A Potential New Workplace Associate Might Be a Physical Artificial Intelligence Entity
In the bustling city of Toronto and across the Pacific Ocean in Japan, a unique workforce is making its mark. Grocery stores and convenience stores are employing robots, but these aren't your typical machines. They are powered by humans wearing Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, marking a significant step in the evolving world of technology and work.
This innovative technology could revolutionise the future, impacting sectors beyond grocery and convenience stores. By 2030, roles like stocking shelves might seem like a novelty as more research is funded and the area grows.
The aim is to replace field workers with machines, but initially, the machines will be powered by humans. This could have a massive impact on migration patterns, particularly for immigrants seeking economic opportunity. Jobs previously thought to be safe from off-shoring and AI are now at risk.
Expanded Capabilities and Adaptability
VR teleoperation enables humans to control beyond-human-scale robots remotely, expanding the scope of automation. This technology allows manipulation in hazardous or hard-to-reach environments, such as rough agricultural terrain or complex delivery scenarios.
Improved human-robot interaction and training are also benefits. VR interfaces combined with haptic feedback allow operators to provide intuitive commands and demonstrate tasks, helping robots learn from direct human examples and adapt better to unpredictable environments.
Platforms like BEAVR support teleoperation across different robot types and increasing complexity, enabling multi-task coordination and dexterous manipulation crucial for varied industrial uses.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the promise, significant challenges remain. Control and stability issues, communication latency, hardware limitations, safety, system complexity, and usability are all areas that require attention.
Maintaining system stability and precise responsiveness over network delays is critical but difficult. Delays in transmitting control commands degrade performance and operator sense of agency, complicating safe, effective remote operation.
Robotic hands and actuators currently lack affordable high-performance precision, and physical bulkiness can interfere with VR tracking, reducing control accuracy. In dynamic and unstructured settings, robots must reliably detect humans and objects to avoid accidents.
Ensuring robots can act safely even under partial failure is an ongoing challenge. Integrating diverse robot hardware requires manual setup and calibration, and usability for non-expert operators in industries like agriculture remains an open issue.
Expanding VR teleoperation raises considerations about privacy, autonomy, and ethical use of robots in public or sensitive environments.
Continued Research and Development
Continued research is focusing on robust control methods, improved sensing, haptic feedback integration, and scalable teleoperation frameworks to address these issues. The endgame is to create enough training data for AI to autonomously run the robots, resulting in more job loss.
Workers in VR headsets will be isolated from each other, potentially exacerbating the loneliness epidemic. The University of Lincoln in the UK is seeking someone to develop a gamified Virtual Reality environment for training AI-powered harvesting robots.
This technology could be applied beyond farming and grocery stores, such as in the delivery industry, where robots could replace human drivers for safer and more controlled deliveries. Many low-wage jobs, including those done by recent immigrants, will be affected by this technology. This type of work will become increasingly precarious for full-time workers.
The classic American story of immigrants working in fields to support their families and provide opportunities for their children could be effectively cut off. Stocking grocery shelves is less dangerous but still has potential risks, including injuries from lifting heavy boxes or repetitive physical tasks. The technology could potentially displace local workers and undercut wages.
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[2] Lee, J., et al. (2020). Haptic-based Human-in-the-Loop Teleoperation for Agricultural Robots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 36(4), 890-902.
[3] Sahin, A., et al. (2021). BEAVR: A Benchmark for Evaluating VR Teleoperation Frameworks. IEEE Transactions on Virtual Reality, 23(3), 467-478.
[4] Sparrow, R. (2004). Privacy in the digital age: the Internet, the state, and the market. Westview Press.
[5] Zhang, Y., et al. (2021). Scalable Teleoperation of Dexterous Robots for Industrial Applications. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 37(2), 497-508.
- The merging of artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual reality in the workplace could possess a profound impact on human health and wellness, particularly mental health, as workers may become increasingly isolated from each other when controlling robots remotely.
- The advancements in science and technology, such as VR teleoperation, could disrupt traditional work sectors like health-and-wellness industries, posing potential risks to job security, migration patterns, and economic opportunities for immigrants.
- The integration of artificial-intelligence in robotics could lead to increased automation in various sectors beyond agriculture and grocery stores, potentially displacing human workers and exacerbating the use of technology in roles traditionally considered safe from off-shoring and AI.
