Sir, Your report “Robot economy sparks global investment boom” (May 3) suggests that investment into such technology poses a long-term threat to jobs and employment figures. However, from our own experience, we use robots to work collaboratively with humans who are then redeployed to higher-value tasks that the robot cannot do — not the other way round.
We develop artificial intelligence to provide the “eyes” for collaborative robots, which allows them to work side by side with operators in factories. Here in the UK robots are already having a significant impact on the greater good of the UK manufacturing industry and, in turn, our overall economy.
Collaborative robots are used in the workplace to assist human workers with inspection processes and it won’t be long before future inspection benches will include space for an operator and a robot to work in partnership as part of the quality control process of production. Vision systems can now review quality at a higher level than humans and allow robots to pick up a product and examine it. This is the future of the global workforce.
Earl Yardley
Director,
Industrial Vision Systems,
Kingston Bagpuize, Oxon, UK
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