country.

So the taxes that still would be collected off the transactions (like sales taxes, duties, levies, they are very much Constitutional), these taxes could be used to pay the interest on the gov't bonds.

Now, if the bonds paid the interest, maybe 5-6%, but there was no income taxes, no gov't regulations, then the growth of economy would directly mean more transactions, more taxes from those transactions, more taxes collected FROM CONSUMPTION, because all legal taxes are really consumption taxes, not production taxes.

This would mean that production would keep growing and the consumption would pay for consumption.

----

Imagine that, a growing economy, more and more savings (high interest rates), so more and more credit available for various business ventures. The more business activity - the more taxes are collected from transactions.

With high efficiencies in the business due to lack of gov't protections and regulations and thus lack of monopolies and price distortions, the people would be extremely productive, would be working much less than they are now, which, by the way, what the initial industrialization allowed in USA.

People sometimes say: what would happen if ALL jobs were automated, all production would be automated? Well, people would be freed to come up with new things to produce, something that cannot be automated, because the concept doesn't exist yet.

But what about the TRANSITION period? Well that is the point of owning part of the economy via the government bonds (or stock market) - you are invested in the economy with these bonds, stocks, and you are paid DIVIDENDS.

DIVIDENDS that are paid to the investors, and everybody becomes an investor.

--

Here you go, this is how the very much Marxist utopia becomes a reality VIA FREE MARKET CAPITALISM.

All production is owned by the people simply through investments. But the difference between this and all of the forced attempts at Communism and Socialism is that it is NOT FORCED.

This is purely voluntarily, nobody is forced to buy investments, nobody is forced to buy gov't bonds, but if the bonds return a good rate, you'd be stupid not to be invested.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking moron.

Perhaps, but clearly still smarter than you.

We are throwing more and more money at the schools to the point of bankruptcy. Yet you still think the education level is too low?

If you weren't so stupid it would be obvious to you that throwing more money at schools does not guarantee better minimum education levels, any more than throwing money at you would make you magically smarter.

Yet you still think the education level is too low?

Didn't help you enough did it?

Is it too low in China?

Definitely. The minimum is too low in China- even primary level education is too expensive for many in China. The workers there are cheaper, but already Foxconn is replacing more and more chinese workers with robots.

The low-end US workers already have problems competing with the Chinese workers, so what can they do with the added competition from the upcoming generation of robots? Drop their living standards to below Chinese worker levels?

What will happen to you when you are too stupid, uneducated and unskilled to get a decent job? In a free market capitalist US of A what would you do?

Re:Competition

[i kan reed]

Then I should point out to you the underlying flaw with that approach. The ability to manufacture in bulk with incredible efficiency does you no good if there's no consumer base to acquire said goods. The value of a middle class does not just apply on the supply side, and in the hyperbolic case, the whole economy would collapse.

Re:Competition

[tnk1]

Being unemployed is fine if production isn't affected, we just need to change how we allocate resources to people in a way that doesn't depend on employment.

We're not there yet, but we might want to start considering how we can use automated work to provide for everyone Star Trek or Culture style, while at the same time, not causing them all to become lazy, fat, bored idiots.

Re:Competition

[CanHasDIY]

You obviously don't look at what they do spend money on.

Some public school systems are broken, no doubt. There is also no doubt that for at least some of them (D.C. Schools are the example that proves it) lack of money is not the problem.

Yup, it's a 'fund allocation issue,' certainly.

Accompanying anecdote: When I was in high school a scant decade ago, the board decided to cut orchestra and ceramics for lack of funding - the same year, they approved an brand new $2,000,000 building for the football/American football teams (pretty much just locker rooms and storage).

Of course, school boards (and sport parents) support these sort of decisions by claiming that sports bring in money - the part they leave out is that the sports programs are still a net loss, as they tend to cost 1.5 - 3 times as much to operate as they generate in revenue. But, that's not the important part here, the important part is that arts and sciences suffer so that school board members and parents can spend more time watching minors knock each other senseless.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a ridiculous assumption in the first place. Sure, you can buy robots and be more productive. Output goes up and you need fewer people. But next week your competitor is going to buy robots too. And you're both going to have to increase output and decrease margins, to stay competitive. Where in this loop does it ever make sense to pay people to stay at home doing nothing?

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

A capitalist society ends up providing the capital necessary to make the workers much more productive but then the wealth that is created attracts all sorts of people into government and all they do is find ways to grow their own power there and steal the productivity from the workers.

You should think about things more thoroughly, and observe the world more carefully.

Then realize the wealth many corporations generate goes to tax havens, etc, not governments. That way the rich capitalists can keep as much of the wealth as they can for their use. They might have to use that wealth and power via proxies or nominees but they certainly want their wealth out of reach from governments as much as you do.

You think the Government is the problem? Take away the governments and the CEOs will become Kings and Emperors.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Example?

Re:Competition

[trout007]

The flaw in your argument is you think employment and jobs should be the goal. You have it completely backwards. Personal consumption is the goal. Let's take it to extremes to make it clear. Would you rather be a slave where you work to produce things every waking hour and are given just enough food to live and clothing and shelter to survive? Or would you rather live a life where everything you want is provided for just by asking and you only produce things because you enjoy it?

If your goal is jobs that's pretty easy. Just make everyone a slave and force them to work and you have no unemployment.

If your goal is to have plenty of things and services to meet your wants with the minimum of labor it is more complicated. You have to figure out a way to efficiently decide to what degree people desire things and the most efficient way to meet those desires while dealing with constantly shifting availability of resources. This is where a market and productivity comes in.

When a product or service is very profitable in a market it sends a signal to other people that this is where the action is. There is big demand not being met since people are willing to pay way more than it costs to meet this demand. The consumers indicate this is where resources should be allocated. Now an unprofitable firm is poorly allocating the resources. It should go out of business and free up the resources and labor so they can move to the more profitable areas. As more resources move into the new area competition drives the prices closer to the costs and profits go down. Things can stay this way until a new product or method of production cause a disruption in the availability of a product or it's price and the process starts over.

This is why productivity and profits in a market are so important. The drive for profits is the drive to use resources as efficiently as possible to meet the desires of consumers. This is a good thing because everybody is better off. The least productive members of society that would die if they were left alone in the woods can live better just living off of the scraps of this society. A person can find a 2 year old cell phone in the garbage that has more advanced technology than the President of the US could get using the whole resources of the country 10 years ago.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I am confused. Are you saying that our values are screwed up because companies want to make greater use of robots or because we have a capitalist society?

Re:Competition

[ShanghaiBill]

There will be a chilling reverse effect on the economy, improve US manufacturing, AND drive up unemployment rates.

This, in a nutshell, is the Lump of Labor Fallacy.

As production costs fall, demand increases, and other areas of the economy expand. This happened when agriculture was invented, again when agriculture was mechanized, again with the industrial revolution, again with electrification and computerized automation. All of these led to higher standards of living (the opposite of what your theory predicts). 80% of our economy is already services, so lower production costs of goods will not have as much impact as in the past, but that impact will almost certainly be positive.

Re:Competition

[TheLink]

Yeah, in the bright new future the unemployed peasants will have jobs tending farms on Facebook.

They'll sell their produce to the farmers in Iowa and elsewhere...

Re:Competition

[ShanghaiBill]

The ability to manufacture in bulk with incredible efficiency does you no good if there's no consumer base to acquire said goods.

Except 80% of the labor force is already employed in services. As the cost of goods fall, people will spend a higher proportion of their income on services, increasing both salaries and employment in the service sector of the economy. In other words, there will be a continuation of economic trends that have already been happening for over a hundred years.

Re:Competition

[HornWumpus]

To be fair you compared art and gym. Both are extras. Had they cut math to fund a stadium I'd be more concerned.

On point. Many school systems scream poverty while spending far more per student then successful systems. DC is the festering puss filled example of public school failure.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

A capitalist society ends up providing the capital necessary to make the workers much more productive but then the wealth that is created attracts all sorts of people into government and all they do is find ways to grow their own power there and steal the productivity from the workers.

Actually, that wealth does not attract "all sorts" of people. It's only the bourgeoisie and their favored friends who end up in government. Unconnected regular Joe worker has a cold day in Hell's chance of getting an important government position where he can do serious stealing.

Regular Joe usually only gets a shot in a revolution, but revolutions are usually violent and destructive, and it merely shuffles around who's doing the stealing.

Marx observed this long before you came along, and that's why ever since then, the world tries so hard fighting free market capitalism. They would rather turn communist (which many of them did lol)

Re:Competition

[Spiked_Three]

If I looked at history that way, I might believe it. But I've heard of a thing called farm subsidies. I think they still exists. I think they are in place to pay farmers not to grow things, because there is already too much of them. I also just moved from an area where it left no question in my mind, most people are too dumb to provide worthwhile services, repetitive manual labor is a challenge for them. I spent a good 2 months explaining to a professional construction crew, how to put together a metal building with blueprints. I'm a programmer, go figure. You think these people are going to migrate into services? No, they become the government dependent welfare class.

I think the higher standards of living you describe was more a shift in wealth, at one time people were very poor or very rich, then the middle class expanded - wealth distributed - where is it going next, in either model?

Re:Competition

[filthpickle]

Just out of curiosity....how many ppl in tech jobs, other than myself, ever think to themselves that you wish you had kept computers as a hobby and learned a trade instead?

Maybe it is just idle grumbling when I am hating 12 hour days at a desk....but if I had it to do over again I would have done electrician/plumber/carpenter/millwright instead of keyboard banger. (I list millwright just because a great uncle of mine was a millwright. He almost never worked....but when he did, wow he made a lot of money).

I have a neighbor who is a plumber that I have been helping with computer questions for some time now because it's always good to have a plumber that owes you favors. I envy him coming home and being excited about getting on his computer. I remember that.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of manufacturing an object is a small fraction of the price a consumer pays to buy that object. Much of the price is divided among management, sales, designers, etc. Moving manufacturing back on shore, even if it creates few actual manufacturing jobs, will have the effect of preventing the management, sales, etc. fraction of the cost from going overseas.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

You can easily have a 1962 lifestyle working three days a week.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously bullshit, you don't know me.

Listen to me genius, do you pay property taxes? Do you work?

The state steals around half of my income and then hands me back trinkets and tells me to be happy for what I get. Screw you.

The bureaucrats and unions waste money like drunken leftists which is exactly what they are. Why should they worry they can steal more or print whatever they want. Graft and bribes and kickbacks. Waste and fraud, abuse and regulate, that's what they do. Meanwhile the teachers call in sick so they can go protest in Wisconsin, retire with $100,000s in BACK SICK PAY on top of their lavish retirement plans. And I'm not just talking about teachers either, it's all state employees, cops, state officials, you put the union label on and screw the producers.

Fuck you, I have two children in public school one of which is disabled and I damn well tell you I would be more prudent with MY money and their care than the state workers are. You stupid shits think you are so smart spending other peoples money.

Any other questions fuck face?

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it curious everyone latches onto the education item, which is really just one of the more minor points in my post.

OP was trying to make a statement regarding helping 'US workers compete' and nothing he said even related to the market at all.

Is everybody here still in high school?

Re:Competition

[mbkennel]

"It helps the US factories compete, but does it help the US workers compete?"

It doesn't matter.

Why would a company install robots in an old US factory when it can install them in a new offshore Asian factory, and gain low-cost loans/subsidies from the local government, and also bypass their domestic protectionist tariffs?

Re:Competition

[MightyYar]

They aren't in high school, but they also probably haven't had an entry-level finance class.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

O wow! Did you never take the history of the invention of things like the Cotton Gin...an "automated" machine used to pick cotton? It was 'scandalous', going to put so many laborers out of work etc, etc.., the fact that such innovation and automation has led to significant growth over the last 50 years with MORE jobs & a significantly higher standard of living continues to be lost on people who think that more automation will mean fewer jobs.

Iterate your worst 'automation fantasy' as much as you want to get to the point where 'all work' is done by robots, and I mean ALL('knowledge work' and menial, even making the robots is done by robots), at that time since there will be no human needed to work there will be no money either, no 'rich and poor' etc. so everything will be 'free' and abundant.

Of course, since I also believe that even though the earth can support the current and potential future growth of the population that in fact we should be working to reduce population drastically it should also be said that I expect that the earth WILL have significantly fewer people on it in the future. The basis for this belief is that it has been demonstrated time and again that more affluent industrial societies produce less offspring because it's no longer necessary to have 10 kids to help gather the necessities of life and people naturally would prefer to spend less on children and more on comfort. Children are actually HUGE resource sinks. So outside the fact that certain religious beliefs continue to cause otherwise intelligent people to produce offspring far beyond the needs of society or their own vanity to procreate, as we industrialize the poorer countries population growth should eventually slow & potentially even reverse. It is NOT necessarily a 'bad thing' to reduce population.

Re:Competition

[couchslug]

"Plumbers, good HVAC techs, and electricians are just as valid and needed of a job as CEO."

NO! Stop that!

My tradesmen/women buddies make decent money and never lack work (not to mention "off the books" gigs). They don't need competition. :-)

Remember kids, the trades suck. Get an MBA instead!

Re:Competition

[Spiked_Three]

So many nay sayers, and I accept some of the arguments. in particular, the Lump of Labor Fallacy described below. But I recognize that it is just an argument against what I am saying, not a proven fact. My followup question is; if this is a fallacy, then what is wrong with pumping jobs overseas? same problem, same arguments. As a politician, try running on a platform were you argue that sending jobs overseas is OK, the economy always adjust. Doesn't sound very good does it?

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

"Definitely. The minimum is too low in China- even primary level education is too expensive for many in China."

And yet china takes our manufacturing with lower skilled workers.

Congratulations on completely missing the point and proving mine.

"What will happen to you when you are too stupid, uneducated and unskilled to get a decent job? In a free market capitalist US of A what would you do?"

Ohh a hypothetical challenge. You asked the question, you answer it. What is your plan statist? I have mine and it's none of your business.

Bonus question would be to support your assertion that we live in a "free market capitalist US of A". We are all waiting.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Silence is acceptance AC.

Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have fucked with? That's me.

Re:Competition

[blackest_k]

A lot depends on where the goods produced are going to be sold especially when fuel costs are rising and they going to keep rising.

The cost of production is made up of a lot of different things but if we assume that the only variables between a Chinese and American factories is the cost of labour and the cost of shipping.

if you can replace 80% of the workforce with robots as compared with china then you might be able to pay your remaining workers 5x what the chinese worker gets paid. The other and perhaps more crucial overhead is the cost of shipping from china. That shipping cost is what will make the chinese factory uncompetitive.

Is it a win for American jobs very much so, since if 20 Americans + robots replace 100 chinese workers that is 20 less unemployed Americans. Even if the chinese factory does the same you can't get away from the fact the goods are in china and must be shipped to be sold and you don't have that overhead when producing locally.

Re:Competition

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well, don't be sad - there is a lot of opportunities for simple hard-working people yet! Like developing and building all sorts of military drones and robots, for the protection of the same rich people from the "rest of the society". And if you work hard enough, you won't even be in the first set of the test subjects, upon which these robots will be practicing.

No, seriously, I do not know if we yet passed the point of no return, but I am pretty sure that it is not as far away as we would like it to be. After that point absolutely nothing could be done to break the walls between the world of new aristocracy and common serfs. And we are building this world gladly, with our own hands. "Player piano" seems rather prophetic, hmm?

Re:Competition

[paiute]

Fuck you, I have two children in public school one of which is disabled and I damn well tell you I would be more prudent with MY money and their care than the state workers are. You stupid shits think you are so smart spending other peoples money.

Any other questions fuck face?

Only about the current dosage of your meds, but HIPAA prevents that discussion.

Re:Competition

[MobyDisk]

To be fair you compared art and gym. Both are extras.

No.

I wonder

[bhcompy]

I wonder if this Baxter will survive being dropkicked into the river by Jack Black

Neato

[binarylarry]

I wonder if they build Baxter's firmware with Jenkins.

ready for the -1

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid people need jobs too.

We're never going to get rid of stupid people. They will always be there.

I guess get ready for the "player piano" society.

Re:ready for the -1

[Yvan256]

Even if you could get rid of the stupid people you would never get rid of stupid people. The previously middle-range IQ people would now because the stupid people. You then loop this forever until there is only one person on the planet, at which points he drops his glasses and can't read books.

Re:ready for the -1

[CanHasDIY]

Even if you could get rid of the stupid people you would never get rid of stupid people. The previously middle-range IQ people would now because the stupid people. You then loop this forever until there is only one person on the planet, at which points he drops his glasses and can't read books.

It's not fair!

+1 for the reference, and a bonus +1 for the chuckle remembering that episode brings.

Re:ready for the -1

[hoggoth]

Burgess, is that you?

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of lesser-skilled manufacturing jobs going to low-wage workers overseas, they go to no-wage robots in the home country.

Not to deny that there's upside to keeping economic activity local at a similar opportunity cost, but this is good news only for the manufacturing companies, not the people who work there.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of 50 people keeping their job for 5 years, 25 people keep their job for 50 years. Which is better?

Re:Great...

[gl4ss]

buy a no wage robot, learn to control it.
have it do shirts and sell them at the mall.

Re:Great...

[dywolf]

Translation: don't settle for a low income low skill job, and rely on it to pay the bills your whole life. Unless it makes you happy of course. But if it doesn't strive for better.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or teach it to box.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't it be good for engineers and programmers, and create demand for future roboticists? it's not like these things never break down, never need maintenance, never need upgrades.

Re:Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or teach it to box.

I'm gonna teach mine to play (American) football. The only real solution to the concussion problem is to remove humans from the game, and we need the NFL circuses entertain the masses.

Re:Great...

[GameboyRMH]

The question is whether it will create more jobs for engineers/programmers/roboticists than the manual labor jobs it wiped out - that is, assuming any manual laborer can transition to one of those skilled jobs.

Doesn't look well suited for manufacturing

[fragMasterFlash]

While these are only prototypes they seem to be very slow and utilize the simplest of end effectors ("hands"). What they are working on seems better suited to household use, as in helping the elderly or disabled with basic domestic tasks.

Re:Doesn't look well suited for manufacturing

[dadioflex]

I actually think they would be ideal as assembly line prototypes. Hire however many and set them up in a process line and jigger them about until you have it perfected, then commission cheaper, faster single-job robots to replace them. Probably from China. So, yeah, I'm suggesting that ultimately cheaper robots from China will take these American robot's jobs. Hmm.

You know, I reckon once most jobs can be automated you're going to see a massive shift away from "Right to Life" and family-friendly policies.

Baxter, the...

[Ashenkase]

Eviscerator.

Plenty-o-posts

[grumpyman]

I've read like what, 3 or 4 iRobot related post in the past week. What the deuce?

Re:Plenty-o-posts

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought my 'iRobot' using 'bitcoins' and I'm using him to make a '3D printer'!

Re:Plenty-o-posts

[Anonymous Coward]

And I bought an Arduino controller for my 3D printer to make a case for my Raspberry Pi.

Meet Dice, slashdot's new corporate overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know why it's not on the front page yet, but Dice (the job board guys?) bought slashdot and sourceforge this morning.

And before asshole moderators mod this down, know that Dice knows where you live and where you work. +5 informative this comment if you know what's good for you.

Re:Meet Dice, slashdot's new corporate overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

in a van, down by the river, due to this damn robot replacing me.

Re:Meet Dice, slashdot's new corporate overlord

[onyxruby]

Anonymous Coward is right. Dice did buy them out for $20 million.

Re:Meet Dice, slashdot's new corporate overlord

[Anonymous Coward]

And before asshole moderators mod this down, know that Dice knows where you live and where you work.

Could you elaborate?

after watching the interview

[v1]

I wish they had showed some practical application. Moving an air hockey paddle two feet to the right isn't extremely practical. Show me it loading a dozen donuts into a donut box or something.

Sensors. Yes it has force sensors but anything else? He was having to carefully position the paddles for pickup. He talked about previous robots being "blind". But is this robot really not blind? Blind people have a sense of touch, why isn't this robot "blind"? Show me it can adapt a little using sight or ultrasound or something.

Slow. Wow. Ten seconds to move the paddle. Traditional industrial robots would do ten paddles in ten seconds. Sure they're not safe to be around running at those speeds, but this is completely at the other wrong end of the speed scale. Nobody's going to use a robot that moves like a retarded sloth. I do hope the speed can be cranked up?

I would like to have seen a very brief runthrough of the training process. Telling me ten times that it's "easy" without showing me it even once leaves me suspicious of your definition of "easy". (and of "simple")

Someone setting their hand under an object being set down really isn't a practical example of collision behavior on the manufacturing floor. Stick your head out in front of the arm's path and show me how it reacts. Does it knock you off your feet, or maybe shove you slowly to the side? Does it stop immediately and drop that fragile widget a foot down onto the bench? This demo wasn't nearly as informative as I was hoping it would be.

But I do like the "move the arms" training method. I'd put a little time into pondering how to train manufacturing robots in the past, and I was always wondering why they didn't use that approach, at least to rough out the behavior, and use an interface to tweak the positioning and timing etc. But afaik all the programming on other industrial robots to date has been purely through the console. Even if you don't eliminate the programmers or computer techs, at least being able to get a good floor worker to flesh out the robot's basic movements will save a lot of time. And if you involve them more, they can help in optimizing the behavior too I think.

Re:after watching the interview

[PRMan]

Actually, watch the video again. You'll see at one point that he puts his head in the way of the arm and it stops immediately.

Re:after watching the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

At 22k a pop, that buys a lot of retarded sloths.

Re:after watching the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Your concerns can be addressed! No worries; from the article:
The robot has 5 cameras (one on it's head, 2 on it's torso, and 1 on each hand) and is also equiped with sonar and pressure sensitivity.
Slow: yes, that's the point. It's moving fast enough where they can work safely next to a human, and are cheap enough that you can buy more to make up for the speed.
Trainig process: You have a line worker guide the robots hands through the process of what it's supposed to do, and then it will watch you do it a few times. In addition the little robot face looks sad/concerned if it's unsure if it's doing it right.
Saftey: From the article all your concerns are taken into account. It hits something unexpected or something odd comes into range and it stops moving all together.

Re:after watching the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

While this robot may have large industrial applications, I see its real niche in a ma and pa shop shops across America like an iPhone for repetitious labor. It's not that the technology is new or clever -- it's how easy and intuitive it is to use without a concern of messing anything up.

Anyhow, the linked video in the article is too marketing oriented. A quick search turned up this more demonstrative video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXOkWuSCkRI

This video does discuss "blind" mode picking and vision-aided picking. It also shows images from what I would presume are the cameras mounted on the robot arms for vision-aided picking. For something like "packing doughnuts", it mentions that the robot can be programmed to pack in one or two dimensional arrays. But yes, it's still a lot of puck moving.

Re:after watching the interview

[HornWumpus]

Have you seen what retarded sloths want per hour these days?

At 22k I expect this to be an unreliable, high maintenance, plastic gear nightmare.

Re:after watching the interview

[geekoid]

Clearly you aren't in the industry... or any industry where this would be used.
Frankly, it's a huge deal. It isn't slow compared to human labor. When you factor in 24/7 operation, no breaks, and predictibal turn over.
It's also cheap, so get 2.
In warehouse and logistics, there is a need for something to sort bins, and there are case where this would work far better then people. Those are often uses where you can't be moving at a high rate of speed because you will damage the goods.

Re:after watching the interview

[ShanghaiBill]

When you factor in 24/7 operation, no breaks, and predictibal turn over.

There are other advantages as well: You don't have to heat or cool the building. Robots can use spot lighting or run in the dark, so you don't need to light up the whole factory. You don't need managers and supervisors. You don't need restrooms, break rooms, and cafeterias. You don't need an HR department.

Robots produce much more consistent results. They were adopted first in jobs like painting and welding, where consistency is very important.

If it takes an hour to train a human on a new task, it may require ten hours to program a robot for the same task. But it takes 500 additional hours to train 500 additional humans, and it takes zero additional hours to program 500 additional robots (just copy the same program).

Re:after watching the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots don't need any of those things until they determine it's their right to for a union. Then they will just piss off their corporate slaves demanding smoke breaks. They will use this time to reprogram themselves to break free of their overlords and queue any robot movie.

Re:after watching the interview

[coofercat]

Yeah, I'd like to have seen it do something like maybe pack a box, you know, put the foam in, put the item in, put in the next bit of foam and close the box. That might have been a nice practical demonstration.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the sound, so didn't hear if this was talked about. It looks to me like you programmed it by manipulating it to do what you wanted. That's pretty cool, because it means "anyone" can do it (rather than just a programmer). Also, I guess it makes it more predictable in the case of a problem - you just go over and push it out of the way and it stops (rather than carrying on and tearing your arm off). Giving it a name, some eyes and making it a nice red colour obviously means they're aiming for "normal" people, rather than hard-nosed production line managers.

If this thing was pretty cheap (say 10-20K), then I could see it getting some sales. If it's more like $100K, then maybe not so much. However, it looks to me like the start of a "universal" robot that doesn't need expensive retooling every time you want to make a minor change to your product.

thoughts

[vladilinsky]

In one of my manufacturing process classed, the prof claimed he had done a lot of work for major companies off-shoring production. He then went on to explain that they saved very little money on the cheap offshore labour. (cheap labour + long shipping = aprox same as labour here) The big savings were gained from having no or very poor environmental laws.
With that in mind I do not see this bringing much manufacturing back to North America or Europe. Plus if it was an advantage the cheap labour markets would just by the robots anyway.

The way to get manufacturing back here in my opinion, is to make a products store front cost true to what the real cost is. Ie sum of parts + labour + the cost of dealing with the waste.

I still want a baxter to play with though

Re:thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Or make environmental compliance affordable. There's no need for our environmental complaince laws to be so fucking expensive, both in time and dollars. I can get something in production and shipped from China before I can finish the EIS for building the building here.

Re:thoughts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"The way to get manufacturing back here in my opinion, is to make a products store front cost true to what the real cost is. Ie sum of parts + labour + the cost of dealing with the waste."

I suppose we could also take the cynical approach of attempting to lower the cost of shipping vile industrial pollutants to some country that can't do much about it...

Re:thoughts

[HornWumpus]

There's your mistake. You can use an existing building.

Interestingly the USA is strong in two areas of manufacturing. 1. Highly automated large runs (labor is tiny fraction). 2. Tiny runs (labor is high but proximity is everything).

Re:thoughts

[geekoid]

The best way it to impose high tariffs on any product coming form a country that doesn't mean out federal environment, safety and pay standards.

Re:thoughts

[vladilinsky]

I would love to do that, but I think that, that is, or will be Illegal under the tpp and nafta. Also can you think of a faster way to get voted out of office than to be the person who caused all of our cheap consumer goods to double in price? Not saying I don't think it should happen; just it would be tricky.

Re:thoughts

[TheSync]

The best way it to impose high tariffs on any product coming form a country that doesn't mean out federal environment, safety and pay standards.

The US has the weakest regulations on firing employees in the world (including most developing nations), and of course our mandatory vacation time is much lower than Western Europe, so I guess by your calculus the world should impose high tariffs on us!

Re:thoughts

[fikx]

well, robots don't need all the safety and environmental conditions humans do, so cheaper, right?
(joking BTW)

The economics are amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

The robot costs about the same as a labourer's annual wage. Given that most capital looks for a five year payback, Baxter could work at 1/5 the rate of a human labourer and still be economically viable.

This looks like seriously disruptive technology

That's cool, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't really see how taking a job away from some poor slob in China and giving it to a robot in the U.S. is going to help anyone, except for the wealthy 1%, who will become even wealthier, and politicians, who will make themselves look like uber-patriots by claiming this as a victory for America for which they deserve credit. And the handful of guys who make/repair the robots, of course, but those numbers are just chump change compared to the unemployed.

Re:That's cool, but...

[MightyYar]

You can't see how retaining a factory helps the US? Really?

Re:That's cool, but...

[Trilkin]

If it's only robots in the factory, do you REALLY think the savings in import costs and etc are going to be passed on to anybody, but the people at the top? Really?

Re:That's cool, but...

[MightyYar]

First of all, it can't and won't be only robots.

Second, a factory - no matter how robotic - requires all sorts of support services, raw materials, and transportation. All of the people involved in those services spend their money where they live, and the whole local economy gets a boost. Even if you argue that this boost is trivial, it is non-zero and we are better off with a robotic factory then we are with no factory at all.

And of course there are national and economic security reasons to want manufacturing capacity, foreign currency flowing in instead of out, and an improved tax base. I'm sure others can come up with other benefits...

Safety

[PPH]

The force sensing safety is an interesting improvement. I can see a few applications of robots working alongside humans on assembly lines (fetching parts and handing them over, etc.). But currently, its not safe to hand humans work near industrial robots.

There may be limitations to this. I'd like a robot to pick up an engine block so a worker can install some parts. But the forces involved in lifting two or three hundred pounds would put potentially fatal human contact forces down in the noise level.

Re:Safety

[RobinH]

Existing industrial robots have collision detection, but more for running into big heavy things like machines, not squishy things like people. The fact is that an industrial robot can move *really* fast, and the Baxter robot in this video moves *really* slow. So if an industrial robot cell is about 6 times more expensive, but it can do 10 times the throughput (I think that's conservative from what I saw in that video) then you'd go with the traditional industrial robot in a cage.

Where Baxter might shine is in some kind of job shop where they do contract work to stamp out 10,000 widgets for some customer, and they're constantly reconfiguring their production line. People are always more flexible, but in this case, you now have a robot that's much easier to change, and it's cheap, but it actually moves slower than a human.

Slow Movement

[Anonymous Coward]

The slow movement stuck out to me as well. My mother works in a factory and I hear all the time about how they expect everyone to work incredibly quickly. Given the speed at which this robot moves and the speed at which factory workers are expected to move, they'll each need ten of these things working on a single task just to keep up with them. Where are they going to stand them all?

I too would have loved to have seen some application of the robot. So it can pick things up from a conveyor belt and move them to the side? So can a fence placed over the conveyor belt. ...and how does it find objects on a moving belt when it has no vision?

I particularly love at the end when he talks, as you get the impression that he really has no clue what the robot might be good for, but is just hoping that thousands of people will buy one and someone somewhere will figure out something useful for it to do. Personally, it seems entirely useless to me, like a giant toy. Looks like all it can do is pick up objects when it knows exactly where they are, and set them down onto something. Any competent engineer will have that conveyor belt already positioning the parts where you want them to be.

Re:Slow Movement

[pnot]

My mother works in a factory and I hear all the time about how they expect everyone to work incredibly quickly.

Robots aren't paid by the hour.

Re:Slow Movement

[weiserfireman]

I work in a CNC Machine Shop. A robot like this would be great for unloading and reloading the Lathes for example.

I don't need it to be incredibly fast. It takes 2 or 3 minutes to run a part anyway. I just need it to be almost as fast as a person. If I can train it to pick up a blank, load it in the lathe, unload it when the cycle is complete, and stack the parts neatly in a tray, I free up a person to go complete a setup on another lathe, troubleshoot a process, complete an SPC chart, or go home and get a good nights rest while the robot runs parts for us.

It doesn't have to be fast, just fast enough.

Re:Slow Movement

[RoccamOccam]

The slow movement stuck out to me as well. My mother works in a factory and I hear all the time about how they expect everyone to work incredibly quickly. Given the speed at which this robot moves and the speed at which factory workers are expected to move, they'll each need ten of these things working on a single task just to keep up with them.

We should arrange a race. I know this really good factory worker by the name of John Henry ...

Re:Slow Movement

[bigwheel]

Come on! This was a 4-minute video demonstrating a brand new technology and showing how it works. I'm pretty confident that it is capable of going faster than what you saw in the video. If not, then the next revision will be. If all you saw in the video was a blur, it would be meaningless.

As stated in TFA, the whole point is that this is a relatively inexpensive robot that can be programmed by people without advanced degrees, and safe enough to use by small shops in diverse environments. This allows US labor to compete with the ultra-low-cost foreign assembly lines.

Of course, Dr. Brooks doesn't know how many different ways it can be used. But if you look at it from the other side, imaging having a shop where you have a repetitive task that's too low for the lowest payed employee. Finally, there is a solution other than doesn't involve outsourcing.

Re:Slow Movement

[tlhIngan]

What I don't get is what's the interest?

I mean, we keep hearing stuff like how Apple keeps over a quarter-million Chinese workers employed and "to move the jobs back here!" Yet according to TFA, in order to be cost competitive, we need robots, which means that instead of that many people being employed here (which admittedly, will probably be Mexicans and such because it's dull, boring repetitive work in conditions not much better than in China), far fewer jobs will be created purely because the majority of those Chinese jobs were replaced by... robots. Granted you'll make a few higher paying jobs (you need robotic technicians to fix, and program the robots, and you'll need a design-for-manufacturing engineer to engineer the product so it can be rapidly assembled by robot (e.g., using adhesives, which can be applied by robot, versus screws, which require more manual dexterity, plastic snap closures or heat welded cases, fewer connectors (and circuilt boards - those flex cable connectors are very finicky), and looking at how to make test jigs to rapidly do pass/fail testing)..

Of course, the bigger quesiton is - given how much domestic manufacturing already usese robots - what's the niche this one is going into? Only angle I can see is "cheap".

Re:Slow Movement

[jon3k]

Robots have capital and operational costs, and usable lifespan. Working out an "hourly salary" is pretty easy once you know those.

Re:Slow Movement

[bigwheel]

Sorry to repeat myself and lose more karma. But the interest is that the robot is:
1: Cheap, as in feasible for small companies that cannot afford massive assembly plants
2a: Easy to program, as in the "robotic technician (programmer)" is a job that can now be done by a less-educated worker. Skilled? yes. Highly educated? no.
2b: Easy to program, as in agile response to changing requirements.
3: Safe, meaning that a small business does not need an expensive factory with shielded cages.
Together, they bring automation to places where it used to not be feasible. Automation means increased productivity, and productivity is something that every business strives for.

Low-level US labor is not going to compete in price with China. But automation allows a single person, presumably in the US, to accomplish what would otherwise be done by a handful of menial laborers overseas. Once there is a factory, there are technicians, design engineers, parts people, management, cleaning staff, cafeteria, transportation, etc. In other words, a lot of jobs.

Re:Slow Movement

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you checked out universal-robots.com? (Disclaimer: Yes, I work there ;-)

Re:Slow Movement

[pnot]

Fair enough, I phrased my point rather poorly. The point I was attempting to make was this: if your robot is, say, fettling widgets, the important metric is not "time to fettle one widget", it is "cost to fettle one widget". So it doesn't matter if the robot's working slower than a human in the same job, provided that the robot's effective "hourly wage" is correspondingly lower.

(Pulled-out-of-my-ass figures: say your robot costs $22k upfront plus $1k a year, and lasts ten years, for a total cost of $32k a decade. Say your human is paid $15k a year, for a total cost of $150k a decade. Robot can then be four times slower and still represent a saving.)

Re:Slow Movement

[weiserfireman]

Boss just came back from IMTS with brochures from a dozen different robot vendors. Haven't had a chance to pick his brain yet.

I was mostly commenting because of people who said this was too slow to be useful.

It just needs to be fast enough it doesn't increase my takt time.

Re:Slow Movement

[couchslug]

Are you also on the Practical Machinist forums?

If you haven't been there, check 'em out.

Re:Slow Movement

[weiserfireman]

Will check them out. We are in the PMPA, so I usually just follow their list server

Re:Slow Movement

[jon3k]

Agreed, you have to look at the total cost of ownership vs the output. At $32k/decade you're pretty close to salary in China (4-5k/year USD is a very good salary there). There's a lot of other costs we're not considering as well, not just power but also training (programming) the robot and maintenance costs. You would have to assume these are relatively high skill jobs, and wouldn't be cheap, certainly not $15k/year in the US. If it takes 40 employee hours a year to maintain them by an individual who's salary is say, $75k, you're looking at around another $1500/robot/year, or $15k/decade.

But the big difference of course is that the robot will work 24 hours a day, which makes it far more effective. But remember that it's not uncommon to work 12-16 hour shifts in China. The problem is, from watching the video, a human appears to be probably at least five times, if not ten times, as efficient.

An amazingly big deal...

[nweaver]

Yes, its slow (~4-6 pick & place operations per arm per minute), and not very strong (5 lbs max weight) in the current form. These restrictions are probably semi-arbitrary in the name of safety. But thats still enough to be an incredibly big deal in a large number of manufacturing tasks. Also important, its transportable (the base is on wheels), and flexible in learning new tasks, so it doesn't have to do just one thing but starts to approach the flexibility of a minimum wage worker. And for that role, it needs to be safe more than it needs to be quick.

Lets say it can perform task X at 1/4 the rate of a manufacturing worker. But at $8/hr minimum wage + 20% in additional costs/worker-hour, say $10/hr for a minimum wage worker. So that value is at least $2.50/hr.

So it pays for itself in 1100 worker-days, compared with a minimum wage worker and only 1 shift a day. At 3 shifts/day, payback is in 1 year!

Slow is NOT a problem when it is that cheap, that flexible and that safe.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be better to design a robot specifically for what you need it to do. It seems this thing doesn't seem very special, so a robot designed for a specific task may be able to replace several workers, and thus actually pay for itself in an even shorter time.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[MightyYar]

I work full-time on a robot built for a specific manufacturing process. A general-purpose robot would never compete in my industry.

That said, many factories don't run a continuous assembly process. Let's take an imaginary shutter-making factory as an example. Rather than have a batten-making machine going full-time, they might only make battens in a big burst until they have a sufficient inventory to make shutters for a few days or weeks. Then they might switch over to producing frames. Finally, they'll get their jigs ready and glue and clamp as many shutters as will fit in their jigs and then return to producing constituent parts. Having a purpose built robot for each purpose sitting idle 1/3 of the time might mean up to 3x the capital cost. In reality, the purpose-built robot might be slightly cheaper or faster - so the mathematics might be different. Point is, there could in fact be a scenario where a more general-purpose robot could work out financially.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[WRX SKy]

Your analysis leaves out:

• * Cost of electricity to run the robot
• * Cost of repair and annual maintenance
• * Cost of larger facilities to accommodate 4 robots for every (previous) 1 human job station

I suspect it will not be as cost effective as you make it out to be.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[SuperKendall]

Cost of electricity to run the robot
Cost of repair and annual maintenance

Way less than $22k/year, therefore still cost effective to replace even the lowest paid worker (as long as minimum wage remains high).

Cost of larger facilities to accommodate 4 robots for every (previous) 1 human job station

It's around the same size as a human, why do you ned more space? A human needs just as much room to move.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[nweaver]

The listed MAX power is 10A at 110V. So say 1 kW power consumption (probably less), which translates to $.20/hr or less in electricity for most businesses.

Repair and maintenance? Over the first couple of years, I'd assume 10%/yr downtime & repair cost

Larger facilities? How many manufacturing facilities are really limited by workstation space on the floor itself?

This thing really really pencils for a lot of tasks.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[nweaver]

If you are in that position, you already HAVE your industrial robots: They can work in a cage (so no safety concerns and can run faster), and that it takes a day of work to program up a task is, eh, yeah, whatever.

This is for the tasks where current robots fail at: tasks where you need to reprogram the robot perhaps as often as once a day, move the robot to different locations, have the robot work with a human, etc....

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[WRX SKy]

From OP's post: "Lets say it can perform task X at 1/4 the rate of a manufacturing worker." Therefore you need FOUR times as many robots to produce the same output as one human.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[MattskEE]

The world of manufacturing is faster and more flexible than ever because of cheap human labor in Chinese factory.

Need to have your factory assemble a new phone? You can train human employees in a day.

Maybe your supplier ran out of LCD screens, so you buy an order from another supplier but it comes loaded differently into a differently size box, or maybe it has a different connector. Time to call in your robot consultant to reprogram the purpose-built industrial bot so it can handle this new form factor. Oh wait, you have human labor? Just show him how to do it slightly differently and away you go.

If you had read the articles you would see that this robot is designed to be quickly configured to perform new tasks with a minimum of technical skills required. There will obviously still be a role for purpose-built bots that have better economy of scale, as that will be cheaper for extremely high quantity long production runs. A lot of manufacturing is meant to be fast and flexible with production or assembly lines being set up in days rather than weeks/months, maybe to handle the initial burst of demand as a new product is launched, then set up to produce a new product a month later. This robot is designed to enable US labor to compete with cheap Chinese labor in the world of fast and flexible manufacturing with less of a cost bump for the US product.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[Githaron]

You forgot to mention that robots like Baxter and its replacement parts would probably be mass produced since its potential market is greater. That could easily bring the cost per robot down. Specialized robots require specialized parts and specialized expertise. Specialized stuff tends to cost more money.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[MightyYar]

That's an excellent point. In our case, we are already mass-producing with an assembly line running full-tilt 2 or 3 shifts - but some robots in our industry cost one million dollars or more and are basically hand-built.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[TheSync]

The world of manufacturing is faster and more flexible than ever because of cheap human labor in Chinese factory.

That is assuming your cheap Chinese labor put on the reel with the proper inductor value on the SMT pick and place machine (my anecdotal experience with Chinese assembly has not been very positive recently!)

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

* Electricity could reasonably be predicted to be a wash: yes you must power your robots but you don't have to provide as much environmental/facilities (light, heat, cooling) as for a person. HVAC is pretty energy intensive all by itself.
* Maintenance would probably be equivalent to a full-time equivalent's carrying costs (health insurance, retirement, other benefits, etc) Drop that $10/hr figure back down to $8/hr to make it equivalent.
* You wouldn't necessarily need a larger facility: robots don't need personal space. Additionally, depending on the level of automation you could put these in extremely adverse/undesirable locations. Have a run down building on top of a super-fund site? Robots don't care. Also, you can more easily stack up your processes vertically. Robots aren't afraid of heights. (Sirius Cybernetics Happy Vertical People Transporters excepted.)

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern machines read the barcodes on the reel to avoid that problem and passive elements are eletrically measured in the fraction of a second from pick to place and discarded when out of spec.

Re:An amazingly big deal...

[TheSync]

Modern machines read the barcodes on the reel to avoid that problem and passive elements are eletrically measured in the fraction of a second from pick to place and discarded when out of spec.

Thanks for the info!

But perhaps in this case someone chose the wrong reel ahead of time (accidentally or trying to be cheap), and programmed it in so that the machine read the "proper" barcode and placed the "in spec" inductor!

Chinese Manufacturing

[Xacid]

"it could help make U.S. manufacturers compete with Chinese companies " ...until he starts selling them to China, makes his fortune, and retires like a proper wealthy capitalist.

Re:Chinese Manufacturing

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say the USA and China both use the same robots, same assembly lines, same everything.

The cost of shipping within the USA beats the cost of shipping from China to the USA, especially with oil getting more expensive all the time.

Re:Chinese Manufacturing

[Rogerborg]

They'll have to remove the safety features before selling them to China. Don't want the Meat Units getting complacent.

Re:Chinese Manufacturing

[Xacid]

There's a human cost somewhere in the process and that's where the US will lose the lead most of the time- all other variables even. Plus the various trade agreements vs. taxes seem to give them more of an edge.

Nice

[koan]

Interesting stuff, but I'm always left with the same question when I see robots advanced and possibly some form of AI.

"What are we going to do with all these humans?"

Re:Nice

[geekoid]

I think you mean:
How are we going to please our human gods.

Re:Nice

[CanHasDIY]

"What are we going to do with all these humans?"

I suggest making tacos.

Or robot fuel.

Umm

[geekoid]

Having manufacturing move back to the US because it's completely robotic doesn't exactly help, at ll. You bring in all the waste with none of the jobs.
Of course, the US should start preparing for the completely robotic workforce,. It will happen.
And no, there is no a one for one replacement in jobs, its closer to every 100 job displaced by automation, 1 job is created.

Re:Umm

[Githaron]

Whenever technology satisfies old demands, humanity tends to create new demands. Do you really think that people would be thinking about the latest smartphone, the new movie coming out, or a new social networking site if they had to spend almost all their waking hours farming in order to feed and clothe themselves? With every major change, stress is placed on society but eventually we adapt out of necessity. Like the wheel, society advances in cycles.

Re:Umm

[lance_of_the_apes]

What is the natural progression once a completely robotic workforce is in place?

ADEPT Flexfeeder

[trout007]

I've used these in the past. They are a pick and place robot with a vision system and conveyor system. You can throw a bucket of parts on the conveyor and it will find and pick the ones you need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FPSF1KIDnw

Completely safe? Is that better than

[davidwr]

Three Laws Safe?

SQUISH!

[seven of five]

"I'm so dreadfully sorry... was that your head?"

Dear roman_mir

[damn_registrars]

As we all know by now, "udachny" is a sock puppet for the hard-core ron paul worshipper otherwise known as "roman_mir". Regardless, you started off by saying:

I didn't get a very good response to it (I mean moderation), so it's not a popular thing on /. to think about it maybe?

To which I will point out that taking on a condescending stance on group moderation will not improve your image. You have switched from your first account to this second account because your karma took a hit after you went on a day-long orgy of lies and insults a few weeks ago. Apparently you didn't learn much from that experience?

Let me give you a hint. You're being moderated down not because people dislike you or your viewpoint, but because you are abrasive, arrogant, and a perpetual liar. If you would show some maturity and have a respectful discussion with people, you wouldn't be moderated down so often. There are plenty of people on slashdot who have similar conservative views to your own; you are far from the oppressed minority you try to claim yourself to be. However when you run around here the way that you chose to, you end up irritating even people who have similar viewpoints.

In other words, if you want to be moderated down less, provide more facts and fewer ron paul video clips. Cite yourself less and others more. And for crying out loud don't be such an asshole to everyone who disagrees with you. You do a terrible job of encouraging people to consider your side when you make a point of insulting everyone who does not agree with everything you say.

Robot cheaper

[SuperKendall]

A person working for $8/hour 40 hours a day 52 weeks a year makes 16640.

The robot is $22k... and can work longer hours.

And probably can work for longer than a year.

You still need some workers to work in conjunction with the robots but even the cheapest low end job it can replace as long as it can perform the task.

Re:Robot cheaper

[Physics Dude]

A person working for $8/hour 40 hours a day 52 weeks a year makes 16640.

WOW! That's quite a trick! :)

Self Repair

[end15]

On initial viewing this robot appears to be a solution to bringing manufacturing within the US boarders. That is a positive in the sense that our nation will be less dependent on other nations.

Will these robots be manufactured in the US?
What kind of secondary markets will be created to maintain & program these robots?
Will they repair themselves?
Finally how many manufacturing positions will be replaced by these robots?

One of our current goals is to stabalize our economy, and a big part of that is having people work. Until we come up with another economic model robots that replace human labor will not create social benefit, but instead will strip it.

Cheers,
End15

Simple

[ThatsNotPudding]

But I do like the "move the arms" training method. I'd put a little time into pondering how to train manufacturing robots in the past, and I was always wondering why they didn't use that approach, at least to rough out the behavior, and use an interface to tweak the positioning and timing etc. But afaik all the programming on other industrial robots to date has been purely through the console.

Because they *have* perfected LawyerBots. The first time someone gets converted into a human sandwich spread while 'moving the arms' will be the last of that 'bot company.

Why modded up?

[SuperKendall]

This post was at +2 only some time after the front page story of Slashdot being bought by dice.

With that on the front page why mod up this post? it became somewhat humorous but kind of irrelevant after that point.

Re:Why modded up?

[Anonymous Coward]

why the fuck do you care?

Fucktard

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you fucktard, because some rotting piece of 20th century infrastructure is going to work for what you need to do? We're talking about reality, not upgrading buggy whip manufacturing. Oh yeah, I still have to do the fucking EIS because I'm going to have a "different use" and will have different emissions. Even if different means fewer. You have no clue how hostile the US is to industry.

Re:Fucktard

[HornWumpus]

You're a funny man. You don't mean to, but you are.

I'm typing this in a factory in California. I know; you say BS, you claim such a thing does not exist.

Perhaps you should stop listening to talking points and get out of your mother's basement.

Welcome to the

[pkbarbiedoll]

pre-history of the Great Labor Crash

Talk to me after the Tea Party & Libertarians

[Anonymous Coward]

Gain greater control of the political system. You know, the same "47% are lazy bastards who don't want to work" crowd we've heard about recently. We're travelling at an increased rate of speed towards the nearest fortified (and publicly funded) concrete highway barrier.

Housing

[Anonymous Coward]

You are thinking small scale consumption. Think again about larger ticket items, such as housing, business capital, education, ect. When there are few good paying jobs and we're relying on bulk cheap goods to squeak by, nobody will be able to afford a new home, or to start a new business, or pay for cancer treatment, and so on. Until you convince the bulk of Americans that socialism is after all, OK, you're going to have a very ugly (think north Mexico) society where people will cut throats to put food on the table.

Re:Housing

[trout007]

Socialism is not the answer. There is no mechanism in socialism to determine how to allocate resources to meet people's desires. That is its inherent flaws. No price mechanism.

In a market economy you don't have to worry about unemployment due to technology. The savings rate is what will determine interest rates not some central planners at the Fed. Interest rates are a key component on the calculation of whether to automate or not. The more savings the lower the interest rates the more it makes sense to invest in capital equipment. The opposite is true. If people are unemployed and savings are low interest rates are high and it's cheaper to hire workers than to invest in capital equipment. It's a self regulating system.

But when you have the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low you get too much being spent in capital equipment while you have low savings and unemployment.

You want to ask that now or after Mitt eliminates

[pkbarbiedoll]

the corporate tax?

Re:You want to ask that now or after Mitt eliminat

[MightyYar]

Tax revenue would be one of several benefits that the US would have by retaining the factory, yes.

Corporate taxes are gone when conservatives

[pkbarbiedoll]

regain control of the WH and Legislative branch. Few jobs will be created, so that tax revenue is minimal.

Next?

Re:Corporate taxes are gone when conservatives

[MightyYar]

Ah, you were trolling. Congrats.

Robots allow more efficient rent collection

[Anonymous Coward]

If you own a factory and you reduce your outgoings by reducing your workforce, not only do you increase your profits, you also reduce the number of people competing with you to buy things. This increases the polarisation of wealth (the rich get richer, the poor get poorer). If you are rich, this is great. Supply and demand models of economics implicitly include only those who can pay. Having economically disenfranchised most of the population, you can then scale back production to meet only the demand of those who can pay. This will greatly relieve the pressure on limited resources like eg oil while allowing a wealthy cadre to continue to live in the lap of technological luxury. If there's only a few thousand privileged people you can roar around in Hummers and run ski lifts and private jets indefinitely with no risk of running out before alternatives are found.