PITTSBURGH: HOW ROBOTICS SAVED A CITY
By 2000, 29 steel companies in Pittsburgh had declared bankruptcy, cratering its middleclass, and any future upon which the great city might have had hopes to grow and thrive. How did robotics bring the city back from the dead?

Pittsburgh: From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub by Henry Lenard

IS THIS THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMRS?
Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you’ve undoubtedly heard the noise of their wheels and the rush of their whizzing by you, either on TV news, YouTube, or better, in person. What you’re seeing and hearing is the future arriving in a hurry. They’re called AMRs, robotics newest celebrities, autonomous mobile robots.

GLOBAL ROBOTICS PATENTS: THE PATENT WARS!
Patent activity is a useful indicator of technological progress and innovation in robotics. “Between 2005 and 2019, 72,618 robotics patents were granted worldwide.” Who is leading, who is on the rise, and who are the also-rans?

In other words, the patent wars! Who’s winning? Let’s take a look.

THREE BREAKTHROUGHS: CAPSULE ROBOTICS, THE ALL-ROBOT AUTO PLANT, AND THE DEXTEROUS, FIVE-FINGERED COBOT HAND
Instrument-free, noninvasive diagnosis and therapy inside the digestive tract will be performed through a new branch of robotics: capsule robotics.

In Japan, it seems that only “smart” robots need apply for work at Nissan’s brand new “intelligent” auto plant.

What’s the next big breakthrough tech for the cobot. How about a dexterous, sophisticated five-fingered hand?

Our Annual Tribute to Pittsburgh and Its People
Heartwarming & Inspirational Holiday Story
The Fall & Rise of Pittsburgh
From Dying Steel Town to Global Robotics Hub

Hello folks and welcome to This Is Robotics. I’m your host and fellow companion, Tom Green.

The last half of 2024 is upon us, robotics-driven automation is in rapid ascendancy once again, especially now since 2024 is showing how robotics engages with GenAI, and how prompt engineering is significantly increasing the ease of adoption for robots everywhere.

Last month, we gave you a longish one-hour show, which was necessary for it was meant to support my keynote address at SuperTechFT in San Francisco.

If you have yet to listen to it, it’s Episode # 31 and deals with how quickly computer code has capitulated to prompt engineering…and why. Plus, the new breed of workers on the rise who are being hailed as the “New Collar” generation of workers.

This month, we are listening to our global fans for feedback. We have a global fan base in 68 countries according to Buzzsprout stats.

A fangirl Celina from the Philippines wants us to reprise a woman’s show. Specifically, the rise of Alice Zhang (Verge Genomics) and her pursuit of answers to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. Thank you, Celina for also pointing out how this story highlights how human insight creates the technical challenge and how LLMs are then employed to reveal a way forward for bio research. For Alice, it was robotics and LLMs cracking the code for ALS.

During Alice’s piece, she laments how broken bio research is and why. Which leads to our second fan request from Martin in Augsburg, Germany, who was fascinated with robotics in bio labs working with AI in what he calls Pharma 4.0.

New drug research and discovery companies with strange, new names like Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Arctoris, Insitro, Relay Therapeutics, and Insilico Medicine are forging the way. Martin, good pick.

We lead off this month humankinds almost innate fascination and attraction to humanoid robots. Why is that? We let a half dozen experts offer up some truly interesting insights and theories on just why that is. Those insights are wrapped up in a show about human attraction to robots where we commemorate National Kiss & Make up Day which is coming up in August.

Okay, strap on your earphones or pop in your earbuds, which Buzzsprout tells us 3,000 people do daily worldwide to listen to This Is Robotics. We’re thrilled you can join us today. Thanks and welcome.

https://asianroboticsreview.com/home591-html

2024: The Most Important Year in the History of Robotics!

Companion podcast #31 to Keynote address at SuperTechFT 3 July 2024

Happy to be with you one and all. I’m Tom Green, your host and companion on this very special journey for 2024. We are only halfway through the year, and already 2024 has shown us that it is the most important year in the history of robotics.

This podcast will show you why that is.

This podcast is a companion to the live keynote address I will give at SuperTechFT in San Francisco on July 3rd 2024. I want to first thank Dr. Albert Hu, president and director of education at SuperTechFT, and to the staff and patrons of SuperTechFT for inviting me.

The title of my keynote: 2024: The Most Important Year in the History of Robotics!

What other year can possibly compete for top honors other than 2024?

2024 eliminated the barrier to entry for digital programming by eliminating the need to code.

As Tesla's former chief of AI, Andrej Karpathy put it: "Welcome to the hottest new programming language...English"

2024 opened the door of AI prompt engineering to millions of new jobs and careers in millions of SME industries worldwide.

So explains: Andrew Ng, investor and former head of Google Brain and Baidu.

2024 converged GenAI with robotics, broadened robot/cobot applications, and freed robots from complexity of operation.

So announced NVIDIA’s CEO and founder Jensen Huang at the company’s March meeting.

2024 reinvigorated the liberal arts, creative thinking, expository writing, and language as vital new components in developing robotics applications.

So reflects Stephen Wolfram physicist and creator of Mathematica

2024 defined the need for the GenAI & the "New Collar" Worker Connection: Vitally needed workers for AI/robot-driven industry worldwide, and just maybe, the revitalization of America’s middle class…or the middle class of any nation.

Sarah Boisvert technologist, factory owner and wrote the book on the New Collar Workforce

Suddenly in mid-2024, technology has thrown us into a brand-new world

And it’s only early July of 2024...can you believe it?

“Artificial intelligence and robotics could catapult both fields to new heights.”

The 4-Year Plight: SMEs in Search of Robots!

Tech News May Fade, but Its Stories Are Forever!

GenAI & "New Collar" Connection

Did AI Just Free Humanity from Code?

Welcome to a special edition of This Is Robotics for a special look at the "New Collar" Workforce.

Robot-Driven Automation's "New Collar" Workforce

Vitally needed workers for robot-driven manufacturing, and just maybe, the revitalization of America’s middle class.

They’re definitely a new breed!
Don’t call them blue collar and don’t call them white collar. Blue, many perceive as life-long drudgery with a wasted body by the age of fifty, and white as onerous college debt with the worst ROI imaginable.

They avoid large factories and mega warehouses where for every robot deployed three jobs go missing. Besides, those gigs are way up there on the blue-collar drudgery meter. They also shun white-collar offices that track keystrokes, screen email, and surveil worker productivity.

Around them, the world is just beginning to make room for their kind and see value in their non-traditional worldview. Colleges have dropped the SAT. Law schools jettisoned the LSAT. And now employers large and small are dropping the college degree requirement on resumes. A move that seems reasonable since 66% of the country’s population is without a college degree.

See related: States Are Leading the Effort to Remove Degree Requirements from Government Jobs.

As the NYT blared in a headline, which must have put a smile on the faces of all these new-breed contrarians: “Emerging fields like AI, EVs, and robotics feel like a new age in jobs is beginning to settle in, jobs that require advanced skills but not necessarily advanced degrees.”

READ MORE>>

Has Code Writing Capitulated To GenAI?

What exactly just took place, and why?

Suddenly this March, we all woke up one morning to find code fighting for its life. Why so fast? Why so suddenly? Why so completely? Unexpectedly and quietly code is disappearing. Why is that? Is AI’s argument that convincing? Sure seems that way. It was a little like the Berlin Wall: imposingly there for a few decades, then suddenly gone and forgotten.

We’ll take a look at what happened to code, and what’s next for robotics. Don’t despair. The remedy is good!

In early 2023, U.S. tech industries cut more than 190,000 employees from the workforce. Tens of thousands were coders. Tens of thousands of individuals who spent billions of dollars to learn how to code, so that they could get a “good” job.

"The new philosophy calls all into doubt," wrote the poet John Donne over 400 years ago. Indeed, GenAI's prompt engineering has done just that.

Prompt engineering in AI is the process of designing and refining prompts—questions or instructions—which are at the heart of some of the most advanced AI applications…and growing.

Join us as experts Andrew Ng, Stephen Wolfram, and Michael Welsh walk us through the new world of GenAI and the unparalleled opportunities that await for those who don’t wait.

See also:

Did AI Just Free Humanity from Code?

What About You? A Primer to Combat GenAI Anxiety

Experts on AI & Robot Convergence for 2040

Hi folks, welcome to This Is Robotics for February 2024, Episode #28. I’m Tom Green, your host and companion as we travel together through the big, wide world of modern robotics…and now, robotics is getting even better as it converges with artificial intelligence.

Ah, the age of smart robots is upon us.

Thanks again for making This Is Robotics the #1 robotics news podcast worldwide…for two years running.

We did some investigative journalism this month to find out why…and we were surprised at what we found. You will be as well. An article series on the topic we published in Asian Robotics Review titled Why So Little Robot Automation in America? got over 10,000 hits. Our email response from our readership attested to the fact that we were not the only ones surprised by our findings. It’s accompanied by a news report from CBS which also covered the strange state of robotics in the U.S.

Then we’ll dip off into What’s New in Robotics? What’s New in Robotics? is the blog we write in partnership with Robotiq.

From the blog, we present here at This Is Robotics three FIRST-EVERS in robotics. We love what people have been doing with robots and cobots lately. Simply amazing!

Two of them hail from Korea: Hyundai’s micro-factory in Singapore; and a huge breakthrough by Koreans in teaching robots to respond to the human voice. Then we nip over to Argonne Laboratories to see cobots in a first-ever making medical radioisotopes.

We close out the podcast with what is the biggest story in robotics for the foreseeable future: Can Robots Save East Asia?

China, Korea, & Japan are suffering from a new pandemic: Too Few Workers, Too Many Elderly, and Too Little Automation.

China, Korea, and Japan are plagued with the very same “too few, too many, and too little” affliction simultaneously.

The clock is ticking on China, Korea, and Japan. The five years 2025 to 2030 will be critical. Each country has a plan. What is each doing…and can each plan work?

We have been following this mega-story since 2023. Along with an in-depth article series on the subject in Asian Robotics Review, we brought the story into this month’s podcast as well. We’ll show you what we know.


As always, look in the show notes for all the links to the online articles.

Thanks for coming. We appreciate your attention and loyalty.

Hi folks, welcome to This Is Robotics, and our last episode for 2023. Next up a wild and woolly 2024. We are already planning our January show. It’s forecast to be a fabulous for robotics, logistics and automation in general.

Plus, it’s also the Year of the Dragon (2024)

The dragon, one of the luckiest and most powerful symbols offering prosperity, and good fortune throughout 2024. It is the perfect time for rejuvenated beginnings and setting the foundation for long-term success.

THE STATS ARE IN FOR 2023!

Our podcast host just gave us the best-ever Christmas present from our listeners:

Once again, we are #1 worldwide for a robotics news podcast.

Across 12 time zones and 63 countries, This Is Robotics podcast was downloaded by over 3,000 fans per week!

Yearly, over 150,000 touchpoints with our listeners.

Every hour of every day 18 pairs of ears somewhere in the world seek us out for the very best news in robotics. Thank you so very much!

This closing episode for 2022, we highlight robots converging with artificial intelligence…in laboratories. Already making good headway, we look closely at what’s going on.

We’ll look at one fascinating woman’s brilliant insight on how best to discover a cure for our most intractable diseases, especially those without cures in neuroscience like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's.

How research is broken and how she’ll fix it. Hmmm, interesting. Her name, Alice Zhang, founder and CEO of Verge Genomics, and she just got $134 million to realize her brilliant insight.

We catch up with her at a lecture at Stanford where she explains it all.

Then we take a stab at answering a question we get all the time from our listening audience: How exactly do robots and AI work together in a laboratory to come up with miraculous discoveries as of late?

We go to a lab in Liverpool UK where Andy Cooper explains it all.

Then, how are all these elements taking over the industry? And giving it a name like Pharma 4.0? We present a concise, little episode excerpt that explains it all.

Wow, that’s a lot of “explaining it all” but it’s all cool stuff.

We close out our show with one of our most favorite and memorable episode excerpts, one that we get a large call to repeat throughout the year.

But, it just so happens to be a perfect Christmas story, so we retell it every December: It’s a story about China’s supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, without whom China would have no middle class or be the giant in robotics it is today.

We call it China’s Christmas Miracle. A more heartwarming tale you can’t find anywhere.

SHOW NOTES ADDENDUM

Please see the show notes for more on the incurable disease that is ALS, including one very sad diary from a 31-year-old woman just diagnosed with ALS.

ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), formerly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurological disorder that affects motor neurons, the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement and breathing.

As motor neurons degenerate and die, they stop sending messages to the muscles, which causes the muscles to weaken, start to twitch (fasciculations), and waste away (atrophy).

ALS is progressive. Eventually, in people with ALS, the brain loses its ability to initiate and control voluntary movements such as walking, talking, chewing and other functions, as well as breathing.

Welcome everyone to This Is Robotics, episode #26 for November, 2023.

Oh, and BTW: Thanks for making us the #1 Global Robotics News Podcast for TWO YEARS IN A ROW. I’m Tom Green, your guide and companion into the wide, wonderful world of robotics. Welcome.

It’s that time of year when we take a look at Time Magazine’s picks for its Global Top Inventions for the year. This year, 2023, there are 200 selections in 21 different categories.

Robotics, as usual, has its very own category, category #18, but my oh my, robotics, now with its new partnership in convergence with AI, has it ever seeped its way into nearly every other category.

We’ll take a look at Time’s picks, plus we’ll pull one out and showcase it. It’s an amazing 5-year-old developer called Shift Robotics, from Pittsburgh. Shift has taken robotics, AI, and automation and brought them into the shoe business. Footwear!

What caught my eye was its founder, Xunjie Zhang, and his 3-minute description of the company’s design process, the "ask it, research it, plan it, create it, test it, and improve it" of finding a problem and coming up with a solution. Beautifully clear thinking and execution. Then we’ll see what Wired’s Brent Rose thinks about the company during his visit.

Following that is our annual Homage to Pittsburgh. A segment that we run every Thanksgiving. The heartwarming story of Pittsburgh’s fall and rise on the wings of robotics, after 29 steel companies filed for bankruptcy and left the city in tatters.

I usually do a preamble to our Homage to Pittsburgh segment, but this year we have a contributor providing us with one. Florian Pestoni, well-known in the robotics biz as co-founder and CEO of InOrbit, a cloud robotics platform, who is also a pizza fanatic and a great admirer of Pittsburgh. He just made a trip to Pittsburgh and jotted down his thoughts. We’ll share them with you.

Then we’ll take a look at our newest website: Robo AI News where we aggregate and curate the best in the convergence of robotics with AI; and we’ll look to you guys to Get On Our Wall at Robo AI News. We’ll show you how. It’s simple but powerful. Robo AI News is dedicated to the most interesting man in the world: Garry Mathiason: The Man Who Knew Way Before! More on Garry a bit later in the show.

Okay, let’s get on with the news.