WEBVTT - The Robots Are Coming For Your Job! 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.280 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.880 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.599 and I love all things tech. You know, guys, I 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.040 read a lot of tech news and sometimes that ends 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.520 up inspiring me to do an episode of text Stuff. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.920 That happened to me recently when I read this headline 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:38.800 off of the website text Spot. Sony Factory assembles PS 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:44.680 four in thirty seconds, only four humans involved in the process. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.920 A p S four, in case you're not aware, is 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.360 a PlayStation for video game consoles. So this factory can 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.800 build a video game console from parts in half a 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.920 minute and only four human beings touched the ding day 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.440 thing in the process. Those four humans, by the way, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.199 are involved in the beginning and the end of the process. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.880 Two of them load motherboards onto the assembly line, and 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.960 a motherboard is the primary circuit board for a computer system, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.400 and the other two human beings are at the end 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.720 of the assembly line and their job is to package 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.880 the completed consoles. All the actual assembly work is done 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.880 by robots. Now, you may be experiencing a couple of 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:32.240 different responses to this information I know I did. One 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.800 of those was a wow, that's seriously impressive. The PS four, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.280 like many computer systems, has a lot of components, many 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.360 of which attached to one another by wire or cable. 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:46.840 So these robots have to be able to take these 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.960 flexible components and to join them in their proper anchor 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.840 points with the appropriate amount of pressure and precision to 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.560 make a good connection. Now, if any of you out 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.360 there have ever built your own PC, you know that 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.880 plugging cables in can get a little tricky depending on 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.440 the layout of the motherboard and the various components. And 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.160 if you're someone like me, you're likely putting stuff together 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.880 only to realize that maybe you should have done some 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.840 of that before you mounted them in a computer case, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.639 because now you just don't have the space to work 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.520 in properly. So it's pretty darn impressive that robots can 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:26.320 do this consistently and correctly at that level of speed. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:32.079 Another response I had was it's kind of scary. I mean, 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.840 typically you would have dozens of people employed on the 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.760 assembly line to do this sort of work, but in 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.720 this factory it's been stripped down to thirty two robots 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.519 and four human beings. The article in tech spot points 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.600 out that twenty six of those thirty two robots are 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.760 just attaching flexible components together inside the console. Now, I 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.880 have no idea how much these robots cost, but I wait, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.359 you're that they are expensive enough to equal the salary 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.720 of a standard human employee on the assembly line. However, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.160 you don't pay robots. You do have to spend money 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.959 to maintain and repair them, but assuming whatever you're making 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.080 is going to be around for a little while, they'll 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.359 pay for themselves because eventually you'll get to a point 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.280 where the salaries you'd be paying for humans would be 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.800 more than the purchase and maintenance cost of the robots. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.160 And the increase in efficiency means you can produce a 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.840 whole lot more stuff in a given amount of time 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.920 then you would with a human centric assembly line, so 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.920 you'll have more product to sell in a shorter amount 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:47.320 of time. When you start crunching numbers, you discover your 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.400 robotic assembly line can make more stuff at a lower 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.360 cost over a given period of time, like you know, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.200 over a couple of years, than what you would accomplish 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.520 with human beings on that assembly line. So you don't 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.240 have to worry about the robots taking a vacation. They 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.840 don't take sick time, they don't even take the night off. 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.160 They can work around the clock. They don't need health insurance, 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.800 though I would guess that most companies ensure the heck 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.040 out of these things just in case one breaks down. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.000 But from a financial point of view, they make sense 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.120 if you're building stuff at a large enough scale, stuff 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.320 like video game consoles for the PlayStation four. It's a 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:28.480 no brainer because that console has sold around one hundred 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.640 ten million units so far. That's a number large enough 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.360 that I can't even imagine what it would look like 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.839 if you had all those consoles together in one place. 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.440 So if there's enough demand for you to sell a 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.080 hundred ten million whatever it is you want to sell, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.520 you need to have a way to make those as 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.680 efficiently as possible, and that will help maximize your profits. 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.880 And the more efficient the process, the more competitively you 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.080 can price your product and still make a profit. But 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.400 the idea of robots performing jobs far more effectively, consistently, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.520 and efficiently than humans raises a lot of questions, and 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.719 these are not new questions either, but they are questions 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:17.400 like if more factories rely on robots for production, particularly 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.800 if those robots can be programmed to produce new products 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.440 once older ones go obsolete. What happens to the job market, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.640 What happens to the millions of people who work in 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.800 manufacturing on assembly lines? Where will they go? What will 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.919 this do to economies around the world. Lots of people 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:41.719 have tried to answer these questions, sometimes giving drastically different answers. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.120 And we're going to take a look at the history 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.000 and evolution of industrial robots in this episode and explore 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:52.840 the ramifications of automated manufacturing. And this is where I 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.440 dive into history. I've talked about the history of robots before, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.040 so I'll try to restrict my focus to an industrial robots. 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.200 And before I get into that, let's just address the 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.760 fact that the use of machinery to increase efficiency has 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.400 been a controversial subject since long before there ever was 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.880 such a thing as a robot. Generally speaking, machines are 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.400 meant to make work easier, or in some cases, make 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.440 the work possible. Just to begin with, they are labor 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.840 saving devices, requiring humans to put forth less effort to 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.720 get the same or better results. This applies to the 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.680 simplest of machines. I mean stuff like levers or pulleys 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.480 or an inclined plane, and it applies to very complex 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:45.520 machines as well. Before the Industrial Revolution, most stuff like textiles, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.359 was made by crafts people out of their own homes. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:54.000 This was literally the cottage industry. Tradespeople would travel and 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.159 become the lifeline for the cottage industry, supplying raw materials, 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.080 buying finished products, and selling those products off at a 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.359 profit elsewhere. Many trades people built a good deal of 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.359 wealth working this way, and they had the means to 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:15.360 look at alternatives to this decentralized cottage industry approach. An 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.520 idea began to form. If you brought together crafts people 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.880 to a centralized location, and if you simplified the process 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.200 of production, you can make way more stuff, which in 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.680 turn means you could sell way more stuff, which in 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.600 turn means you can make way more money, and money 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:40.680 makes the world go round. This thought process helped fuel 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.560 a similar line of thinking. If you could design machines 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.640 that could do a lot of work that typically felt 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.119 a skilled crafts people, you wouldn't need the crafts people 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.040 at all. You could train anyone, even if that person 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.200 had no experience with the process just to work the machine. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.240 And while it might take years of dedication to go 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.360 through the process of being an apprentice to learn a 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.680 trade well enough so that you can actually make a 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.960 living at it with a machine, you can skip right 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.160 over that. As long as the machines in product was 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:18.200 good enough. It didn't have to be better than the 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.720 stuff crafts people were making. It just had to be 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.760 good enough and cheap enough and fast enough to produce. 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.200 Then you could sell the finished product at a lower 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.560 cost than what craftspeople would charge because not as much 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.480 time and effort went into making the thing. Now, I 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.800 guess it's clunky to talk about this while using an example, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:43.000 so let's go with a poster child for the Industrial Revolution. Weaving. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.040 The weaving trade is an ancient one, and it requires 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.079 a good deal of skill to do it well by hand. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.559 In the late seventeen hundreds, a man named Edmund Cartwright 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.680 patented a loom powered by a water wheel. The looms 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.560 operation was such that a person who had no training 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.880 and weaving could operate the machine and produce finished textiles. 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.319 Cartwright's design would be built upon by other inventors who 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.560 had turned to steam power and other means to operate 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:18.400 the power loom. Many cottage industry weavers found themselves out 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.640 of work. They could potentially up to work in the 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.480 textile factories, as those were popping up all over the place, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:30.360 particularly in England, but the wages were low. As you 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:35.160 can imagine, this didn't sit well with the weavers. There 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:41.080 were protests, including some that incorporated violence and destruction. Ultimately, 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.760 the factory process one out and along with it some 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.000 really awful working conditions followed, including stuff like child labor 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:55.760 and ridiculously low wages and dangerous working conditions. This led 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.760 to more protests, including the type that would give us 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.880 the word sabotage. And let's get a quick side note 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.880 on that one, as it is the source of a 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:11.440 little mythology or misinformation. See The apocryphal story goes that 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:16.160 the word sabotage comes from the word sabot which describes 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:21.240 the wooden shoes worn by laborers, mainly Dutch laborers, but 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.360 also laborers in France. And according to the story, these 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.440 laborers wore those shoes and use them to great effect. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.840 In an effort to protest the conditions and factories, they 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:37.480 would toss their wooden shoes into the machinery to break 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.559 the various gears and literally grind production to a halt, 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.920 as it were. But the story, while compelling, isn't really 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:51.000 the truth. Sabotage does stem from the words sabo, but 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.679 in French there is a verb sabotet. This verb means 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:00.320 to make a loud noise with wooden shoes. Now isn't 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.000 it great that there's a verb for that? And it 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.600 makes sense wooden shoes would make a great deal of 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.880 racket as people would walk around. Heck, if a if 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.120 a toddler wore wooden shoes, I think it would probably 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.080 sound as though the world were shaking apart. I don't 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.559 know how toddlers managed to sound like they weigh a 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.200 hundred pounds, but they do it. And if you have 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.760 a toddler, you know what I'm talking about. And in 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.800 the culture of France, the idea of a clumsy slow 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.439 worker was often linked to someone who wore wooden shoes 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.920 because they're awkward to wear anyway. The reason sabote led 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.680 to sabotage is because factory workers who were protesting their 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:48.320 work conditions and wages would purposefully work more slowly and 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.280 less efficiently. In order to affect the overall output of 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.320 a factory. It was related to a similar strategy that 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:59.439 British laborers employed, and their version was called kakani. It 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.839 was a saying from Scotland which essentially means don't do 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.079 so much man now. I would argue this also feeds 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.320 into a strategy that we see to this very day 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.360 in certain government offices, where the ideas there's no need 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.720 to do too much too quickly, as it doesn't result 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.920 in increased compensation, and it also sets a really high 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.240 bar of expectations, So why not just take it easy 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.520 and I don't have a coffee break now. In the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.400 early twentieth century, people began to use the word sabotage 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:33.120 to really refer to a purposeful approach to undermining the 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.360 output of factories, and it had nothing to do with 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.480 tossing wooden shoes into machinery, though it did also pertain 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:45.760 to instances in which workers purposefully damaged equipment and tried 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.199 to slow down the production that way. While this isn't 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:53.200 directly tied to the idea that machines themselves are displacing workers, 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.760 it is related to the effect of moving towards a 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:01.520 manufacturing based economy and how that allow for the exploitation 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:06.120 of workers. The machines themselves aren't really at fault, but 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.640 they facilitate the system of operations that leads to exploitation. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.479 Now that's something that will be a theme in this episode, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.360 and we can't ignore the social aspect of what's going 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.560 on here, or else we missed the whole point. But 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.480 let's skip ahead. I've spoken about this before, but we 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:29.120 get the word robot from a check author named Carrol Copeck. 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.560 He wrote a play called Rossom's Universal Robots or Are 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:39.640 You Are? In nineteen twenty. Copeck took an older word robota, 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:44.440 which means forced labor in Europe. This concept was tied 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.760 to that of the old system of serfdom, in which 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.800 people would do work on behalf of a landowner. In return, 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.080 those people would be allowed to live on part of 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:59.720 that landowner's land. And Are You Are, factory owners devise 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.960 a way to build laborers from raw materials. Now, in 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.480 the play, they are indistinguishable from humans other than they 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:13.280 have no inner desires. But in the course of the play, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.360 these laborers eventually take over all the jobs that humans 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:22.320 previously held, and humans themselves become a threatened species as 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.960 these laborers begin to understand the power that they hold 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.920 by occupying all the positions of employment, including as soldiers 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.960 in the military. And so with the introduction of the 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.880 concept of robot we actually get the very first robotic 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.480 uprising all the way back in See I told you 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.760 it was an old idea. It's important to remember that 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.880 in the play, the robots are nearly identical to humans. 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.040 They they aren't mechanical the way our robots of today are, 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.840 but the idea of creating machines that can do work 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.360 without a will of their own is a part of 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.960 row botics in general and industrial robotics in particular. When 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.800 we come back, we'll talk about the earliest industrial robots 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.840 and what they did, but first let's take a quick break. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.760 It's interesting to me that the tech world adopted the 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.120 term robot when we think about the origins of that word. 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:31.320 In compex work, robots were sentient slaves. They could perform 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.960 the work humans would otherwise do, but they lack the 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.920 emotions that humans have, and the whole idea is that 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.080 these devices could do our work for us without question 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.960 or protest. They would in theory endure conditions that people 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.200 wouldn't or couldn't, but in the play, they ultimately lead 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.880 to the destruction of the human race and potentially they 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.120 become the new dominant species on the planet. Now, I 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.800 say potentially because part of the play's plot involves the 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.800 destruction of the formula that scientists use to produce the 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.280 robots in the first place. That is an important plot point. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.840 The robots are not sure how to make more robots, 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.360 so they might just die out. Now, it seems to 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:22.200 me as though that's a pretty emotionally charged term to 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.800 adopt for an entire discipline of technology, right, robots, especially 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.440 if you are actually aware of that play, and by 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.200 the way, I recommend people read it. It's a good play. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.000 But then a lot of people are not aware of 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.560 the origins of the word, or at least not beyond 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.920 knowing that it came from a play in the nineteen twenties. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.080 So I guess for them it's just, you know, a word. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.280 A robot by any other name would smell as sweet 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.480 as it were. And we've definitely seen the themes of 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.400 are you are serving as an undercurrent for stuff that's 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.680 happening in robotics in general. But let's move ahead. In 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:03.200 nineteen fifty four or an engineer named George Daval designed 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.520 an industrial robot. He was nine years old when Copic 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:12.400 coined the term robot. He called his design the Programmed 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.760 Article Transferred Device, for which he received a U S 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.120 patent in nineteen sixty one. This machine was a robotic arm, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.640 and it was capable of picking up something and then 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.960 transferring it a short distance away just within reach of 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.680 the arm. The arm itself couldn't move, it was anchored 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.919 in place. It could also follow. In fact, this is 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.919 the important part. It would follow a pre program series 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.720 of instructions to do this. Daval's argument for his device 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.920 was that up to this point, mechanical handling of objects 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:49.760 fell into two broad categories. Either stuff got moved by humans, 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.800 typically operating a powerful machine like a crane or a forklift, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.560 or stuff got moved by a device that operated under 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.880 cam control. Now, manual control is self explanatory, so let's 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:09.000 talk about cams. A cam is a rotating component in machinery. Typically, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.080 a cam has some variation in its surface. So let's 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.639 start with a wheel. Just imagine a wheel that is 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.800 spinning on an axle. Well, You wouldn't typically have a 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.600 perfectly smooth wheel as a cam. Part of that surface 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.080 might be flat, or it might have dips in it, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.159 and when the cam rotates, these variations apply force to 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.200 some other mechanical component that is held against the cam, 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.919 and it causes that mechanical component to move in specific ways. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.280 A cam operating system can work on its own, but 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.520 it will always repeat the exact same motions. As long 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.480 as everything is working, it'll just repeat those steps. Once 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:55.320 the cams complete a full systematic rotation, you can't really 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.680 adapt it to do anything else. The movements depend entirely 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.439 on the cams themselves, so if you wanted it to 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.720 do something else, you would first have to swap out 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.359 the cams uh and even then you would be under 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.480 whatever the limitations of the device was itself, like, it 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.800 wouldn't have full range of motion. Moreover, this level of 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.920 specialization also means that it's typically really expensive to rely 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.959 upon cam based systems, so it was really only useful 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.040 if the application had to do with mass manufacturing or 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.119 else you're looking at economic loss. The cost of the 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.399 system was just too much, so Daval was proposing a 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.000 machine that could be programmed to do operations, and this 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.400 would let a programmer create different processes using the same machine, 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.080 or you could get a whole bunch of the same 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:48.360 basic machine and program each one to do a particular job. Meanwhile, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:50.879 you'd free people up to work on other stuff in 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.000 the manufacturing process, and you could take the most dangerous 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.560 stuff and give it to the robots. Now, the story 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.800 goes that Daval was at a party in nineteen fifty 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:01.919 s X and he got into a conversation with a 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:07.560 man named Joseph Engelberger. Joseph was a scientist and an entrepreneur, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.120 and when the subject turned to Duvall's programmed article transferred device, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.879 as well as the work of a science fiction author 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.760 known as Isaac Asimov, you know, the father of robotics. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.240 He famously incorporated a concept of the laws of robotics 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.960 in his works. We won't really go into that in 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.360 this episode, but the laws of robotics still play a 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:33.040 big part in the discipline of robotics in general, but 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.880 it's kind of outside the focus of this episode. Engelberger 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.560 used his connections to get funding for duvol to create 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.000 a more advanced version of the programmed article transfer machine, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.480 and it would be a robotic arm capable of making repeated, 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.760 precise movements while holding very heavy objects. They called it 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.919 the Unimate you n I M A T E, and 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:00.119 the first prototype, Unimate zero zero one, would go to 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.439 General Motors to work on a die casting assembly line. Now, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.280 according to the company robot Works, that's a w O 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.960 r X. This robot cost around sixty five thousand dollars 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.760 to produce, and Ingelburgers sold it off at a tremendous loss. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.480 General Motors only paid eighteen thousand dollars for sixty five 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.119 thousand dollar machine. But Ingelberger really wanted to establish that 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.840 robotics were a way to perform repetitive, dangerous functions at 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.000 a lower risk to humans. Welding die cast components on 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.200 auto bodies was a great first application of industrial robots 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:42.000 for a few reasons. Die Casting is a process involving 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.920 molten metal. You take that molten metal and you force 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.399 it into steel molds, and these are water called dies. 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.320 The molten metal cools in the exact shape of the mold. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.919 So this is a way to make or cast a 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.000 bunch of identical parts out of metal and get consisted 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.240 stent quality out of it rather than you know, forging 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:07.720 each piece and then fitting them together. A diet can 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:11.560 have complex shapes in it, such as external threads, which 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.600 means you don't have to make a pipe, for example, 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:18.159 and then do a secondary process on that pipe to 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:19.919 get the result you want. So you wouldn't have to 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.360 carve those threads into a otherwise smooth pipe. You could 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.920 just cast the pipe with the threads incorporated on it already. 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:33.639 But welding die cast parts onto auto bodies is hard work. 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.919 The components are really heavy, so you're at risk of 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.399 immediate injury if something goes wrong, like let's say you 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.840 drop a weighty component on your foot, or you might 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:47.840 develop a repetitive stress injury after going through the same 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:52.320 welding motions over and over again. In addition, the fumes 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.200 given off while welding where sometimes toxic still are so 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:58.600 it's not great to have people exposed to them for 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:01.639 very long. So a robot was a great substitute for 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.360 a person. The robot could handle much greater weight than 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.760 people could. The robot didn't breathe, so there was no 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.440 respiratory issue there, and it didn't get tired. I mean 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.040 it would wear down over time, but you could repair 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:18.080 it in fairly short order. The Unimate worked with computer 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:23.040 controlled hydraulic systems. Hydraulic system uses a liquid that's under 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.639 pressure in order to do work like pushing against a 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.680 piston to power and actuator of some sort like lift 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:34.439 a platform. The Unimate zero zero one weighed twenty seven 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:39.399 hundred pounds or about one thousand two ms, and it 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:42.200 could work twenty four hours a day, placing components with 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:47.399 a precision of within one fifty th of an inch. Now, 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:49.280 I'm not going to do the conversion on that, because 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:51.639 I think it's sufficient to say that it was just 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:57.439 really precise. According to a charmingly dated newsreel from Britain, 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.040 complete with swinging sixties music that sounded like it came 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:04.439 straight off an Austin Powers movie, the robot could operate 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:07.000 for five hours without the need for a human to 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.320 check in on it. Engelberger, a savvy businessman and promoter, 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:15.720 would arrange for Unimate to show what it could do 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:20.320 at trade shows and on TV appearances, including one on 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.679 The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. If you don't know 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.879 who that is, ask your parents, and if they don't know, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:32.720 ask your grandparents. By nineteen sixty nine, General Motors had 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:36.600 jumped on board the robot train, as it were. They 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:41.240 rebuilt a manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and they installed 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:45.280 unimate robots to perform spot welding on car bodies, and 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:48.880 the results spoke for themselves. The plant was capable of 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:52.920 producing one hundred ten cars per hour, which was more 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:56.400 than double the speed that the plant could manage before 0:24:56.600 --> 0:24:59.840 the installation of the robots. The business case for the 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:04.320 robots seemed clear. After a hefty upfront cost, you could 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:07.639 produce way more stuff per day, and as long as 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:11.040 the demand for that stuff is high enough, it could 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:13.800 mean greater revenue. You could also bring the cost of 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:17.359 production for an individual unit down. Then you could pass 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:20.360 savings on to customers and get really competitive with your pricing, 0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:23.280 or you could just keep everything price the same and 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:26.800 try to increase your profit margin. The key to all 0:25:26.880 --> 0:25:29.440 this was that you had to be sure the thing 0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:32.600 you were producing would bring in enough money to offset 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:35.840 the cost of automation, so it would not make sense 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:39.280