The humans behind the robots

This is the central question in my magazine story, published online today, about whether we will trust humanoid robots enough to welcome them into our most personal spaces, especially if they are part of asymmetric labor arrangements in which workers The low-wage state uses robotic interfaces to perform manual tasks for us in our homes. In this article, I write about a robotics company called Prosper, which hired ex-Pixar designers and professional housekeepers to put a huge effort into designing a trustworthy home robot named Alfie. ). It’s been quite a ride. Read the story here.

The story raises a larger question, though, about how profoundly transformative robotics will be in the coming years.

Robots have been successful on assembly lines and other predictable environments for decades. Then, over the past few years, with the help of artificial intelligence, robots began to be able to learn tasks more quickly, which expanded their application to tasks in more chaotic environments, such as picking orders in a warehouse. But a growing number of deep-pocketed companies are driving a more significant shift.

Prosper and others were betting that they wouldn’t have to build a perfect robot that could do everything on its own. Instead, they can build a very good system but with help from remote operators anywhere in the world. If they work well enough, they hope to bring robots into jobs that most of us think can’t be automated: hotel housekeepers, hospital caregivers, or housekeeping. Shariq Hashme, founder and CEO of Prosper, told me that “almost any manual indoor job” can be performed.

So far, we have primarily viewed automation and outsourcing as two independent forces that can affect labor markets. Jobs may be outsourced offshore or lost to automation, but not both. A job that cannot be sent overseas and cannot be fully automated by machines, such as cleaning hotel rooms, is not going anywhere. Now, advances in robotics promise to allow employers to outsource such jobs to low-wage countries, without the need for technology to fully automate them.

To be clear, this is a tall order. As advanced as robots are, they can be difficult to move through complex environments like restaurants and hospitals, even with help. It will take years for this to change. However, robots will only become more flexible, and so will the systems that enable them to be controlled from the other side of the world. Eventually, these companies’ bets may pay off.