The document discusses how robots are increasingly able to perform tasks once thought impossible, from walking through difficult terrain to athletic feats like jumping and flipping. It highlights robots like Atlas that can navigate human environments and Handle robots that can perform warehouse work more efficiently than humans. While some jobs will certainly be replaced, it's difficult to predict exactly how many and which ones. The document argues that as technology advances, more tasks we currently consider requiring human abilities will be automated by robots.

1. By mikolajwalczak
Robots will never be able to…
willyoubereplaced.com/2020/03/08/robots-will-never-be-able-to/
I think every single one of us has said that at least once.
The next time you are tempted to use this phrase stop and think again.
If you ever thought a robot will never be able to walk in the forest for example – meet
Atlas. It can do it in the snow:
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2. Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY
If this looks impressive note that this film is years old and the progress is being made.
Look what else it can do now:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/fRj34o4hN4I
Yes, it turns, jumps, flips and twists. It can even do a 360° jump.
Created by Boston dynamics Atlas is the new breed of robots that can survive in places
we wouldn’t suspect it to and handle situations usually impossible for robots. With its
80kg of weight and 1.5m height it comes across as very humanoid and very adapted to
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3. human spaces.
If you find it hard to imagine the future full of robots on the streets think of the people
from the past – they would’ve had a hard time to imagine streets full of cars. And yet cars
came whether they liked it or not, whether they wanted it or not and whether they could
imagine it or not. The cars came because they improve people’s lives.
I believe the same will happen with robots.
Robots will do your laundry, make food for you, possibly even brew your own beer due
to your specifications.
The other side of the same coin is that all those things they will be able to do reduces the
need for jobs for people who do it now.
Will robots take our jobs?
From Robocop to robo-advisors
We once imagined robots that could do our jobs, now we often fear that they really can.
The original RoboCop movie from 1987 shows how a robot could outperform people in
pretty much everything. This was science-fiction. Now you have chatbots and automated
phone calls which you can experience when trying to contact your bank for instance. This
is reality.
How many jobs will be replaced by robots is as hard to predict as it was in the 1940s to
predict how many TV screens there would be. Before things happen guesses are wildly
different, after the fact it seems to “have been so obvious”. CNBC wrote in 2019 that by
2030 even 20 million jobs could be taken over by robots globally. BBC in 2017 claimed it
would be 800 million. Pick your favourite! One thing seems certain – the numbers will be
in millions.
In the past it seemed obvious that computers are much better at some things while
humans at other things. Driving a car was often placed as an example of a very complex
behaviour which would never be replaced by a computer because of the nature of the
task. In the past even when experts imagined that the computers would become very,
very fast, it still wouldn’t make up for the precision of movements that human hands
make while driving or changing gears and looking at the road at the same time. There
were no digital cameras so how could they imagine computers looking at the road?
Things have obviously changed since then and more and more people agree now that
cars will drive themselves soon without need for human intervention.
Now back to our friend Atlas – do you think Atlas is going to replace warehouse staff?
I honestly don’t think so!
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4. There is a much better robot called Handle which can actually HANDLE those jobs more
efficiently:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/-7xvqQeoA8c
After being redesigned to work with boxes it will suit perfectly any warehouse:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/5iV_hB08Uns
There is a competition run every year with the goal of creating a soccer team capable of
competing against and winning with humans at the World Cup. They want it to happen
by 2050. This is their objective statement formulated in 1998:
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5. “By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer
players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the
winner of the most recent World Cup.”
People have laughed at that idea for a long time but when you look at Atlas you may
think otherwise.
So what do you think robots will never be able to do?
Maybe there isn’t such a thing…
Resources:
Atlas description
https://www.bostondynamics.com/atlas
https://www.wevolver.com/wevolver.staff/atlas.robot/
Atlas outdoor:
http://bit.ly/atlasoutdoor
Atlas flips and jumps:
http://bit.ly/Atlasflipsandjumps
Handle:
http://bit.ly/32UdaEI
Handle doing warehouse work:
http://bit.ly/39waz6m
CNBC predictions:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/robots-could-take-over-20-million-jobs-by-2030-
study-claims.html
BBC predictions:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42170100
RoboCup objective:
https://www.robocup.org/objective/
RoboCop:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop
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