There's a BakeBot robot whipping up fresh cookies at MIT; hospitals are now employing medical robots to assist their doctors; and a robot named Baxter can beat any human at the popular logic game Connect Four, among many other tasks.

"Historically what we thought was that robots would do things that were the three D's: dangerous, dirty, and dull," explains Ryan Calo, professor at University of Washington School of Law with an expertise in robotics. "Over time, the range of things that robots can do has extended."

Their abilities will only continue to expand. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, anticipates that by 2029 robots will have reached human levels of intelligence.

Many people fear a jobless future — and their anxiety is not unwarranted: Gartner, an information technology research and advisory firm, predicts that one-third of jobs will be replaced by software, robots, and smart machines by 2025.

Eoin Treacy's view

I am referring to it now because I had the pleasure of speaking with the CEO of Softwear, HP Reddy, on Friday. I first saw mention of the company when they broke out of Georgia Tech to commericalise the operation and wrote about it most recently last July in the context of how many jobs could potentially be displaced by their sewbots. Softwear produces the first suite of robots that can displace humans in the manufacturing of clothing.  

It’s still a privately held company and will be going through another funding round in the not too distant future as they move into release and full production of their next robot this month. They will be seeking a listing at some point but that is still a ways off. 

One of the most through provoking things they said during our chat was that they launched with the aim of supplying US based factories to help them lower costs but had received a great deal of interest from overseas. Garment manufacturers in China and Sri Lanka with billion dollar turnovers, capable of handling major orders, are already becoming customers. These companies anticipate becoming full automated within a decade. They have to invest today if they are going to meet that goal. By any measure that’s an ambitious target but it helps to confirm that Gartner’s prediction is potentially realisable. 

This is likely to have a major impact on the development paths taken by countries, since garment manufacturing has been the first step on the road to development since the 1800s. Of course there will always be a role for the human sense of touch in manufacturing, particularly in soft materials but humans will no longer have a monopoly on that type of labour.