The robot age has been consistently predicted, with fears of a robotic labour revolution dominating the last century, but are we finally at the tipping point?
Robots are everywhere, if you look. Drones in the skies? Robots. Assembly machines on picking lines? Robots.
Artificial intelligence is one of the 21st century’s dominant fields of innovation. With every day, machinery gets ‘smarter’.
Automation is key for major manufacturers, who are never happy to spend any more than they have to on labour and production.
Delivery systems are labour intensive, so why not have a drone or robot deliver that pizza to your door this evening?
Production and logistics, these are areas where companies are pouring huge resources into robotics.
Apple cars, Google cars and any rivals that emerge could be considered robots. The manual chores of life, replaced by relaxing, managed machines.
Claiming that two-thirds of graduates in 2025 will be doing jobs that don’t even exist yet, the Tomorrow’s Jobs report – which The Future Laboratory and Microsoft collaborated on – predicts humanity will be curing disease and building virtual reality worlds from “the comfort of our own sofas”, no doubt aided by a robot cohort of busy bees.
But, in the short-term, what are the changes we can expect?
Futurism.com has produced a detailed infographic on this area, highlighting several key themes common to imminent societal shifts.
Starting with Chinese production lines and agritech, the company claims deep-learning advances and knowledge-sharing developments are the right ingredients for a revolution.
In the home, tools like Amazon Echo, or even developments around Siri, Viv or other rival smart assistants could make 2016 the edge of the cliff, with robots the way of the future.
Click on the infographic to view it in a larger format.
Main robot image, via Shutterstock
