Digital servants: How digital servants we make everyday life easier – Business Week

Andreas Menn

Robots selling coffee machines, bring breakfast to your hotel room, take out the garbage down – and that’s just the beginning. An excursion into the world of useful machines.

They look like real people, they talk like humans, they move like humans. And yet, the hero of which tells the Swedish television series “Real Humans”, Mechanical Engineering, engineers are brought into the world to work for the people. This is quite genre justice, not without conflict from even bloody.

It is time for the androids to seek out a PR consultant to the get rid of bad, like availed image. For robots make themselves out to conquer our everyday lives, quite peaceful, quite serviceable. About the new Japanese high-tech hotel Henn-na at an amusement park near Nagasaki. In the 72-room hostel from July to three androids at the front desk to take the check: brunette females in blue uniform, made by the Japanese manufacturer Kokoro. You are looking for eye contact, speaking in several languages ​​- and yet they are machines

Let there be the most efficient hotel in the world, announced Hideo Sawada, the President of the theme park, recently at.. “In the future, robots 90 percent of hotel work.” In Henn-na are only ten people work because machines are also carrying the suitcase and clean the hallways. Because their labor costs little, there is the room already from 60 dollars.

android marching

• 2000

  In 2000, spent $ 7.4 billion for machines. About 50% for industry and the other half for military robots.

• 2005

  Within 5 years, expenditure increased to 10.8 billion dollars, including costs for machines that have been used in the service area.

• 2010

  In 2010, already 15 ., 1 billion dollars invested in clever machines, the largest share in industrial robots

• 2015

  $ 26.9 billion invested in 2015 are expected to be in the machine, the prognosis of the Boston Consulting Group.

• 2020

  The forecast for the year 2020 predicts that in 5 years, $ 42.9 billion will be spent on equipment.

• 2025

  By 2025, and shall include costs for room, service, industrial and military robots.

For some it may be a nightmare for others a temptation: Robots, welcome us , use, advise. When in April starts the Hanover Fair, the largest industry show in the world, visitors will meet them there almost on every corner – Autonomous Transportation, talking android hands of metal that will relieve us soon sorts of everyday work. Not only in factories but also at home, in the office, on the site.

Robots on hospital wards

During their predecessors monotonically welded mainly used in car factories to himself, the newcomers ” now mobile, recognize faces and always learning new things, “said Liepert, innovation chief at the Augsburg robot manufacturer Kuka and President of the European industry association euRobotics AISBL.

In dozens of hospitals worldwide roll recently, man-sized vans to the halls, such as the medicine cabinet Tug of US manufacturers Aethon, and bring drugs or laundry on the hospital wards. A restaurant in the Chinese city of Harbin employs 20 million Tin Men who cook dumplings in a wok and bring on a tray to the table. The US start-up Knight Scope has developed based on the eponymous Hollywood movies a Robocop, an egg-shaped fellow who is patrolling in office buildings -. And track with all kinds of sensors burglar

An armada of machine operators, of digital servants is approaching. Optimists hope for a new wave of prosperity, more comfortable with the travel, cheaper products are everyday jobs easier. “Robots can perform many tasks that people still do today, and the efficient and significantly cheaper,” says Alison Sander, head of the Boston office of trend research consultancy BCG. According to their calculations, the world market for robots grows by 2025 to 67 billion dollars (see chart).

Usually goes a resume to the recruiter. But increasingly, the computer decides by statistics program, who will be taken and who is not. Uniformity rather than diversity is the new motto.

An industry powers

German manufacturer, traditionally strong in automation technology , according to a study by the consulting firm McKinsey have very good opportunities to profit from the boom. But the competition never sleeps: Japan, South Korea and the US wants to get in on the robot revolution at the front. Ever since Google has entered the market and has bought a dozen robotics and software start-ups, the industry is under power. “The pace of innovation attracts,” says industry representatives Liepert. “We must not be afraid of Google, but take it seriously.”

Three trends accelerate the development: First sensors have become dirt cheap – especially thanks to the mobile boom. So now recognize reliable robot obstacles, corners nowhere more. Second, computer chips now enough computing power to analyze the data of cameras, motion knives and Co. quickly. As a result, recognize objects and clever machines can engage with their metal fingers. Third, they can access the internet on huge databases that give them new functions. Thus, there are networked toy that talks to children – thanks linguistic understanding of IBM’s supercomputer Watson (see page 68).