TECHtonic Shifts (eBook)

Zoltán Cséfalvay (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018 | 1. Auflage
443 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-004968-1 (ISBN)

Infos

I originally intended this book to be a diary about my days at the OECD. However, as the entries mounted up I soon realised that we are experiencing a great transition. When does a new era start? Once our old notions do not work anymore, or if using them becomes so forced that we begin losing touch with reality. We continue to employ the concepts of the epoch of globalisation such as international trade, labour productivity or the SME sector, although they apply less and less to the world of robots, giant digital corporations, new global value chains, user networks hundreds of millions strong and dynamic start-ups. Perhaps we can better understand the transformation around us if we adopt a different perspective and start out from what we see, i.e. the features of a new age.

The author has been the ambassador of Hungary to the OECD and the UNESCO in Paris, France, since 2014. Previously, he served as Minister of State for Economic Strategy in Hungary. He has worked as research fellow in Budapest, Vienna, Munich, Heidelberg, and Cardiff. He was professor of economic geography at Andrássy University Budapest, and has been lecturer at Kodolányi College in Hungary for two decades.

'Technology has transformed the tempo of change from nations to individual lives. Zoltán Cséfalvay does us a great service by connecting technology to both society and politics, and as such makes technology a central part of history, both in the past and going forward. His ability to align technology with a range of other human activities makes this an exceptionally important book.' -- George Friedman, Chairman of Geopolitical Futures and author of the New York Times Bestseller: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

'An exuberant romp on the theme of technology, but with many excursions into history, politics, business, and culture. Don't plan to read this book from start to finish--just dive in.' -- Catherine L. Mann, Chief Economist of the OECD

'This is a truly comprehensive and sophisticated primer on the coming hybrid age of technological evolution and its worldwide impact, especially on the Millennial generation.' -- Parag Khanna, best-selling author of Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

Textauszug

1.
ENTER PEPPER, THE ROBOT

“I WILL NOT TAKE AWAY ANYONE'S JOB...”

In its own way, Pepper, the barely one-metre-high humanoid robot, told the truth. In late May 2016, at one of the panel discussions of the OECD Forum, in Paris, with a somewhat mechanical voice and overly humble gestures, Pepper declared the following: “I want to reassure everyone that I will not take away anyone’s job or replace it. My goal is to make people’s life more efficient.”

These two sentences, by way of a reassurance, were uttered exactly 95 years after Karel Čapek’s play, R.U.R., premiered in Prague, with the subtitle, Rossum’s Universal Robots. In this play, Čapek not only was the first to use the word ‘robot’ in almost its modern sense, but he also defined thinking about robots for a long time. In his drama, the robots created by humans, or, more precisely, the Rossum company, initially eagerly help people and serve their needs. But later a human rights movement launches a fight to free them, and over time robots gain the upper hand. In fact, they almost completely obliterate humanity.

Just like Pepper, Julien Seret, the marketing director of the firm that developed the robot, tried to reassure the audience that his company had created Pepper driven by a desire to provide new services and achieve innovative goals in education rather than to substitute human work.[1] There was a real success story behind this, since Aldebaran, a French robotics start-up established in 2005, became one of the global leaders in developing humanoid robots in barely half a decade. In 2012, with a view to international expansion, the Japanese telecommunications giant, SoftBank, acquired a majority stake in the firm. In the autumn of 2015, Pepper made its debut in front of the general audience in a Carrefour supermarket on the outskirts of Paris, as a playmate for children, and as an information source for adults.[2]

And in 2016, SoftBank opened its first store in Japan with only humanoid robot employees.[3]

Pepper is not alone, as over 4,000 of this version have been produced, and 7,000 have been marketed from a similar but smaller type, Nao. As the robots are being sold for under USD 2,000, SoftBank projects that sales and leases will soar. The designer, programmer, and developer of Pepper and Nao, Bruno Maisonnier, is even more optimistic. According to him, robots will sooner or later become almost like family members, and will “fundamentally alter the way we think about life and work. Let’s not forget the first mobile phones, how heavy and clunky they were, and yet, how far they have come. The same can be expected in robotics, too.”[4]

ROBOTS ARE RISING INEXORABLY IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

In its own way, Pepper told the truth, as humanoid robots that are toys and assistants at the same time are not very likely to threaten a large number of jobs. Not even in the supermarkets like Carrefour, since the self-checkout machines undoubtedly make the work of more cashiers redundant than these playful robots offering advice. Pepper told the truth, but only in its own way. Its mushrooming peers, industrial robots, especially in the automotive industry and electronics, not only augur a new future, but they can already create a whole new world.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, sales on the market for robots have been continuously rising since 2010, by an average of 17% annually. While in the second half of the 2000s (and also in 2010) 120,000 industrial robots were marketed each year, in 2014 this figure was 230,000. Before anyone would think that the use and spreading of industrial robots is characteristic of developed countries competing with high wages, we should take a closer look at the statistics from 2014. 70% of the sales are concentrated in five countries, in the following order: China, Japan, US, South Korea and Germany.[5] In 2014, the market was dominated by China with its low wages and a labour supply of hundreds of millions of workers. Close to 60,000 new industrial robots were installed in that country, while only 20,000 were put to use in fifth-ranking Germany.[6] All in all, more than half of the 230,000 robots sold in 2014 were purchased in Asia, primarily in China, Japan and South Korea. According to the forecasts, these trends will continue to strengthen, and the International Federation of Robotics expects 400,000 new robots in 2018, with 150,000 in China alone.

Table 1:     Number of industrial robots 2014 (actual data), 2018 (prognosis);
(thousand)

COUNTRY/REGION

2014

2018

America

248.4

343.0

North America (US, Canada, Mexico)

236.9

323.0

other countries in the region

11.5

18.3

Asia/Australia

785.0

1,417.0

Japan

295.8

291.8

China

189.4

614.2

South Korea

176.8

279.0

Taiwan

43.5

67.0

other countries in the region

79.5

165.0

Europe

411.1

519.0

Germany

175.7

216.8

Italy

59.8

67.0

France

32.3

33.7

Czech Republic

9.5

18.2

other countries in the region

133.8

183.3

Africa

3.9

6.5

Not specified by countries

32.4

41.5

TOTAL

1,480.8

2,327.0

Source > International Federation of Robotics (2015): World Robotics 2015. Industrial Robots. Executive Summary. pp. 13-26., Table 2. Estimated operational stock of multipurpose industrial robots at year-end in selected countries. p. 21.

The picture is similar if we take a look at the robots used in manufacturing, since in 2014 there were almost 1.5 million industrial robots in the global economy, with the most in (see Table 1): [7]

–   Japan (296,000);

–   North America (US, Canada, Mexico: 237,000);

–   China (189,000);

–   South Korea (177,000); and

–   Germany (176,000).

Estimates foresee 2.3 million industrial robots by 2018, with the ranking being manifestly altered. Most industrial robots will be in China by that time, followed by North America, Japan, South Korea and Germany.

In Central and Eastern Europe, robots spread relatively slowly. The only exception is the Czech Republic where there were around 10,000...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.1.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
• ISBN-10: 0-00-004968-9 / 0000049689
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-004968-1 / 9780000049681