Monthly Archives: June 2022

Amazon's Astro home robot

Amazon

Electronics companies have for years paraded around flashy, futuristic prototypes of consumer robots. They've pointed to a not-too-distant future where people will have roaming robot helpers around their home that can do the dishes or even act as a personal masseuse. So far, few of those predictions have panned out, and they largely remain the stuff of science fiction.

Last week, at Amazon's re:MARS technology conference in Las Vegas, the e-commerce giant and other technology companies in attendance showed off the latest in robotics.

I noticed there weren't bold marketing proclamations of "robot butlers" or "AI dogs" as I walked the show floor. The robots were designed to look more practical, and many of the devices could only do a few simple tasks.

Take Amazon's Astro robot, for example. The company last September unveiled the long-rumored home robot, which costs $1,000 for invitation-only shoppers. It will cost $1,500 once it launches publicly at a date yet to be announced. At re:MARS, Astro greeted visitors of a mock smart home tricked out with an array of internet-connected devices.

At roughly two feet tall, Astro appears similar to a tablet on wheels. It can follow you around the house and play music, or carry drinks in a cup holder built into the device. Astro has a camera perched on top of a periscope that can rise up high enough to keep an eye on your home while you're away. It can dance to disco in your kitchen.

Beyond those features, Astro's most basic functions aren't too different from those offered by other, cheaper Amazon-branded devices with its Alexa digital assistant. For example, it can deliver reminders, set alarms, make a video call or play a YouTube video, similar to an Echo Show smart display.

And even though Astro is billed as a household robot, it can't follow you to every room, that is if you have a place with interior stairs, because it can't go up and down them. It also doesn't have hands, so it can't retrieve items.

"The technology to safely go up and down stairs at consumer robot price points is beyond the state of the art," Ken Washington, Amazon's vice president of software engineering for consumer robotics, told reporters last week. "So it's something we're looking into. Can we do that at a lower price point? Are there technologies that allow us to solve that problem inexpensively, safely and reliably? Today it's not within the state of the art, but it doesn't mean it won't be one day."

In an interview, Washington made clear that this isn't the final version of Astro, nor is it the company's last robot. Amazon is also considering opening up Astro to third-party developers and allowing them to build new skills, said Washington, who joined the company last June after serving as Ford's chief technology officer.

Doing so could potentially fast-track the process of making Astro smarter and more useful.

"We know part of the scaling algorithm has to be engaging others, just like we did with Alexa," Washington said. "That's something we're thinking very hard about."

Astro's home security, entertainment and remote tools for caring for elderly family members have been popular features among early users. Amazon says it was most surprised to find that users want more features that let Astro interact with their pets.

"One customer tried to enroll their cat in visual ID [Astro's facial recognition feature], which didn't work," Washington said. "Now we're wondering, should we enroll cats in visual ID?"

Amazon does know a thing or two about robots: It launched Amazon Robotics and focused on automating aspects of its warehouse operations a decade ago when Kiva Systems was acquired for $775 million.

In the years since, it has expanded beyond industrial robotics, launching a consumer robotics division within Lab126, its secretive hardware unit.

The division has been growing, and last month opened a new consumer robotics center in Bangalore, India, where Washington said Amazon plans to hire dozens of software engineers to work on Astro. Amazon tested Astro in real and mock homes in Chennai, a city located on the country's east coast, he added.

The Astro team is working on making it more natural for users to hold a conversation with the device, which primarily communicates with chirps and a pair of circles on the screen that are meant to resemble eyes.

"Today, interaction with Astro is very transactional," Washington said. "When you talk to your partner, or your spouse, or your kids, or your friend, you don't say, 'Bob, what's the weather?' You just don't talk that way. So we're thinking about ways to make it more natural to have a dialogue with Astro."

Embodied, an AI startup backed by the Alexa Fund, Amazon's venture capital arm, is also trying to make talking to robots more natural, but it may have an easier time doing so given its target customer.

It has been selling Moxie, a squat, friendly AI robot "companion," since 2020. In a conversation at re:MARS, Caitlyn Clabaugh, a robot-learning scientist at Embodied, said Moxie is meant for kids between 5 and 10 years old and is designed to help teach them social and emotional skills.

"There's a huge market for robot companionship, and kids are so adaptable to new technology," Clabaugh said, adding that Embodied has been surprised by how naturally children have taken to conversing with the robot.

Moxie is priced at $1,000 and can't move around. But it can gesture by moving its arms. An LCD screen is built into Moxie's head, which is backlit by an internal projector that gives the device an expressive, cartoonish face.

Another robot on display at re:MARS was Labrador Retriever, a cube-shaped device on wheels that more closely resembles a coffee table than Rosey from "The Jetsons." It has no humanoid features, like mechanical arms or legs, but it can fetch items around your home.

The Labrador Retriever uses an accordion-like system for lifting up and down, while an automatic retrieval feature enables it to pick up trays of items that are on a flat, open surface like a countertop or table.

Labrador Systems has developed a robot designed to assist people with chronic diseases, by lifting and transporting heavy objects around the home.

Labrador Systems

Labrador Systems, which is backed by Amazon's Alexa Fund and co-founded by Mike Dooley, a former vice president at Roomba maker iRobot, developed the device to assist people with chronic illness or diseases that may restrict their range of motion. The Labrador Retriever can help make household chores easier, by carrying laundry or other heavy objects, say, and it can deliver meals.

Labrador Systems also is testing the device in senior living homes, which Dooley said in an interview is "apt timing" given the nationwide labor shortage. Dooley was adamant that the robot isn't meant to replace workers, rather is designed to relieve them of some tedious tasks, giving them more time to interact with residents.

Machines are increasingly working alongside humans in Amazon's warehouses. The company last week debuted two new devices, Proteus and Cardinal, that will join the roughly 520,000 robots already in its fulfillment and sorting centers.

Amazon says Proteus is its "first fully autonomous mobile robot." Traditionally, Amazon has kept its industrial robots cordoned off in restricted areas of its warehouses where they don't interact with employees. The company said it believes Proteus can safely incorporate robots in the same physical space as people.

Proteus and Cardinal, a robotic arm, are aimed at reducing some of warehouse workers' most strenuous tasks, like moving heavy objects and repetitive turning and twisting motions. This is especially critical for Amazon, which has faced a steady drumbeat of criticism over its labor record and employee injury rates.

Amazon warehouse workers in the U.S. suffered serious injuries at twice the rate of rival companies in 2021, according to a recent study by a coalition of labor unions, based on data submitted to federal safety regulators.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has pushed back on this data and defended the company's safety record. Amazon also has pledged to make safety and employee satisfaction a greater priority within the company, vowing to be "Earth's Best Employer."

Amazon Robotics head Tye Brady said last week that automation is a key part of increasing safety, although that prospect has been debated. An investigation by the Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found the company's warehouses with robots have higher injury rates than facilities without automation.

On stage at re:MARS, Brady described how Amazon is using robots to get packages prepped and ready to ship out, but he asserted the job can't be done without people.

"It is a symphony of people and machines working together to do this," Brady said. "We index highly on safety in order to do that job, but you can't do one without the other. We could not achieve what we've done throughout the pandemic without having the right blend of automation and our amazing employees on [the] front line."

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Amazon wants us to believe the robots are coming but most people won't find them useful - CNBC

NORFOLK, Va., June 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SVT Robotics, whose software accelerates and simplifies the integration and deployment of robotics, today announced that Griffin Chronis has joined the executive team as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Chronis comes to SVT from Salesforce after spending the previous decade co-founding BeyondCore, an artificial intelligence company acquired by Salesforce in 2016, integrated with Analytics Cloud, and rebranded as Einstein Discovery.

Griffins experience and leadership in the technology space bring a level of innovative vision that ensures we can continue to scale our product in ways most beneficial to our customers and partners in this ever-evolving marketplace, said A.K. Schultz, CEO of SVT Robotics. Were thrilled to have him leading our software and product engineering teams here at SVT.

I am excited and honored to join A.K. and the SVT Robotics team as Chief Technology Officer, said Chronis. These are amazing people, and I love the enthusiasm of the culture here. SVT has embarked on a great journey with its unique SOFTBOT Platform, and I look forward to further advancing the immense potential of this ground-breaking technology.

Prior to his time with Salesforce, Chronis participated in video game, enterprise search, and social networking companies. He joins SVT Robotics as the company continues to receive a surge of interest and recognition for their SOFTBOT Platform. This past year, they closed a $25 million Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Prologis Ventures. In addition to being named one of Fast Companys 2022 Worlds Most Innovative Companies, SVT was named a 2022 MHI Innovation Award finalist, and a 2021 Gartner Cool Vendor.

Chronis lives in San Francisco with his wife, Elizabeth, and sons, Apollo, and Ares.

About SVT RoboticsSVT Robotics is an enterprise software company thats revolutionizing robot deployments in the warehousing and manufacturing industries. SVT's SOFTBOT Platform enables companies to integrate any robot, automation, IoT device, or human productivity tool for any task in just days or weeks. Learn more and join the revolution at svtrobotics.com. Follow us on Twitter,Facebook, andLinkedIn.

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SVT Robotics Names Griffin Chronis as Chief Technology Officer to Drive Innovation in Next Stage of Growth - GlobeNewswire

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Brady Watkins, SoftBank Robotics Americas new President. | Source: SoftBank Robotics America

SoftBank Robotics America (SBRA) announced it appointed Brady Watkins as president of the company. Watkins previously served as the companys senior vice president and general manager.

Were grateful for Bradys demonstrated leadership in our organization, as well as his ability to unite stakeholders in the robotics industry, Kent Yoshida, Chief Business Officer at SoftBank Robotics Group (SBRG), said. As ongoing labor shortages throughout the globe have created increased demand for autonomous solutions, we see great potential for growth in the U.S. market and look forward to working with Brady and the SBRA team to achieve these goals.

During his time as senior vice president and general manager, Watkins helped to scale and commercialize Whiz, a collaborative robot vacuum. His work in North America helped drive the company towards putting 20,000 units in market globally.

Watkins also aided in entering SBRA into a strategic development and equity partnership with Autonomous Solutions Inc, bringing SBRA into the outdoor automation market. The partnership aims to accelerate the development and deployment of landscaping care and logistics solutions.

As President of SBRA, Watkins will focus on products and services for commercial management in the real estate, transportations and retail sectors, among others. Watkins will continue to push the company into new product lines, while also working in development, engineering, marketing and customer success.

Before his time at SBRA, Watkins was the vice president of digital client solutions at InnerWorkings. Watkins also spent over 10 years working at Ubisoft, where he held a number of positions including brand manager and director of sales planning and integration.

SBRA is the North American arm of SoftBank Robotics. SoftBank Robotics has offices in Tokyo, San Francisco, Boston, London, Paris, Hamberg, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and aims to become a worldwide leader in robotics solutions.

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Brady Watkins appointed as President of SoftBank Robotics America - Robot Report

Over the past four months, the Russia military analysis community reevaluated earlier assumptions about Moscows militarys capabilities, starting from the onset of the Ukraine invasion, through todays grinding tactics and concepts that show a more competent Russian force eventually emerging against Ukrainian defenders. This reevaluation likewise involved the assessment of unmanned and autonomous capabilities that Russia touted before the war as game-changing technology. At this point in the conflict, the videos and images from the Ukrainian front confirm that enabling technology like unmanned aerial vehicles are in fact a significant part of how Russia fights today in Ukraine, underscoring that this capability is pivotal to the Russian militarys ongoing war.

Prior to this conflict, a lot of useful analysis and commentary was available for review about Russias development of unmanned aerial, ground, and maritime systems as near-future enablers of what was supposed to be a modernized Russian military preparing for the next war. A lot of that information was derived from Russian-language public sources, and judged accordingly, given the brevity of descriptions or occasional lack of technical specifications, beyond initial and sometimes hyperbolic announcements about the potential use and utility of these platforms. In the opening weeks and even two months into its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian militarys autonomous and unmanned performance was rather weak or even altogether lacking, leading to early conclusions that perhaps this capability was over-emphasized when compared to other systems and weapons. However, as the months went on, concepts and tactics took shape that were more in line with the Russian militarys pre-war preparation and training that involved unmanned aerial vehicles in particular as key enablers of ground forces. Russias current performance in the conflict which involves heavy use of aerial drones and growing use of unmanned ground systems is underscoring earlier assumptions about the utility of this technology in war. Despite concerns raised in the early weeks of the war about the accuracy of Western analysis of the Russian military, the community still had a good grasp of the Russian militarys commitment to robotics and autonomy. Future analysis should incorporate what we see in the current war, with the pre-February 2022 analysis in the background.

As the relevance of this technology continues to grow in this conflict, it is important to note a few facts about Russias military autonomy and AI-enabling research and development. Information from the Russian media and in military journals enabled the analytical communitys understanding of overall research and development trends across the Russian military. Announcements of systems built and tested piecemeal, or of technology allegedly in development, pointed to the evolution of Russian military thought similar to that of other high-tech militaries like those of the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, or China. This general direction suggests a slow but eventual, and seemingly unavoidable, evolution from military technology with the human fighter as the key performance metric toward one in which unmanned and autonomous systems will take on greater responsibilities. These autonomous systems continue evolving, after significant testing and evaluation, into combat partners, and eventually into the first line of attack. To analysts outside Russia, that seemed to be the general direction in which the Russian military was heading.

While many of these Russian projects are still ongoing, and probably will be in the testing stages for quite a while, studying them nonetheless yielded some insights into how Russia is trying to conceptualize future ground warfare, maritime strikes, or aerial combat to counter and dominate adversaries. This information was on a parallel path to the U.S. Department of Defenses thinking through todays and future battlefield problems that can be solved by military robotics, a catch-all phrase used by both the Russian military establishment and its journalist community. Of the dozens of projects funded by the Russian Ministry of Defense, few eventually matured to the point of serious testing and evaluation. But even a few such concepts such as the Marker unmanned ground vehicle, Okhotnik unmanned aerial combat vehicle, and Vityaz deep-diving autonomous underwater vehicle provided an overview of what could potentially come down the line, assuming many factors like economics, manufacturing, and political support lined up. These factors included not just the funding and technical acumen of the enterprises and manufacturers, but the users capable evaluation of how such technology would enable operations in a difficult and unpredictable combat environment.

This leads to the second assessment about the presence of this technology at the tactical level in Ukraine. The Russian military is flying numerous drone missions practically around the clock, losing many drones to Ukraines capable air defenses. With the Ukrainian military proudly showing off many downed Russian aerial drone models on social media, questions arose about the tactics that eventually lead to so many losses, and the longevity of the Russian drone fleet in this war. In fact, many of these failures probably originate in Russian drone training and testing. What was and still is notably absent in the Russian defense medias analysis and announcements of drills with unmanned aerial vehicles is the ability of red teams to really test the Russian forces capabilities and ad-hoc battlefield flexibility. In the United States, such adversary or opposing force teams exist across all services to constantly test existing tactics and technologies, and their work is publicly debated, especially when they score training and exercise successes against blue forces.

On the other hand, the Russian media description of exercises involving emerging technology like drones often described a one-sided combat scenario, with the blue force successfully using drones against saboteurs or enemies to eliminate the adversary formations. In these exercises, the drones would always locate the opponents and would transmit their coordinates for subsequent ground and aerial strikes. Rarely did the Russian military team simulating the adversary employ counter-measures against the main force, and the pre-determined drill outcome placed the drone on the winning and unchallenged side. In fact, even the description of the opposing forces used often in many of these exercises saboteurs instead of enemy special forces or regular troops willing to disrupt Russian operations evoked formations and units less professional or less equipped for the task. There were several large-scale Russian military drills like Zapad-2021 that involved sophisticated counter-drone systems and tactics, but those likely featured pre-scripted scenarios that announced different vehicle types like Orlan-10, Forpost, and Orion drones completing their missions seemingly without significant obstacles to their operation.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military establishment broadly used the phrase lessons learned from Syria to denote the general direction for force training. The Russian military may have underestimated the strength of Ukrainian air defenses and trained its aerial drone units against what they thought were forces similar to those encountered in Syria. The numerous Russian losses over Ukraine early on may have created the impression that the Russian military overestimated the success of its drone units and technologies. However, as the war continues, Russian military operations involving drones as key elements of reconnaissance-strike contours point to the eventual emergence of core tactics that were tested by Russian ground, intel, airborne, and marine forces. Today, Russian soldiers launching their Orlan-10s to directly strike or identify Ukrainian forces, or using a commercial DJI model just to get additional intelligence and reconnaissance data around the corner, indicates the continued presence of such technologies that have become almost organic to practically any military formation in this war.

The Russian drones remain one of the most visible high-tech aspects of this war, whether military-grade Orlan-10 or Eleron-3, or the numerous civilian DJI models. These unmanned vehicles are key to pivotal tasks like identifying targets, serving as artillery spotters, or as just another pair of eyes to monitor the ground conditions. Their loss is built into their missions they are supposed to be expendable and relatively inexpensive when compared to launching manned missions to do the same job. Pre-war Russian media descriptions and articles on drone development and future capabilities supported the overall Ministry of Defense concept of technology assisting humans on dangerous missions, even if augmented by hyperbolic statements from the Russian defense industry about mass acquisition of these and other advanced systems in the very near future.

The same can be said of the numerous Russian unmanned ground vehicle projects systems that are eventually supposed to provide logistical, intelligence, de-mining, fire, and combat support to Russias massive ground forces. Most of these projects have not yet graduated past the development and testing stages. The slow but steady roll-out of such systems like Uran-6 and Kobra unmanned ground vehicles in Ukraine for de-mining and intelligence-gathering underscores Russian willingness to continually test such technology in its past, current, and future wars.

Evaluating Russias pre-war maritime autonomous systems was more difficult, given that less information existed in the first place beyond the official announcements of programs launched and potentially tested. Overall, the available data still made it possible to paint a larger picture of what may come next if the stars align for the Russian defense industry and the Ministry of Defense.

This alignment may be in question given the current state of Russian military performance in the war, the ongoing transformation and restructuring of the Russian economy due to sanctions, the brain drain that seems to be affecting the Russian defense industry, and the hints that Russia may be running out of key high-tech equipment and components. None of this is stopping the Russian Ministry of Defense from placing an emphasis on military autonomy and robotics as key investments in future combat capabilities. It remains to be seen whether these announcements are propelled by inertia from pre-February 2022 planning and resource allocation, or decisions made in light of the information analyzed from the war. If anything, the ongoing combat in Ukraine and the heavy toll on soldiers reinforces proposals by the Russian military establishment for substituting uncrewed aerial, ground, and maritime systems in place of the aircraft, helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles, and naval vessels that are being lost in significant numbers by both sides. It is unlikely that the Russian military would significantly alter its current research and development ecosystem for such emerging technology, considering how much other leading and competing powers are investing in military autonomy and robotics.

Whatever lessons Russian military learns from this war and is willing to make public would still create space for the utility of such robotic systems, given the overall global trends and discussions of these systems for combat. This may seem like a tall order at this point, given the mounting numbers of Russian soldiers killed and the prevalence of crewed systems taking heavy punishment from the Ukrainian military, all pointing to the centrality of human fighters to Russian military thinking. The initial surprise at the relatively poor Russian military campaign was also juxtaposed against the Ukrainian militarys successful fielding of different types of aerial drones to blunt, counter, and even defeat Russian advances. With this technology now firmly in focus by all who follow this war, the Russian military will continue analyzing its near- and long-term impact on force development and combat operations, as well as the need to operate such systems in combined arms formations. As researchers and analysts of the Russian military in general, it is our task to record and to understand these deliberations, while keeping an objective eye on what the Russian military says, does, and writes about the eventual emergence of new technologies in future wars.

Samuel Bendett is an adviser with CNA Russia Studies Program and an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security.

Image: Russian Ministry of Defence

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To Robot or Not to Robot? Past Analysis of Russian Military Robotics and Today's War in Ukraine - War on the Rocks

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded $600,000 of additional funding towards a concept that would see swarms of diminutive swimming robots sent to explore oceans on moons or planets throughout the solar system.

Such a system of distributed tiny robots could extend the reach of a mission sent to study oceans beneath the icy surfaces of some of our solar system's moons such as Saturn's Enceladus or Jupiter's Europa. The concept, called "Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers," or SWIM, is the brainchild of Ethan Schaler, a robotics mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The latest funding award was announced in a Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release.

"My idea is, where can we take miniaturized robotics and apply them in interesting new ways for exploring our solar system?" Schaler said in the statement. "With a swarm of small swimming robots, we are able to explore a much larger volume of ocean water and improve our measurements by having multiple robots collecting data in the same area."

While sending robotic explorers to other planets and moons is not a new idea, the SWIM concept would use robots that are much smaller than those typically proposed. The SWIM robots would measure just five inches (12 centimeters) in length and take up only around 3 to 5 cubic inches (60 to 75 cubic centimeters) in volume. Each robot would contain its own onboard computer, propulsion system, an ultrasound communication system, and various sensors to measure temperature, acidity, pressure, or other variables. The new funding JPL awarded the SWIM concept will help work towards including chemical sensors that might be able to detect biomarkers in the seas around them.

Schaler envisions dozens of these fitting inside a single robotic "cryobot" that could penetrate a moon's or planet's ice caps in order to reach any seas below. Deploying dozens of the tiny robots could greatly expand the geographical reach of a mission to Europa or Enceladus or any other body on which seas or oceans are found.

Related: Europa: Facts About Jupiter's Icy Moon and Its Ocean

"What if, after all those years it took to get into an ocean, you come through the ice shell in the wrong place? What if there's signs of life over there but not where you entered the ocean?" added SWIM team scientist Samuel Howell of JPL. "By bringing these swarms of robots with us, we'd be able to look 'over there' to explore much more of our environment than a single cryobot would allow."

In addition, a distributed swarm of sensor-laden robots would be able to overlap their measurements, thus reducing potential errors. More data points also means greater ability to detect gradients or variances in the swimmers' environment.

The micro-swimmers concept remains hypothetical and is not currently being eyed for any specific NASA mission. However, NASA is currently working towards a 2024 launch for its Europa Clipper mission which will circle Europa dozens of times to study the moon. It's possible the data obtained from Europa Clipper could inform a future mission that includes tiny SWIM robots to finally take a dive into the subsurface oceans under the moon's icy surface.

Email Brett at BTingley@Space.com or follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

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Swarms of tiny robots may one day explore oceans on other worlds - Space.com

How efficient your workforce is and how quick they learn and adapt, makes them resilient to face the impact of change

By Kiran N. Kumar

In a peer-reviewed publication, a team from the University of Pittsburgh found that the German workers were not taking to substance abuse as theirAmerican counterparts after robots replaced them in the work environment.

While automation truly enhances productivity and reduces accidents, it was found more harmful to the mental health of human co-workers, suggests the study published last week in Labor Economics from Pitt economist Osea Giuntella.

Read: Robots to wipe out more than half of jobs within next 30 years (June 6, 2016)

Rania Giuntella, co-author of the study from Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences says, On one hand, robots could take some of the most strenuous, physically intensive, and risky tasks.

On the other hand, the competition with robots may increase the pressure on workers who may lose their jobs or be forced to retrain. Of course, labor market institutions may play an important role, particularly in a transition phase.

Crucial transition phase

These findings reiterate the need for a transition process before robots or Artificial Intelligence (AI) take over most of the jobs, making humans redundant and resilient in work places.

In the US, more people working alongside robots had resulted in a significant increase of 37.8 cases per 100,000 people in drug or alcohol related deaths, besides a slight increase in suicide rate and mental health issues.

When researchers investigated the effects of robotics on workers in Germany, they did not find significant mental-health change due to robotics.

So, the imminent question follows: Why does American automation at work seem to result in much more negative outcomes than in Germany?

Robot exposure did not cause disruptive job losses as Germany has a much higher employment protection legislation, Giuntella explains.

Read: Good bots vs bad bots: In elections, who decides what? (June 22, 2022)

Our evidence finds that, in both contexts, robots have a positive impact on the physical health of workers by reducing injuries and work-related disabilities.

However, our findings suggest that, in contexts where workers were less protected, competition with robots was associated with a rise in mental health problems.

Giuntella, who has studied the effects of robotics on economic stature and marital lifestyle, however, offers no quick-fix solution.

There has been an intense debate on the effects of robotics and automation on labor market outcomes, but we still know little about how these structural economic changes are reshaping key life-course choices, he said.

Choice after job loss

Last year, McKinsey Global Institute predicted that 45 million Americans or one-quarter of the workforce would lose their jobs to automation by 2030, accentuated by Covid-19 pandemic and the possibility of recession.

But optimists argue that automation being constant, loss of jobs remain a temporary phase since new inventions create new markets and new jobs. The opponents point out that the robot job apocalypse scenario due to AI is advancing so quickly that replacement jobs wont keep pace.

Another McKinsey report estimates that the loss of jobs could be 27%, but after diversifying the workforce into new roles, the effective job losses could only be 9%. Still it is high enough not to be discarded easily.

Here, the solution shown should not be isolated to mental impact on the labor force but in German resilience that could be gleaned from the study.

The German worker could adapt to change quickly, but his American counterpart did not. Efficiency of Germans being what it is, American workers are seeking a protective shield instead, in the form of a government bailout or income protection.

Read: Robots are driving U.S. workers towards substance abuse, mental illness (June 30, 2022)

No wonder, a solution offered by Andrew Yang, who was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, becomes contextual here. He proposed that lack of jobs should entail all Americans to a $1,000 monthly government income.

Is it a solution? In a scenario of 100-meter race, an Olympic runner takes 6 to 7 seconds but an ordinary runner takes more than 20 seconds.

Efficiency matters! How efficient your workforce is and how quick they learn and adapt, makes them resilient to face the impact of change, whether from robots or AI. Unless this is addressed, a holistic solution remains far-fetched.

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Why are robots driving US workers to substance abuse, not... - The American Bazaar