Then call them ‘robots’ • TechCrunch

before they were Robots, they were “androids” or “automata”. The word “robot” is generally accepted as having been brought to English through Czech drama. “RUR” made its debut in Prague 102 years ago yesterday. It arrived in America a year and a half later, with Spencer Tracy making his wordless Broadway debut as one of Rossum’s famous Universal Robots.

Playwright Karel Čapek humbly states that for the next decade he failed to fully acknowledge the origin of the word. The honor belonged to his younger brother Josef, who was an accomplished painter and an eminent writer and poet.

“Listen, Joseph,” the author began.

“Oh my god,” muttered the painter (he really muttered, because at that moment he had a brush in his mouth). The author told him as briefly as possible.

“Then write it down,” said the painter, without removing his brush from his mouth or interrupting his work on the canvas. Indifference was pretty insulting.

“But,” said the author. I can call them laboli, but I think that’s a bit bookish. “

“Call me a robot then,” muttered the painter, brushing his mouth and continuing to paint. And that was how it was done. Thus the word robot was born. Let’s acknowledge that this is its true creator.

Perhaps it would be better to end with a derivative of “robota” instead of “labori”. Because the latter all too clearly betrays its underlying definition to English speakers. The former certainly operates in the same ballpark, meaning “slave or forced labor,” but that requires knowledge of the Czech language that most native English speakers don’t have.

Clearly the definition is problematic. It humanizes these systems in a way that I find most offensive. That said, Rossum’s robot didn’t need to be humanized. They are a far cry from the commonly agreed modern definition. They’re closer to organic beings, with a touch of poetic magic mixed in – more Pinocchio than Howdy Doody.

That said, it’s worth noting that the problem with robot agencies predates even the word “robot agency” in the English language. At the risk of ruining a 102-year-old play, so is the concept of a robot uprising. It’s easy to get annoyed at people jumping on the idea of ​​”robocalypse” every time a sophisticated new system pops up in their Twitter feed, but the concept has been around much longer than any of us. increase.

Of course, the flip side of this conversation is dehumanizing humans. This sometimes makes us worry that we are being compromised with technology. This is a conversation I had with many blue-collar people. I still believe that technology can improve jobs, whether it’s a robotic exoskeleton that relieves load or an automated cart that moves goods around a warehouse. Technology can also open up new avenues for pushing employees to their limits. For example, minute-by-minute monitoring of worker location and output does not allow for human-human hours.

But more relevant to the current economic situation is that I am trying to better myself. In some ways, evolution has fine-tuned our brains to understand abstractions. For example, consider metaphor and symbolism in the art we create. We’re good at creating these sorts of shortcuts that help us understand big ideas that can’t always be put into words.

But we have our limits. For example, large numbers can be very difficult to conceptualize on individual scales. We understand that there is literally a big difference between $100 million and $1 billion. But today, if I really want to get something done, as far more money than I, a journalist, ever had, I will simply accept both and just go my own way. .

For most of us, the idea of, say, 18,000 people losing their jobs over just one decision in upper management is an unbelievably big deal. We, and this includes me, can do a better job by paying attention to the kind of impact these decisions have on an individual level. . I’ve had it twice — I work in publishing, after all. I know you can’t read his million posts on LinkedIn and understand that it wasn’t your fault that you lost your job. Some of us are programmed to blame ourselves.

The first time I got fired, I was off track for a few years, frankly. I firmly believe that you must go through this experience to be able to show compassion. (In some cases, you’re looking for work alongside hundreds of thousands of people with nearly the same skill sets.) It’s important to remember this when discussing layoffs at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

It’s also important to be honest about the degree to which success is a product of luck. It’s something that’s easily lost in the cliche culture of raucous porn posts on LinkedIn. I’m sure it must have inspired someone at some point as to how smart and successful they consider . But I generally don’t find it very useful.

I think there are some deep-seated problems that just happen to disrupt the lives of 10,000 or 20,000 people. But I don’t think the root cause can be addressed immediately. So, knowing that many of us have gone through this process and are likely to go through it again, let’s discuss how we can help each other.

For me, that means doing what I can to promote people who have suddenly lost their jobs. not an idea. It’s often said that the robotics community is a community. Being part of a community means helping people when they’re feeling down. I would like to start a dialogue on how best to help you in this moment.

Starting next week, we will introduce some companies that are hiring in the field of robotics. And please let me know the name of your company and how many positions you are looking for.

The logical question for all of these is “how bad is bad?” Of course, it is difficult to quantify. Thankfully, some new numbers have just been dropped from Crunchbase, collating some of the trends around investing in robotics.

Here’s your headline: Investment in robotics startups fell 44% in 2022. A lot, a lot — especially for an industry that has had tremendous forward momentum since the pandemic. See the top line chart above for a quick visualization.

Another thing to quickly notice in this next chart is that the 2022 bar is also lower than the 2018 and 2019 bars. In fact, this is his second lowest in five years. Only 2020 fell short of that, but we all know what happened then. It was clearly abnormal. The ultimate question is whether 2021’s record spending was also an anomaly. The general idea, which I tend to agree with, is no for a long enough timeline. The economy will improve (how long that will take is an open question) and will return to an upward trend.

While I believe the growth experienced in 2021 is a direct result of the impact from the unusual conditions that led to the downturn in 2020, expect a return to continued year-over-year growth. I think that is reasonable.

The recession we are currently facing has ripple effects on the industry as well. One effect previously discussed is the potential increase in M&A. This has local meaning. Let’s say there’s a price increase on your roadmap and suddenly the runway is crumpled. Which would be better: closing the company or selling it to a potential like-minded company?

I can’t speak to the specifics of Built’s acquisition of Roin, but I can say that it’s another data point that I predict will be a growth trend. As pointed out in this piece, this makes sense at first glance. The two companies were not competitors. The deal effectively expanded Built’s offerings to include automation of concrete and a very fun term: “shotcrete” (basically firing concrete).

“Since inception, the team at Roin has pushed the boundaries of construction autonomy and created unique expertise in the industry,” Noah Ready-Campbell, Founder and CEO of Built Robotics, said in a release. I’m here. With Roin joining his Built team, the combined team will continue to develop new automated construction applications, and customers can expect robotic applications to expand beyond earthmoving. ”

Of course, construction is a prime target for automation. It’s massive, very profitable, and checks the 3 D’s (dull, dirty, dangerous) very easily. This week, Munich-based Kewazo just joined as a young early-stage startup at his pre-pandemic TC Sessions: Robotics pitch-off, raising $10 million. The company’s Liftbot product is effectively an automated elevator for scaffolding.

“Despite existing labor shortages, it has become impossible for foreign workers to commute to their home countries and come back,” Kewazo co-founder and CEO Artem Kuchukov told TechCrunch. “Many locations in Europe, the Middle East and Singapore have been hit hard as the majority of employees were no longer there. It has become a great catalyst for construction automation, as we started exploring.”

Despite all the aforementioned slowdowns, we’ve seen funding slowly start to ramp up after the holidays.

Co-founder and CEO Jack Morrison told TechCrunch about the round:

Lastly, since this was a heavy one, let’s wrap up by looking at this Cornell soft robot. A fun exploration of how compliant actuators affect motion.

“We have detailed how these actuators can be designed for future applications, perfectly complementing the ways in which they can be designed,” says researcher Kirstin Petersen. “For example, using actuators as legs, we have shown that you can go from an ostrich-like gait with a very wide stance to an elephant-like trot simply by crossing a pair of tubes.”

Are your actuators nice and compliant? Subscribe now.