Whose jobs will robots take away? Germany's Industry 4.0 comprehensively deploys artificial intelligence
Whose jobs will robots take away?
Germany's Industry 4.0 comprehensively deploys artificial intelligence
[Special attention to robots]
Highlights
Of the 30 million jobs in Germany, at least 18 million can be replaced by intelligent machines and software.
*86% of the most basic operating jobs can be replaced by robots.
*Office workers and secretarial workers are the most at risk, with about 1.9 million jobs threatened.
*Other industries seriously affected include warehousing, postal and express delivery (1.5 million), retail (1.2 million) and cleaning (1.2 million).
German industrial robots have certain advantages in raw materials, body parts and system integration. From a global perspective, Japan and Europe are the main production bases of industrial robots. ABB of Switzerland, FANUC of Japan, KUKA of Germany and YASKAWA of Japan are the world's major suppliers of industrial robots, becoming the four major families of industrial robot production. In recent years, in order to achieve the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, Germany has successively proposed strategic plans for the development of its own robotics field to drive industrial upgrading.
According to the Industry 4.0 plan proposed by Germany at the Hannover Industrial Fair in 2013, through intelligent human-machine interaction sensors, humans can use the Internet of Things to remotely manage the next generation of industrial robots. At the same time, the smart factories and smart production links in Industry 4.0 need to rely on constantly upgraded smart robots. This not only helps to solve the problem of high energy consumption in the use of robots, but also promotes the green upgrade of the manufacturing industry and fully realizes industrial automation. According to statistics, Germany is the fifth largest robot market in the world and the largest robot market in Europe.
As early as the 1970s, Germany began the process of "machine replacement". Today, Germany has 292 robots per 10,000 workers in the industrial sector, ranking third in the world after South Korea and Japan. During this period, Germany has fostered its own robot industry and talent pool through long-term government funding and the combination of industry, academia and research. Germany also led the European Union to establish a special agency to conduct long-term research on the development of European robot technology, and implemented a large-scale civilian robot research and development plan, investing a lot of money in the research and development of robots that can be used in medical, nursing, housework, agriculture and transportation.
The renowned "Kuka"
Kuka Robotics of Germany was established in 1995 and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of industrial robots. Kuka Robotics has more than 20 subsidiaries around the world, most of which are sales and service centers, including most European countries as well as the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, India and other countries and regions. At present, the Kuka Robotics product line covers almost all specifications and load ranges of six-axis robots, unloading and stacking robots, high-temperature resistant and dust-proof robots, welding robots, stamping and connecting robots, frame-mounted robots, high-precision robots, etc. KUKA robots can be used for material handling, processing, stacking, spot welding and arc welding, involving automation, metal processing, food and plastics industries. Users of KUKA industrial robots include: General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Ferrari, Harley-Davidson, Boeing, Siemens, IKEA, Swarovski, Walmart, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, etc.
KUKA industrial robots have also appeared in many Hollywood movies and made a big splash. In the James Bond movie "Die Another Day", a scene describes a female NSA agent in an ice palace in Iceland being threatened by a KUKA laser welding robot. And in the movie "The Da Vinci Code" directed by Ron Howard, it was a KUKA robot that handed the protagonist Robert Langdon a password box.
In 2016, in a human-machine table tennis competition in Germany, the Agilus single-arm robot launched by KUKA fought fiercely with German table tennis star Boll. The human world champion battled against a cold, orange robotic arm holding a racket, attracting global attention. One of the roots of the word Agilus, agile, means agile. Kuka claims that this robot is the fastest in the world, fast enough to hit Boll's ball back from any position. In the beginning, the Agilus single-arm robot quickly took the lead with 6:0 with its precise movements and shots, but Boll also discovered the weaknesses of the robot opponent, and net balls, side balls and high balls became effective means of defeating the enemy. In the end, Boll won the game with a score of 11:9. It is worth mentioning that on January 8 this year, China's Midea Group issued an announcement that it had completed the delivery of Kuka Group shares involved in the tender offer and had paid all the funds involved in the tender offer, accounting for about 94.55% of Kuka Group's issued share capital. Kuka's cooperation with China's manufacturing pioneer Midea will bring what kind of prospects for the development of the robotics industry, which is worth waiting for.
"Machines replace people" in high-risk industries
In the fields of metal processing, electronics, medicine, etc., robots also replace humans in heavy, precise, repetitive or dangerous work. Recently, the Mining-ROX project from the Technical University of Freiburg in Germany has developed a robot called Julilus, which can not only save a lot of money for the entire mining process, but also improve the safety factor of mining. The Technical University of Freiburg is the only university in Europe that conducts such research and has a teaching mine. The research and development team hopes to use automated robots to mine so that miners no longer continue to engage in dangerous work. In addition, mining robots can also participate in mine rescue.
The project is actually part of Robots in Saxony (ROX), a cooperative project of many German universities that aims to apply automatic service robots to unstructured environments. At present, the Mining-ROX project has two robots: Alexander and Julius (both named after famous German scientists). Professor Bohard Jung of the Technical University of Freiburg said that Julius can explore in mines with high risk factors, including those where mining accidents occurred, abandoned mines or completely unmanned mines.
In fact, the German government began to implement a policy called "Improvement of Labor Conditions Plan" in the mid-to-late 1970s, forcing robots to replace human labor in some dangerous, toxic and harmful jobs, and using administrative means to truly promote the application of robots to the market.
The shining life robot
In addition to being used in the manufacturing field and high-risk industries, Germans attach great importance to the application of robots in daily life.
This spring, according to German media reports, Domino's Pizza announced a partnership with Starship, a startup company for self-driving robots, to use robots to deliver pizzas in Hamburg, Germany in the next two months. Starship's six-wheeled robot is about two feet tall, weighs about 40 pounds, travels at a speed of four miles per hour, and has a delivery range of one mile. Although the robot can drive automatically, it still needs to be accompanied by someone to avoid the wrong route. Although Starship is a British company, it has been widely promoted in Germany.
At the Munich Electronics Show in March this year, the Sub1Reloaded robot developed by German scientists took only 0.637 seconds to solve the Rubik's Cube, breaking its own record of 0.887 seconds and entering the Guinness World Records. The human record for solving the Rubik's Cube is 4.904 seconds. Sub1Reloaded contains many microchips, which are like electronic versions of nerves, brains, and muscles to form a complete Sub1Reloaded robot.
Sub1Reloaded uses a microcontroller produced by Infineon, which is very similar to the controller in the driverless car assisted driving system, and can make the machine make the "least response". "Minimum response" plays a greater role in autonomous driving than in restoring the Rubik's Cube. The success of this robot on the Rubik's Cube will bring some inspiration to engineers to improve autonomous driving technology and chip processing technology.
Future employment relationship
Under the guidance of the concept of industrial digitalization, Germany has continuously improved the level of automation and the use rate of intelligent robots, which has had a huge impact on the employment field. Survey statistics show that robots have threatened 59% of jobs in Germany, which has attracted great attention from all walks of life in Germany.
According to the survey results of the "Future Employment Relationship: How Will Employment Be Affected by Electronicization" research project initiated by Cambridge University, at least 18 million of the 30 million jobs in Germany can be replaced by intelligent machines and software. The survey found that the degree of unemployment risk of different jobs depends on the professional division of labor, job level and nature of work. 86% of the most basic operating jobs can be replaced by robots, and auxiliary labor is the second most threatened by robots. In terms of absolute numbers, office workers and secretarial workers are the most dangerous, and about 1.9 million jobs will be threatened by technologies such as intelligent office. Other industries that are seriously affected include warehousing, postal and express delivery (1.5 million), retail (1.2 million) and cleaning (1.2 million).
Once this result was announced, it attracted attention from all walks of life in Germany, which means that theoretically, 59% of the employed population in Germany may be unemployed. However, Karsten, chief economist of Ing-Diba Bank, who is in charge of the survey, said that "the trend of full automation may become a reality or just an illusion". At least for practitioners with high professional literacy and scientific research minds, their work is as stable as a rock. Among the more than 240,000 doctors in Germany, only about 1% (3,100 people) can be done by machines. Chemists and physicists are also irreplaceable. The daily work of these scientists is basically impossible to be replaced by computers. The survey shows that among the 46,000 scientists, only about 2,800 people can be done by computers.
But the reality is still cruel. Last year, German sporting goods giant Adidas announced that it would move its production lines back to consumer areas such as Europe and the United States. Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer said that robots would be used for production. These production lines moved back to Europe and the United States originally belonged to foundries in China, Southeast Asia and other places. Hainer said that in Germany, where labor costs are generally high, robots can now be used to produce 24 hours a day with fewer people. This also means that robots from Germany are beginning to compete with workers in China and Southeast Asia for jobs.
However, people do not have to be too pessimistic. German researchers have found that in fact, the investment in automation and the use of electronic technology do not necessarily threaten people's employment, but may also play a certain role in promoting it. For example, in the electronic technology and information industries, as the level of the industry improves, more and more practitioners will be needed. After all, it will take a long time for robots to truly replace human work. As far as Germany is concerned, most of the giant companies are still trying to use robots for production work. After all, the manufacturing cost, deployment cost, and learning cost of robots are all thresholds for robots to completely replace human work.