before your next Uber driver looks more like Robby the Robot than Joe Sixpack. The trend is clearly accelerating. North American fi rms purchased 10,829 robots in the last three months of 2021, a new record high. And 61% of those orders came from non- automotive sectors. “There is no longer a choice whether to introduce robots
and automation,” Burnstein said. “Now it is an absolute imperative.” Before the pandemic, robots were often portrayed by Hol-
lywood as mechanical servants that might turn against their own masters at any moment. But after several years of living in fear that any stray cough
from a fast-food worker could trigger a bout with COVID-19, the sight of servo motors and shiny metal skin now seems like a welcome relief. That’s one of the biggest advantages that robots have in
the COVID-19 era — they won’t breathe on you. The hotel and cruise industries have begun to adopt them
as a way to systematically clean areas without the risk of contagion.
Laboratories fi nd they’re a safer way to handle test sam-
ples. And hospitals desperate for more help with patients are using them to reduce the demands on staff . Until 2020, robots were mostly used in the automotive manufacturing sector. But that’s changed in recent years as more and more sectors began to adopt robotics into their business models. Warehouses, hotels, hospitals, and restaurants are all
adopting robotic technology in unprecedented numbers. Among the new robotics applications you can soon expect
to see:
ELDER CARE COMPANIONS Spiraling wages and labor shortages for home healthcare, combined with reports of devastating COVID-19 outcomes in several nursing homes, are opening up new opportunities for robot manufacturers. In the “smart home” era, robots are being designed to
provide companionship and healthcare support for seniors, including reminders about taking their medication.
with special needs who didn’t get services during COVID were able to maintain their education and therapeutic interventions with robot-assisted instruction.”
As demonstrated at a recent exhibition, children are instinctively fascinated by Movia’s robots. They crowd around them and initiate conversation. They soon learn the robots don’t use the subtle body-language cues that can be utterly perplexing and frustrating for special-needs kids.
SIDEWALK DELIVERY ROBOTS Three years into the pandemic, many consumers would rather get their grocery order from a sidewalk delivery robot than park and wade into the big-box throng to get it them- selves. The Economist reports sidewalk delivery robots will be a
$1 billion business by the end of the decade. Serve Robotics, an Uber spinoff , recently unveiled the fi rst delivery robots able to safely operate independent of human supervision. They look like colorful suitcases with six wheels that trun-
dle along on sidewalks, avoiding any two-legged obstacles in their path.
REMOTE EDUCATION AND SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN It’s now well-established that school lockdowns were a developmental disaster for kids. But there was one excep- tion — children learning remotely with the assistance of sophisticated robots. Kids tend to interact with the robots as wonderful playmates. Movia Robotics, for example, has developed a series
of child-development robots that specialize in helping children on the autism spectrum. Educators say robot-assisted instruction gets kids to
focus — and can lead to life-changing improvements for children with attention defi cit issues and other intellec- tual or developmental challenges.
SECURITY AND THE HIGH-TECH BATTLEFIELD With China and the U.S. now locked in a transformative global race for technological and military advantage, robots have become the new battlefi eld. Autonomous underwater submersibles launched from submarines, surveillance drones able to loiter in the skies for days on end, attack helicopters that don’t need pilots to carry out their missions, and canine-like patrol robots with powerful cameras and infrared sensors that can detect intruders that human security guards would miss — these are just a few of the developments on a high-tech battlefi eld that increasingly looks like a scene from the latest feature fi lm in the Terminator franchise.
“The children see the robots as a peer,” says Bolat. “There’s no judgment in a robot. When they see the robot, it’s a brand- new and intriguing relationship. When the robot starts speaking with them, they tend to develop a great relationship.”
Once the relationship is
established, the robot can lead them through instruction or
intervention, doing exercises such as learning social-emotional skills
to say “hello” and “goodbye.” Movia’s robots employ a form of artificial
intelligence that enables them to respond diff erently to each child’s needs. On the Movia website, Bolat shares the
story of a mother whose autistic child was completely nonverbal. Three months after interacting with the robot, the child began to speak and say “hello” and “goodbye.” One mother even heard words she thought she might never hear her child utter. He said, “I love you, mom.”
— A.O.H. APRIL 2022 | NEWSMAX 19
©FACEBOOK/MOVIA
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