Silicon Valley is going back to an ancient technology: People 04-23

Full automation has proven that humans are still better than robots at some tasks. 

Tech companies have long been valued by investors for their ability to replace employees with technology. Now, alongside software and server farms, they are moving at a breakneck pace on find living, breathing human beings to staff their systems.

They’re doing so because of a high-profile series of failures of automation, which have prompted a wave of intense pressure from investors, the public, and governments.

Tesla’s highly automated production line failed to produce cars at the rate CEO Elon Musk promised, prompting questions about the electric-car maker’s solvency. Systems at Google’s YouTube failed to flag extremist and exploitative videos. Russian operatives have worked to influence elections using Facebook, whose systems separately created categories of users with labels such as “Jew hater” that it then allowed advertisers to target.

While companies such as Google and Facebook still insist that they’re just distribution platforms rather than content creators and bear limited, if any, responsibility for most of the content they host, they’re increasingly acknowledging they need to do something to curb abuses. In the short-term at least, that approach usually involves more humans.

“Human are underrated,” tweeted Musk, as the company struggles to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan. Musk has blamed an overly automated production process. “We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts… And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing,” he told CBS.

Meanwhile, Google and Facebook have been hiring thousands of people to monitor content and advertising on their platforms, amid backlash against their hosting of extremist videos and messages, videos depicting the exploitation of children, propaganda, and content created to manipulate electorates in the US and elsewhere.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated to US legislators last week that the company planned to double its security and content moderation workers to 20,000 people by the end of the year—an investment that he acknowledged would hurt its profitability.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in December said the Google-owned video site aimed to have 10,000 people working to find and combat content that violates its policies, a 25% increase according to BuzzFeed.

Artificial-intelligence experts say Zuckerberg and other tech executives are over-optimistic about the timeline for computers identifying things such as toxic speech, and point to existing systems that fail at that task. A new Barclays research report says that humans are better than robots at “sensorimotor skills” and “cognitive functionality,” meaning humans are less clumsy than robots and are better at making decisions factoring in context and in cases where there’s incomplete information. There are reasons to be confident that humans will retain some of those advantages for decades into the future.

But any surge in hiring by tech companies is unlikely to significantly offset the toll on employment from the current wave of automation. And the jobs that such companies are hiring for at scale—such as people to watch videos for offensive content—tend to require lower skills, and pay lower wages.

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Turning workers into 'super workers' with robotic suits 02-14

If you've watched the Iron Man film franchise, you'll know that a powered suit gives inventor Tony Stark superhuman strength to fight the bad guys.

But away from the the fictional world of blockbusting movies, robotic exoskeletons offer more prosaic and useful help for humans.

The military has been in on the act for years, using them to help soldiers carry more weight for longer periods of time. Meanwhile manufacturers have been busy creating robotic suits to give mobility to people with disabilities.

But now exoskeletons are becoming an important part of the scene in more conventional workplaces, mainly because of their unique offering.

"Exoskeletons act as a bridge between fully-manual labour and robotic systems. You get the brains of people in the body of a robot," says Dan Kara, research director at ABI Research.

"But there's more to it than that. You can tie the use of exoskeletons to business benefits that are very easy to quantify. The main one is a reduction in work-related injuries, and we know that outside the common cold, back injury is the main reason people are off work."

The motor industry has used robots for many years. But robots can't do everything, points out technical expert Marty Smets, of Ford's human systems and virtual manufacturing unit.

"In our plants, we see a need for both people and robots," he says.

Some Ford assembly line workers lift their arms up to 4,600 times a day - that's about a million times a year. That sort of repetition leaves many suffering from back-ache and neck pain.

Now, though, the company has equipped staff at two US assembly plants with a device called the EksoVest, from California-based Ekso Bionics. It helps take the strain by giving workers an extra 5-15lb (2.2-6.8kg) of lift per arm.

"Incredible is the only word to describe the vest," said Paul Collins, an assembly line worker at Ford Michigan assembly plant. "It has made my job significantly easier and has given me more energy throughout the day."

The company says it's already seeing a dramatic decline in work-related injuries and is now planning to introduce the exoskeletons at facilities in Europe and South America.

Currently, the industrial use of exoskeletons is relatively small - this year only a few thousand have been sold, says ABI's Kara. But, he says, the potential market could be in the millions.

The types of exoskeleton used for rehabilitation can cost more than $100,000 (£75,000), needing, as they usually do, to replace a user's muscles altogether. However, industrial versions can be far cheaper, at around $5,000.

They generally augment human strength rather than replace it and tend to enhance one part of the body only. They also often don't need any external power. Instead, they can deliver a 10-20% boost to the user's lifting power by transferring weight to the ground.

In Japan, exoskeletons are being used for heavy lifting in the shipbuilding industry as well as in large commercial construction projects.

Meanwhile, US retailer Home Depot is testing exoskeletons to help workers unload trucks and bring materials onto the floor.

Another early adopter is Lockheed Martin, which is using its own Fortis exoskeleton to allow workers to operate tools for much longer periods. It has a support structure that transfers the weight of heavy loads from the operator's body directly to the ground through a series of joints at the hips, knees and ankles.

It can also be used with an arm that supports the weight of a tool helps isolate vibration and torque kick - rotational force - from the user. Workers using the devices, says Lockheed Martin, report two-thirds less fatigue, with higher quality work, greater productivity and fewer musculoskeletal injuries.

Other companies are producing powered industrial exoskeletons that are rather more like the suits from the movies. Sarcos, for example, offers three models, with the biggest - the Guardian GT (pictured) - handling more than 450kg with its 2m (7ft) arms.

"I think powered exoskeletons will become ubiquitous for industrial applications around the world. These devices will materially reduce occupational injuries while also dramatically improving productivity," says chief executive officer Ben Wolff.

"Additionally, these devices can extend the useful life of an aging work force, and can make jobs open for more people that previously could have only been handled by people of larger physical stature." 

Other augmentation technologies are even stranger. Researchers at Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, for example, have developed a robotic "third arm" that attaches to the user's elbow. The group says it sees applications in package handling, warehouses, and even restaurants.

"A third arm device would enhance a worker's reach, and allow them to access objects without having to reach or bend. This would be useful in pick-and-place tasks where the worker is moving, such as retrieving packages from warehouse shelves," says researcher Vighnesh Vatsal.

"It would also provide support in assembly tasks in challenging environments such as construction sites, for instance by holding a work piece steady while a worker operates on it with power tools using their own hands."

In the longer term, industry experts say the price of exoskeletons will fall further, meaning they could move into many more areas of work. They could even find a place in private life, with applications in DIY, gardening and sports such as hiking.

So while we'll never be likely to be able to emulate the exploits of comic book heroes, exoskeletons could help with mundane household chores such as ironing. So not so much Iron Man - more "ironing man", perhaps? 

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Robocop Ford is developing a robot police car 01-31

robocop

Ford is developing a robot police car to catch speeding drivers and slap them with fines. 

The car giant has been issued with a patent for the artificial intelligence tech that will catch motorists breaking road laws.

The sketches filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office even show the sneaky Robocop hiding behind a tree.

Cameras and wireless sensors will allow it to track cars and connect over wifi to let them know they've broken the law.

The regular car would then message back revealing if it was in driverless mode - or with the driving licence photo of the person in control.

Robocop could then issue a warning or fine remotely.

The robotic cop car will be fitted with cameras and wifi allowing it to be used as a remote surveillance device - or to call in back up.

And the patent reveals it can even drive itself to hunt down rogue motorists - or be used with an officer inside.

The Ford patent said: "While autonomous vehicles can and will be programmed to obey traffic laws, a human driver can override that programming to control and operate the vehicle at any time.

"When a vehicle is under control of a human driver there is a possibility of violation of traffic laws. Thus, there will still be a need to police traffic.

"An autonomous police vehicle may enforce traffic laws by identifying violators, pulling over the offending vehicle, capturing an image of the licence plate of the offending vehicle, and determining whether to issue a warning or a ticket.

“Autonomous police vehicle may be trained or otherwise programmed using machine learning tools – deep neural networks – to find good hiding spots to catch violators of traffic laws.”

The futuristic tech is still some way off but the very fact Ford has filed a patent means it's on their radar.

It mimics the sci-fi cop cars seen in Sylvester Stallone's 1993 cult classic Demolition Man - plus the iconic 80s action star Robocop.

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Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot dominates parkour on wheels in new footage 03-01

Boston Dynamics’ wheeled Handle robot received much fanfare earlier this month when DFJ partner Steve Jurvetson slipped us an early video from a company Keynote. Today we have more details on Handle in the form of a shiny HD video.

We already knew Handle could manage some pretty sick hurdles and spins, but the new video shows us how the robot can operate in tough environments — on hills, in the snow and over uneven terrain. It’s able to do this with a height of 6.5 feet that surpasses that of most humans. On wheels, it can move at a chipper nine mph and manage four-foot vertical jumps. If you’re wondering, the highest human jump ever recorded is 5.3 feet. (Take that Handle!)

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Robots Perform Manual Labor to Make Farming Easier 02-11

Robots Perform Manual Labor to Make Farming Easier

Farming by hand involves a lot of intense labor and some mindless tasks.

There’s a startup that thinks there’s a better way to do things. Harvest Automation designs robots that arrange pots in nurseries and greenhouses. But soon, they might be able to accomplish even more – like warehousing and manufacturing.

The startup based out of Billerica, Mass., hopes to take care of some simple and often labor-intensive tasks that can be hard on workers. Moving pots around might not seem like the most important purpose for a robot, but it is actually the perfect jumping off point for Harvest Automation.

Some of the company’s founders previously worked on the team that developed the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. But when they left the company, they took some time to decide what type of robot to develop next. And they knew that instead of making a multi-functioning robot, they wanted to make a robot that did one thing really well.

Moving potted plants around is essential for keeping plants healthy as they grow and need more space. It is also a task that is simple enough for a robot to process and difficult enough to be unpleasant or even dangerous for human workers.

But the company isn’t trying to replace human workers with robots. Instead, it simply aims to make the whole process easier by automating very specific tasks. Harvest Automation co-founder and CTO Joseph Jones spoke to Inc about the company:

“We were naturally concerned about accusations that our robots would steal jobs. Charlie [Grinnell, the company’s COO] talked to customers about that early on. They said, “Don’t worry. We’re not going to fire anybody.” Currently, growers have a shortage of workers, so they plan to keep them on and give them higher-value tasks. And the workers we are training tell us they would much rather supervise robots than move pots around by hand.”

The company is still in its early stages. It plans to work on automating some other tasks as well, while still making sure each robot specializes in one thing. That will allow people to improve the whole farming process, save money and resources, and potentially even make it a more earth-friendly process.

Image: Harvest Automation, Facebook

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Bots Now Outnumber Humans on the Web 01-03

Bots Now Outnumber Humans on the Web

Diogo Mónica once wrote a short computer script that gave him a secret weapon in the war for San Francisco dinner reservations.

This was early 2013. The script would periodically scan the popular online reservation service, OpenTable, and drop him an email anytime something interesting opened up—a choice Friday night spot at the House of Prime Rib, for example. But soon, Mónica noticed that he wasn’t getting the tables that had once been available.

By the time he’d check the reservation site, his previously open reservation would be booked. And this was happening crazy fast. Like in a matter of seconds. “It’s impossible for a human to do the three forms that are required to do this in under three seconds,” he told WIRED last year.

Mónica could draw only one conclusion: He’d been drawn into a bot war.

Everyone knows the story of how the world wide web made the internet accessible for everyone, but a lesser known story of the internet’s evolution is how automated code—aka bots—came to quietly take it over. Today, bots account for 56 percent of all of website visits, says Marc Gaffan, CEO of Incapsula, a company that sells online security services. Incapsula recently an an analysis of 20,000 websites to get a snapshot of part of the web, and on smaller websites, it found that bot traffic can run as high as 80 percent.

People use scripts to buy gear on eBay and, like Mónica, to snag the best reservations. Last month, the band, Foo Fighters sold tickets for their upcoming tour at box offices only, an attempt to strike back against the bots used by online scalpers. “You should expect to see it on ticket sites, travel sites, dating sites,” Gaffan says. What’s more, a company like Google uses bots to index the entire web, and companies such as IFTTT and Slack give us ways use the web to use bots for good, personalizing our internet and managing the daily informational deluge.

But, increasingly, a slice of these online bots are malicious—used to knock websites offline, flood comment sections with spam, or scrape sites and reuse their content without authorization. Gaffan says that about 20 percent of the Web’s traffic comes from these bots. That’s up 10 percent from last year.

Often, they’re running on hacked computers. And lately they’ve become more sophisticated. They are better at impersonating Google, or at running in real browsers on hacked computers. And they’ve made big leaps in breaking human-detecting captcha puzzles, Gaffan says.

“Essentially there’s been this evolution of bots, where we’ve seen it become easier and more prevalent over the past couple of years,” says Rami Essaid, CEO of Distil Networks, a company that sells bot-blocking software.

But despite the rise of these bad bots, there is some good news for the human race. The total percentage of bot-related web traffic is actually down this year from what it was in 2013. Back then it accounted for 60 percent of the traffic, 4 percent more than today.

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Watch it run! MIT's new robotic cheetah can even leap over hurdles 09-17

Watch it run! MIT's new robotic cheetah can even leap over hurdles
The cheetah is off the leash! Researchers at MIT have built a four-legged robot that runs like the super-fast spotted feline and can even run on its own power, off a treadmill. The robot has now been filmed sprinting like a champ across grassy fields on the MIT university campus.

MIT researchers have come up with a cheetah robot that can run 10 miles per hour and jump over foot-high obstacles, scientists say. (Melanie Gonick / MIT)

When tested on an indoor track, the robo-cheetah could run at a good clip of 10 miles per hour, and the researchers think that it could eventually reach speeds of 30 miles per hour. That still doesn’t hold a candle to an actual cheetah, which can reach speeds of 60 miles per hour in a matter of seconds — but it’s fast where legged robots are concerned.

If the robo-cheetah can indeed reach those speeds, it could potentially give Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt, who’s been clocked at nearly 28 miles per hour, a run for his money. In any case, the robot is already a multi-sport athlete  – it can also do hurdles, leaping over obstacles up to 1.08 feet tall and sprinting onward.

The key is in the running algorithm that the researchers developed. A rolling robot (or vehicle) will spin its wheels faster when it wants to pick up the pace. But that’s not the way this legged robot works. Instead of pumping its legs faster and faster, the cheetah robot puts more force into each step, so each stride takes it a little farther in the same time.

Heavy running robots typically can’t control force very well at high speeds as their feet pound the ground, but MIT’s cheetah can – which means it can navigate rougher terrain without breaking its stride.The work, which was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is being presented at the 2014 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems meeting in Chicago.This cheetah robot runs by bounding, which is when the front legs hit the ground together, followed by the back legs. It’s similar to the way a rabbit runs, and it’s relatively simpler to imitate than more complex patterns of four-legged running, like trotting or galloping.

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