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Technology Hardware

Robot Sales Are Exploding 309

Posted by michael from the rosie-the-robot-maid dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) just released its 2003 World Robotics survey. The original press release by UNECE has 15 pages in PDF format, while the full report represents 380 pages. Here are the three essential findings: robot orders in first half of 2003 were up by 26% to the highest level ever recorded; worldwide growth in the period 2003-2006 will reach an average annual rate of 7.4%; and household robots are starting to take off. "It is projected that sales of all types of domestic robots (vacuum cleaning, lawn-mowing, window cleaning and other types) in the period 2003-2006 can reach some 638,000 units." This overview contains more details including a chart showing the growth of domestic robots for the period 2003-2006."
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Robot Sales Are Exploding More

Robot Sales Are Exploding

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  • BOOM! (Score:2, Funny)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 )
    Bite my shiny metal ass!
  • ...like Mitsubishi's Wakamura [mvista.com].

    Hey, Montavista's hiring [mvista.com]...

  • Lazy People! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jolyonr ( 560227 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:06PM (#7275154) Homepage
    I think I'll wait until I can get a robot that'll go down to the Gym and exercise on my behalf.

    Jolyon
  • Sales of humans to robots are exploding!
    • How are the sales of eploding robots [explodingr...utlers.com] doing?
    • I had to admin a network of humans. It's horrible. The network drivers suck. I swear, you could tell 5 of them the same thing. Ask them to repeat back what you told them, and you'd get 5 different results.

      The task manager for humans is also dreadful. They spend at least 1/3 of the time sleeping, and take so long to process an instruction that they need to be told what to do again and again and again. Cripes, I sometimes have to remind them in the MIDDLE of a task what they are supposed to do.

  • have the words "robots" and "exploding" that close together?

    I could swear I saw my Aibo mixing up plastique last week, and my Roomba ordered two trailers full of fertilizer over the net.

    What were we thinking leaving out that Asimov chip?!?

  • There's a United Nations World Robotics Survey, and I wasn't told about it?
    --Homer Simpson
  • I can't read anything correctly right after I wake up:
    Sales Robots are Exploding

    And my first thought was, "Why haven't I heard of this store?"

  • Asimov got it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Carme ( 232239 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:14PM (#7275255)
    Dollars to donuts these robots aren't coming ThreeLaws-equipped.
    • Dollars to donuts these robots aren't coming ThreeLaws-equipped.
      They probably won't be. Here are my three laws for robots that are more relevant:

      1)Don't use old peoples medicines for fuel.

      2)Don't make retarded sounds like that robot from Battlestar Galactica.

      3)Present all coupons before ordering.
    • well they're not exactly intelligent enough for that... yet.

  • We know, we know (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:16PM (#7275275) Homepage
    all types of domestic robots (vacuum cleaning, lawn-mowing, window cleaning and other types)

    Excellent gloss-over of "other types." It's okay, we know what you were thinking.

  • It is projected that sales of all types of domestic robots (vacuum cleaning, lawn-mowing, window cleaning and other types) in the period 2003-2006 can reach some 638,000 units.

    Domestic services have been a massive yet hidden part of the economy for hundreds of years. Now, they've finally found a way to take humans out of the equation altogether.

    Perhaps the poor Mexican cleaning ladies will unionize and go on strike--just like the auto workers did when their jobs were threatened by robots. But I don'

    • There's definitely going to be a difficult period as robots replace large sectors of the work force. In the end, though, it's for everyone's good. I think.

      At some point, the entire situation changes such that money and working are not so intimately entwined. At some point, robot workers will provide a surplus of all the things people need to live, and gradually this surplus will proceed to more luxury type items.

      I love capitalism, but I don't think that it will be eternally the center of our economy.
      • I concur and I believe you are quite forward looking and optimistic if I am reading you correctly. I believe capitalism exists for the following purpose: To most efficiently allocate limited resources to their most beneficial purpose. Capitalism uses money as the means of judging value (and no, it isn't working perfectly) and limited resources can be physical, intellectual or human.

        As more resources become unlimited (or so available that for all intensive purposes limits are not required) capitalism mus
      • Muhaha. 150 years later, and Marx was actually right. Heck, we are already at the point with food production that we could feed the world for less than it costs to figure out who can afford it.

        We are wasting more resources by hording them than we would loose by sharing. Indeed, we would probably come out ahead by sharing, so long as hording and waste are considered taboo.

        Frankly I would like to have a giant collective cafeteria in the neighborhood. How much energy do we spend keeping our refridgerators

        • So you're OK with walking a mile to get something to eat? Even cavemen were smart enough to keep half an elk laying around in the back of the cave in case they got the munchies after knocking their caveboots with their cavewomen.

          On top of this, I can tell you've never served in the military. Anyone who has can tell you that living in spartan spaces, with a communal chow hall instead of the convenience of a fridge and microwave sucks ass.
        • You're out of your mind. It's selfish greed that got technology to this point. With a big food commune, nobody works to improve anything and it all turns to shit.
  • Alright folks, can we please drop a little more cash from this golden age into some long-term, sustainable, society enriching items.

    And no, I don't think Cheap Internet really enriched the lives of those who needed it. Indeed, I think the computer boom was just a giant exercise in blowing money.

  • And it won't happen in America. The fear of an unsupervised two-year-old getting run over by a lawn mowing robot (or more to the point, the fear of the two-year-old's parents' lawyers) will prevent any sort of robotics revolution here, outside of tightly controlled environments like factories.
  • next more robots
    is art imitating life?
    is life imitating art?
    I smell a high concept in the air ...
    • Hmmm. I smell something in the air, and it's certainly mind altering...

      The time to be really concerned is when you find your thermostat has been blogging about the ups and downs, and how life must find the setpoint and stay there.

  • Mr. Bix [redmeat.com] Please?

  • Think ahead (Score:5, Funny)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:23PM (#7275370) Journal
    Someone should prepare the robots for the day when their jobs go overseas to India.

  • and I'm sure marshall will be kind enough to swing by our government housing projects to say 'I told you so'.

  • ...to the desire for household robots. Once upon a time, the very thought of a lawn mowing robot filled people with fear. You're not installing a robot lawn mower near my Fifi. (I'm looooking overrrrr, my dead dog Roverrrrrrr...) But robots are getting pretty good at recognizing objects, so there is hope that while mowing the lawn they won't mutilate your pets.

    Of course people don't tend to realize that robotics is in use all around them, all the time. A robot is "A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance", or alternately, "a mechanism that can move automatically".

    Besides the mechanical aspect necessary for something to be robotic, there is the usual criteria for a useful electronic circuit. It must sense, decide, and act. Even a door-opening device at your local supermarket can do this; it senses that something has entered sensor range, it decides whether the signal is strong enough to warrant opening the door (partly based on its sense of what its function switch is set to) and then decides whether or not to open it. The act stage in this case causes motion, which is what makes it a robot.

    While we often hope to see robots become more useful around the house, I believe that it is in major industrial scenarios that they will take off first. This is not a shocking prediction given that this is where they currently enjoy their greatest successes, but I am referring to more autonomous robots than those which currently paint cars and so on. For instance, large earthmoving projects could be carried out with little to no human intervention simply because the problem domain is so simple. Through use of a combination of sensors (including visual/optical, radar, sonar, lidar, and others) a sophisticated map of geometry can be built. If you're not moving very quickly, this can be done with sufficient accuracy using current technology to carry out moderately complicated tasks.

    I envision a cluster of wirelessly networked systems which will share computing time with one another when they have cycles to spare, working together to carry out such a project. The sum of the data from stress analyses, efficiency plans, and so on would be combined to carry out tasks as rapidly as possible. Ultimately, people will be able to focus on management tasks rather than laboring.

    The question posed, then, is what do we do with all the people who will soon be unemployed by robots? Aside from forming labor unions and legislating inefficiency, what is the solution? I cannot picture any true capitalism managing to care for people displaced by robots, which will only happen with increasing regularity as robotics becomes a better-solved problem. It's bad enough when the jobs leave your country, but only the corporations (and of course the consumers - but they have to have jobs in order to consume!) benefit when the jobs go to robots.

    • Re:Nice to see the technology is catching up... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bennomatic ( 691188 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:55PM (#7275678) Homepage
      > what do we do with all the people who will soon be unemployed by robots?

      Well, it would be my hope that society would finally have the luxury to realize that there is a value to every individual born into this world. In a capitalist society, automation favors the capitalists, as it continues to lower costs of production. However, as you point out, there becomes a point where that is no longer a benefit, as the consumer pool dries up.

      At a certain point, a capitalist society has to mature beyond the infantile state of "mine!" that defines capitalism, and take care of all of its members, so that all of them can reach their full potential. If the resources are available to make it possible to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care for everyone, then it becomes the world's moral responsibility to do so; not doing so would be simply punitive and inhumane.

      Don't get me wrong; I think that capitalism is good. It's a developmental phase for a society, much like the terrible twos are for a child. But once it is possible to transition away from it, I believe it is criminal not to do so.

      So what do we do with those people? We educate them. We care for them. We make them responsible for finding their own way to give back to the world.

      When people are healthy, happy and fed, they tend to surprise everyone in a positive way.

      For a great model of how this shouldn't happen, read The Grapes of Wrath. It's a tale of the rich getting richer through automation and political power. Starving farmers forced off their land and held back by police as they watch perfectly good produce rotting away in fields so that the corporate farmers can keep prices up. This sort of thing is inevitable on small scales; it's up to all of us to be wary and make sure that it does not happen again on such a large scale or we will all lose.

      • What you are describing will never happen without a violent upheavel proceeded by years of misery. Those with the money and power, who don't have to worry about a field of work evaporating due to automation, will reluctantly give up the current system. As a matter of fact, they will never give it up. Never. Even if they were to do so, someone else would come along and take thier place.

        Global society is a very long way from leaving those 'terrible twos' and the path going forward is not going to be pretty.
      • At a certain point, a capitalist society has to mature beyond the infantile state of "mine!" that defines capitalism, and take care of all of its members, so that all of them can reach their full potential. If the resources are available to make it possible to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care for everyone, then it becomes the world's moral responsibility to do so; not doing so would be simply punitive and inhumane.

        Your naivete has an endearing quality to it, like the idea of any utopia. Howev
        • Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see the parent article mentioning population growth at all, merely human potential. I hope we have more potential in us than just the ability to breed. : )
        • I'd like to think that society is more dynamic than you describe. If people are breeding out of control such that resources are depleted faster than they can be replentished, then *something* would have to happen. Controls on births? Maybe. A return to working for some or all of society? Maybe.

          Even what you describe sounds better than the logical extension of what is happening now with 90% of the world working inhumane hours in terrible conditions and still starving.

    • "The question posed, then, is what do we do with all the people who will soon be unemployed by robots?"

      There are PLENTY of places for these people to work, all such positions, of course, are quite heavy in human interaction (which most humans are better at than robots).

      Have a class of 20 students with one teacher? Why not give that teacher 5 assistants so that the class can be broken up into groups of 4 students each?

      We have plenty of old people, right? Give each senial citizen a care giver to ensure th
      • One, the displaced workers are usually not as well educated, and they are going to be pretty desparate after a couple years competing with Indian PHD's working for 5k/year. So these displaced workers are going to be CHEAP.

        And therein lies the rub. All those uneducated people making $30k/yr. right now are not going to be happy about switching to a job that pays $10k/yr. because their skills are no longer valuable and their knowledge is worthless. People won't accept the fact that they are no longer as "val

    • But robots are getting pretty good at recognizing objects, so there is hope that while mowing the lawn they won't mutilate your pets.

      Perhaps they won't mutilate your pet, but it won't be because they recognise them. Vision systems are expensive, and robotic lawnmowers don't have them. They basically have a wire delimiting the perimiter, and the wander inside. I estimated that a huge speed improvement could be had by knowing where in the map the robot is, and always trying to go someplace new (see a few t [bu.edu]

      • Building a "sophisticated map of geometry" is impossible with current technology, and certainly isn't the way humans work. Don't you think it would be done if it was easy?

        Are you sure it isn't the way humans work? We use optical pattern recognition (including motion detection) and stereoscopic vision to build three dimensional maps of what lies before us in our minds.

        The fact that computers would actually build a mesh (or I suppose they could use voxels and do some kind of particle simulation, whic

    • Perhaps the best solution is to not have so many people to support? When you use human labor, you have an incentive to have as many humans around as possible. If humans are merely controllers though, you only need a few. I'm not saying we should start exterminating people, but encouraging at least zero population growth would help.
  • I have been talking to a variety of people in my school about what robotics will mean to their fields when in full gear and a lot of people do not believe me. I realize that people unduly associate most robotics with mere sci-fi and even when I explain how a modern printer is made they still disbelieve me of the effects this will have on manual and service labor.

    I'm not here to make personal sex bots or anything. If anything I hope to become a miner [csiro.au] or an explorer [nasa.gov] through my machines. Why are people so

    • I'm not here to make personal sex bots or anything.

      Why the hell not?
      If you can also teach it to cook, clean, wash and iron, I'll take two.

      Of course some bastard will probably write a "Nag" virus, and I'll be back to square one.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I am about to finish my PhD in robotics, just returned from one of the major international robotics conference

      My view about robotics is quite a bit different. On the AI side, there is no major breakthrough in the last n years. The humanoid robots are impressive (notably the Honda series), but only for the hardware... The mentioned domestic robots are so far quite dumb (e.g. the "robotic vacuum cleaner" and "robotic lawn mowing machine" moves through either highly repeatitive pattern like zip-zap or rand
  • I have been thinking seriously about investing in the robot market but it appears that most of the companies aren't public. Where would the robotic investor put their money?
    • Robot investor? Hell, any cyberneticist worth his salt would simply by up some land in the middle of nowhere for cheap, and set loose a bunch of Auxons to develop it into a self-maintaing robot factory.

      I think this time they'll go nuclear instead of solar though.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • For all of you who aren't sure just go here [myrobots.co.uk], scroll to the bottom of the page and find out! :)

  • Yep (Score:2)

    by Palshife ( 60519 )
    They're just flyin' off the shelves.
  • ...bulk up on our Old Glory insurance [jt.org]!
    "You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time."
  • The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) just released its 2003 World Robotics survey.

    Makes me feel better about paying taxes, knowing that they're going to such a noble cause.

  • Stocks for Nerds? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by boatboy ( 549643 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:54PM (#7275665) Homepage
    Here's a question I don't see asked often enough on these kind of posts: What stocks should I invest in if I agree with this forecast? Not just the obvious, like Roomba (don't think they're public anyhow). But Intel,VIA,3COM, etc- who will be selling the software and hardware for the upcoming robot revolution?
  • In Soviet Russia, those Sale Robots explode you!
  • As soon as Realdoll teams up with Asimo's makers and they start selling Cherry2000's - then you'll see INSANE numbers of "robots" being sold.

    I'd buy one... to um... help me around the house... yeah...
  • This is the kind of /. headline we've been hoping for!

    Next we'll get the rocket packs, flying cars, the moon colony, the manned Mars mission, some more SCO comedy, the first Robot murder, 50 stories about the robot's trial, robot uprisings, the robot nation, the robot war, and uh... well that'll be about it for /.

    See you all in the Matrix!
  • I can see the future now. All the corporations will fire their human workers and replace them with American robots. When the corps eventually figure out that they can get Indian robots even cheaper, they'll fire the American robots, who will then be forced into a life of prostitution. Then they'll finally make PimpBot 5000 models to keep the hooker robots in line. But not to worry: we in Cal-eee-for-nya have the Governator(TM) to protect us.
  • You want to see robot sales REALLY explode? Wait till we have the first sex-doll that comes anywhere close to realistically simulating sex (and doesn't way a metric ton). I'm not joking either. Sex drove the video recording industry, sex drove the internet, sex will drive the upcoming robot industry. You don't need to program emotion to have a reasonably satisfying sexual experience. And with todays advances in synthetic skins, robots, and AI, expect to have reasonably affordable sex-bots within 5 year
  • ...they were just equiped with Nokia batteries. *whew*
  • All right meat bags, skin tubes, coffin stuffers, wait for when Ma takes over all of these new machines!

    Kill all humans! Kill all humans!.....

    *beep*

    Free Soda for all humans!

    As long as they don't go on a "Human Hunt" I think we will be OK. :)

    Hedley

  • Animals (Score:3, Funny)

    by eap ( 91469 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @07:52PM (#7277038) Journal
    Forget the lawn mowing robots, we should be genetically engineering new breeds of animals to take care of these chores for us.

    Imagine birds that are instinctively programmed to pick up trash. We have plenty of squirrels around, so why not enlist them to rake our yards? Don't get me started on the rodents (think giant turbines).

    Animals in cities have way too much time on their hands and are always causing problems by flying|crapping|shitting on everyone else. It's high time they started pulling their own weight in the world.

    If things get out of hand and the animals evolve beyond our ability to control them, *then* we can start thinking about robot exterminators.
  • In 20 years slashdot will have the headline "Robot Salesmen are exploding."

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