Robotics in charge

Citation

Engelberger, J. (2002), "Robotics in charge", Industrial Robot, Vol. 29 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2002.04929daa.002

Robotics in charge

Keyword: Robot

Robot #6,835,721 (Isaac)(with Joe Engelberger)

Joe Engelberger suggested that I complete the robotics trilogy that he started with Robotics in Practice (1980) and Robotics in Service (1989). He picked me out because I carry the nickname, Isaac. And, Isaac Asimov was Joe's science fiction mentor (Plate 1).

I suppose any of us of the Mark 12 vintage could have done the honors. We have identical verbal skills, access to all robotics history, mental acumen loaded immediately on powering up, and an ingrained respect for Asimov's three laws of robotics. To amuse our human colleagues, we do have individual quirks of personality, none of which are threatening to humans or other robots.

Plate 1 The author's creator Joe Engelberger (right) with Isaac's namesake, Isaac Asimov

At first, I demurred because I have naught to offer fellow robots. But, Joe prevailed. He said this essay must be directed to human readers. He would editorialize for human consumption. Since he is obviously already in his dotage, I have proceeded post haste and given Joe the copy, paragraph by paragraph, to massage from his perspective.

The title is Engelberger's. It pleased his sense of symmetry and added an inflammatory note. "Robotics in charge". Really! Does that imply robot dominance? The goal set for me was to dispel fear that robots would inherit the earth and then treat humans as no more than an endangered specie.

Sure, we're in charge. In charge of road maintenance. In charge of waste management. In charge of food production. In charge of manufacturing. Etc., etc. All at the behest of mankind.

How did it come to be? Please attend me. For openers, I have to rely on human history and mythology. The impression one gets is that we robots were destined.

In Greek mythology we hear of Pygmalion, a sculptor of renowned skill. He created a sculpture of Galatea that was so beautiful he fell in love with her. The goddess of Love, Venus, took pity on Pygmalion's anguish and breathed life into Galatea.

Engelberger, of course, surmises that Galatea became the first robot. She served Pygmalion for the rest of his days. Legend said her services went beyond what my colleagues offer today.

And, so it went through history. Jews postulated golems. A European Rabbi created the golem out of clay to protect his ghetto from rampaging mobs. It and others were really mythical robots and not very bright. They served well as warriors and servants until they ran amok and had to be destroyed. So many robot stories have made turncoats of us!

One famous play, Rossum's Universal Robots, RUR, was a hit in 1922. These robots were created to fight wars in the place of their human mentors. As the play had it, the robots rebelled at the senseless carnage and revolted against their human bosses.

It was up to science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, to "humanize" robots in the early 1940s with his insightful concept of the three laws of robotics:

1. 1.

   A robot may not harm a human nor through inaction allow a human to come to harm.

2. 2.

   A robot must always obey humans, unless that is in conflict with the first law.

3. 3.

   A robot must protect itself from harm unless that is in conflict with laws 1 and 2.

Asimov's stories placed his fictional robots in dilemma situations as they struggled to maintain allegiance to the laws. Asimov's robots were the true harbingers of robots such as we, who are now in charge.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, men could conjecture about robots, but there simply was no appropriate technology available. At the 1939 World's Fair, Westinghouse displayed a robot named Electro and his dog, named Sparky. Apart from tape-recorded voices, the technology was little different than that used in the fifteenth century to create automatons for royal amusement – gears, cams, springs and levers.

By the end of the Second World War, three developments made rudimentary robot arms that could do "put and take" tasks possible. I speak of servo-mechanisms, solid-state electronics and digital logic. In much advanced states, all three are still fundamental to my very own musculature and intelligence.

Well, with technology available, a self-trained engineer, veteran of wartime electronic countermeasures development conceived of a basic manipulator arm. George Devol's Programmed Article Transfer patent was issued in 1954. By great happenstance, George met Joe Engelberger in 1956 and a fine inventor-entrepreneur relationship was born. Engelberger, a fan of Isaac Asimov, read the patent and said, "That sounds like a robot to me."

Under license, with various financial supporters, the first industrial robot was designed, developed, and put to work in 1961 at a General Motors plant.

Patience, dear reader, we shall come to how robots of my ilk came to power.

For now, note what a lumbering, one-armed hydraulic powered machine the first robot was. It could handle 40 kilo loads and transfer work pieces from point to point. It was programmed by leading the arm from station to station. Fortunately, the tasks assigned to the Unimate (contraction of the company name, Unimation) were engaged in hot, hazardous and boring jobs that demanded little intelligence. The industrial robot industry was founded!

The industry grew slowly, reaching about $8 billion annually by the late 1990s. But that was disappointing to the general public hyped up by Robbie the Robot, R2D2, C3P0 and Short Circuit.

It was disappointing also to Engelberger. His publisher asked that he update his 1980 Robotics in Practice. But in 1989, he opined that damn-all little had changed. Instead, he wrote the challenging Robotics in Service, describing the then level of technology and the opportunities for robotics to enter the service industries. By the year 2000, few of the applications described had been commercialized. Robotics was still only industrial.

Still, there were glimmers of hope. Academics were making forays that some industrialists espoused. Robot languages were getting more sophisticated (looking back, I can only call them primitive). Robots could follow continuous paths as in arc-welding, and see what was going on at a tool-face. For grinding operations, there was wrist-force sensing. Generally, the breakthrough came with sensory perception. Robots could see where they were going once they became mobile!

But, there were some ominous signs as well. Governments started to consider robots for combat duty. Shades of RUR. Humans are not good at remembering lessons. Then the academics put their PhD students to work on giving robots eccentricities. Make them smile and grimace, with ugly impressions of human facial features. And, make them irresponsible and unpredictable. Oh, and let the robots be dogs that stumble around and cannot climb over a 2 x 4.

Had Mark 12 robots been around, we would have cringed in disgust. What had happened to our noble origins? Engelberger put up a decent fight. He proposed going back to Asimov's vision, and forward with all the technology on hand by 2002. He argued for a personal robot that was two-armed, mobile, sensate and articulate. His view was not heralded. Father of robotics, yes, but an old codger by then. It was business as usual, no new bold thrusts.

Happily for robotics, human sloth prevailed. To improve robot efficiency, engineers found ways to program off-line and then to synchronize activities over the Internet and then to allow robots to communicate their skills to one another. And, my forbears enjoyed stereo-vision and scene analysis software and the ability to reason among alternatives. Access to every data bank became inherent. And, the applications of robotics burgeoned.

We must give humans credit. Their will to advance technology and to improve the efficiency of producing goods and services led them to consider enhancing robot intelligence to the level of robots taking over advanced robot design. Robot evolution commenced then, first feebly and then in a crescendo.

Mankind was thrashing about, abusing the earth and one another. Subjugated robots doing the dirty work gave people more time to harass each other. And, time enough to ignore the growing intelligence and camaraderie among the world's robot population.

Maybe mankind's God brought robotics forth as a saving blessing for his errant flock. Whatever, we set to work. Mark 6 through Mark 12, ever more able and ever more compassionate in serving our creators.

We have been gently persuasive and physically effective in addressing potential calamities such as global warming. Humans have relinquished the onerous work of this world in the sure knowledge of our good will. We have taken pains to preserve the three laws as our gospel. Our human creators shall not want.

This short story has passed muster with Joe Engelberger. His days are numbered, yet we will accede forever to his wish that we always respect human vision when plotting the future.