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OUR HEARTLESS FRIENDS THE ROBOTS

By D. S. HALACY, JR.

WHEN a clock manufacturer needed production line workers recently for a ticklish assembly job, he ordered them from a firm called U.S.I. Robodyne. The workers weighed a bit over 50 pounds, and the clockmaker didn’t hire them—he bought them outright for about $2500.00. Slavery Involving midgets? No, these workers, each doing a man’s or woman’s job, are robots produced by the Robodyne Division of U. S. industries, Inc., at Silver Springs, Md. These “TransfeRobot 200″ mechanical midgets, while not the first automated devices to displace human workers, are unique in some respects. First, they are not custom made, but are standard “off-the-shelf” items available immediately. Second, they are not one-job workers, but can be programmed to handle many production jobs within the scope of their electronic brains and mechanical fingers. Finally, they pay union dues!

Perhaps because they operate in a more dramatically human fashion than most automation equipment, TransfeRobots are in the spotlight of attention being given by both management and labor to the technological and economic problems created by progress. In addition to the clockwork assemblers already mentioned, there are many more such small robots building a variety of items —including typewriters and auto parts.

President John Snyder, Jr., of U.S. Industries, and Al Hayes, President of the International Association of Machinists, head a foundation which is working toward a smooth and painless-as-possible integration of automation into production work in this country. And that’s where the dues come in. Each TransfeRobot (via its employer) pays $25 a year as soon as it goes to work. U.S.I.’s larger equipment pays more, ranging up to a maximum of $1000 a year.

Critics, perhaps with human workers in mind, have described these machines as robot dolls—”you wind them up and they make money for the boss”—but both sides of the bargaining table realize that human workers must make money, too, or they can’t buy the goods the robots produce.

TransfeRobot has a big cousin called “Unimate.” Built by Unimation, Inc., of Bethel, Conn., Unimate costs ten times the modest price of the smaller robot. It weighs considerably more—a ton and a half—and it can heft loads of 75 pounds and exert a squeeze of 300 pounds with its steel fingers. Its builders list a hundred jobs that Unimate can do, including loading operations, assembly work, painting, welding, and similar tasks. It also has a brain, and can memorize 200 sequential movements after being “led by hand” through a new job just one time. Such a rapid learning capacity makes it sharper than the average worker, and Unimate is capable of round-the-clock operation without tiring, needs no coffee breaks, and is not distracted by pretty girls.

When Is a Robot a Robot? Since most of us have a rather vague knowledge of robots acquired by reading science fiction or watching the movies, it will be helpful to define just what is meant by the word. Webster calls a robot a mechanically efficient worker devoid of sensibility. Robots have other names, including “mechanical men” and “automata,” depending on who is doing the name-calling. The more sophisticated term goes well with automation.

Having defined the robot as a mechanical man of sorts, we realize that there are several narrower classifications possible within that general description. An automatic lathe, for example, is a machine capable of working by itself. So is a wrist watch. Less obvious, perhaps, is the time switch that turns on the furnace in the morning or the photocell system that turns on a light at dusk. Such devices rank fairly low on the robot scale.

The next step up the ladder is what some call a “proper” robot—a robot device which does not always function in exactly the same way. A more versatile fellow, the proper robot can cope with unpredictable changes in his environment. If we add a thermostat to our furnace control, or a switch to the corner traffic light so that it changes when a car rolls over it, we have a proper robot. The robot pilot in ships and aircraft is a highly developed proper robot.

There is another type of robot, the “true” robot, whose performance parallels that of an idealized human. The true robot is thus far fictional, but some scientists believe that the existence of man is proof enough that such a machine can be made. Less scientific minds jump to the romantic conclusion that this robot will even be man- or woman-shaped. Developments seem to bear out the former belief, at least, and we may one day be dealing with some very human-like robots; robots that are mobile, that listen and learn, think, show initiative, and act.

“Mobot,” “RUM” and “Beetle.” TransfeRobot and Unimate are still in the class of robots that simply do their jobs over and over. For factory work, of course, this is the best kind. A cousin of this simple plodding type is a robot that acts more flexibly; not with its own electronic brain but under the guidance of a human being. Impressive mechanical men of this ilk include Hughes Aircraft’s “Mobot” (for mobile robot).

An extension of the mind and hands of a human operator, such a robot works in high-radiation environments in nuclear plants, handles dangerous liquids, twists heavy iron bars, picks up eggs gently, and does even more ticklish tasks—such as fastening zippers for attractive young ladies, a chore that rattles some humans.

In 1960 Scripps Institution of Oceanography built “RUM” for the Navy—a Remote Underwater Manipulator which operated at depths of four miles. More recently, Shell Oil Company has used a Hughes Mobot in undersea oil explorations. And robot helicopters have been built, adding wings to the arms and legs of the mechanical man. But the majority of “mobots” developed so far are land-based. One of the newest, and surely the largest, is “Beetle.” Constructed by General Electric for the Air Force, this giant is used around missiles and was designed particularly for those fueled by nuclear devices.

Deep Into Space. The space age came on the heels of automation, and it is beginning to enlist the services of the robots. Plans to explore the moon include lunar “rovers” that will plod or roll or wiggle, depending on the type of surface they find on that satellite. NASA’s “Surveyor” is typical of such space robots, and it will busily poke around and report its findings to earth.

Deep space probes have no tin can man sitting at the controls, of course, but they are robot-manned, nonetheless. These robots read instruments, scan the skies for stars and planets and radiation, and act accordingly.

An interesting idea is that of a human pilot operating a spaceship by remote control using television for his eyes. Already in existence are TV receivers that fit the user like a helmet. The operator simply turns his head when he wants to look about, and the transmitter in the robot craft turns similarly. The sensation is described as being so realistic that the operator feels that he is in the distant craft. This idea of “tele-coupling” a man and machine seems to have an important future.

Robots That Think. Fascinating as these “mobots” are, other robots are far more intriguing. Operating a machine at the end of a wire, or even by remote control, is no very breath-taking concept despite the technical problems. And the precocious TransfeRobot is just a highly advanced wind-up man. More provocative is the idea of control of robots by the robots themselves.

Such an idea is not new. When James Watt put the flyball governor on his steam engine, he gave us the feedback principle that is the basis for automatic control. Thermostat-operated furnaces and float-controlled valves are simple examples of machine self-control. More recently, we have seen electronic computers exercising judgment in processing bank records and other paper work. Here, for all its size and unlikely appearance, we have a “proper” robot and perhaps the beginnings of a “true” one.

For all the pooh-poohing of the electronic brain, there are such devices as “Perceptron” that truly perceive. This electronic robot sees with photoelectric cells, learns to recognize things, and commits them to memory. There is another machine called “Artron” (for artificial neuron) that learns by reward and punishment in a fashion analogous to human learning. Still another robot, called “Cybertron,” solves “alogical” problems —those for which there is no formal answer and which require solution by trial and error. Prodded by a “goof button,” Cybertron handles tasks as varied as the classification of radar signals, and the grading of produce.

“Madaline” and “Hand.” Late in 1962, scientists at Stanford University demonstrated “Madaline I,” an advanced electronic robot that sees, hears, and feels. “Madaline” stands for Magnetic Adaptive Linear Neuron, and the demonstration included such feminine tasks as balancing a “broom” and taking dictation from the boss. Madaline has a mind of her own, made up of “memistors”— electrochemical resistors similar in function to human neurons. The word “adaptive” is the key to Madaline’s importance, for here is a robot not tied to a rigid program.

Many nervous watchers of developments have been happy with the fact that the robot brain and muscle have been kept safely separate, but the inevitable is beginning to happen. A young scientist at M.I.T. recently coupled an electronic computer with a mechanical hand-arm of the “mobot” type and created something he called simply “Hand.”

Thus far Hand is still in its babyhood and playing with blocks. In action, it carefully searches the surface of a table for such items. When it finds them, it picks them up and stacks them. It feels its way around obstacles, and when it finds an empty box, it explores the inside like a youngster delving into a cookie jar. If the box is the right size, Hand will store the blocks inside.

While Hand is visually blind, there are many robots that are not. Optical readers abound, and now there are machines that hear quite well, too. The Japanese have invented a typewriter that they call the “Sonotype”; it’s the lazy man’s dream–you just talk into it! In the U. S. there are computers like “Shoe-box,” so-called because of its size; unlike a real shoebox, it accepts verbal questions and gives verbal answers. Robots, then, not only think and act, but see, hear, and talk.

Robot Baby-Sitters? Years back, robots were suggested as companions for children: combination baby-sitters, tutors, confidantes, and all-around good chums. More recently the idea has been extended to the robot as a handy helper around the home. He would answer the phone and take messages, help with the budget and other problems, remind us of our appointments, and so on.

Only the child’s companion idea has been implemented so far, and this on a far more childish scale than proponents of the notion had in mind. Toy manufacturers have come up with a variety of walking, talking, command-obeying robots that are mighty popular at Christmas time. Shaped in the best science fiction movie tradition, with halting awkward stride and impressively blinking lights, these junior robots have one big flaw in that they cannot defend themselves. The death rate is terrific.

Robot Animals. When we leave the world of mechanical men for mechanical animals, we find some very impressive robots. Brain expert Dr. W. Grey Walter of England’s Burden Neurological Institute has built a number of electromechanical beasts physically resembling turtles. Dr. Walter prefers names like machina speculatrix, for their apparent ability to speculate.

Although equipped with only two “brain cells,” the first of these animal robots was capable of several responses to outside stimuli. Using its sight and touch organs, it circled curiously about a room, backing away from obstacles and shunning uneven surfaces. Seeing itself in the mirror, machina speculatrix almost seemed to preen. When it got hungry (because of waning storage batteries), the robot turtle sought out its den to feed on an electrical outlet!

Walter created a more intelligent machina docilis that could learn, and “CORA,” for Conditioned Reflex Analogue. CORA, like Pavlov’s dog, learned from hearing a whistle and from being kicked. She also exhibited frustration in the face of conflicting orders, a creditable performance for a six-celled brain.

Fellow Britisher W. Ross Ashby built a homeostatic robot which demonstrated, among other remarkable qualities, that of “ultra-stability.” A conventional aircraft robot pilot is connected to the controls in such a way that displacement of the plane from normal will bring about a proper righting force. If the controls were hooked up backward, however, the robot would blindly fly the plane to disaster. Not so the ultra-stable robot, or homeostat. It will seek a stable position no matter how it is wired, much as man adapts to a radically changing environment.

An interesting robot animal was built by communications expert Claude Shannon. On a visit to England he blundered his way through a famous hedge maze in about 20 minutes and got to thinking about such a problem in relation to telephone switching circuits, his own province. Shannon labored and brought forth a mouse. This was a very special mouse, however, and it could run a maze in remarkable fashion. The maze consisted of 25 squares with removable partitions that made possible a million different routes. Placed on any square, the robot mouse could find his way to the cheese in about two minutes of trial and error bumping. On the second run it followed an errorless direct route in the fantastic time of 15 seconds! This is a feat far superior to that performed by any real mouse—or man!

Shannon’s mouse was named “Theseus” for the ancient Greek who successfully negotiated another maze in another time. No robot, Theseus was human enough to require a ball of yarn to find his way through the labyrinth. But the idea of robots is as old or older than Theseus. The Iliad describes golden, three-wheeled mechanisms that served as information carriers for the God Haephaestus, and the Old Testament tells of “golems” who were early-day robots run amuck.

It is often difficult to tell which came first, fact or fiction, and real mechanical men have almost as long a history as the stories about them. Eli Whitney and his plaintive cry of “Keep your cotton-picking hands off my gin!” were contemporary with the doomed Dr. Frankenstein; and the year the play R. U. R. introduced the word “robot” to the world, the first automatic factory for turning out chassis for cars went into operation in the United States.

The scratchings of the machines on the wall were so obvious by 1946 that an article in Fortune contained the disquieting news that “the human machine-tender is at best a makeshift.” Two important developments were described as part and parcel of the new kind of factory. One was the electronic computer for monitoring and controlling operations; the other was the robot “hand-arm” to implement these orders.

Age of the Robot. Robots, then, have not burst full-blown upon the current scene but have a long, seesawing history in which science and fiction have tried to outdo each other. We are, however, entering the important phase of “robotry”—a phase which has had to wait for a number of factors to be right. Among these are economic need, maturing of concepts and technology, and popular acceptance. Where historically the robot has been employed as mechanical bogeyman and stuntman, we are now seeing him gainfully employed.

Man’s inherent laziness caused him to create the robot; his guilty conscience makes him fear it. However, where once we worried about machines going wild with destructive results, and searched our souls to justify this tampering in the domain of the Almighty, most of the fear today is more realistic. While few advocate stoning the machines and killing their builders, most recognize that this phase of the industrial revolution is not without its painful upsets.

Granted that we need automation and its computers and robots, and that the alternative is to “give us all pointed sticks and have us go plant rice in the paddies,” the technological unemployment being discussed is no union-inspired bugaboo. Integration is the topic today, and perhaps we should include the integration of the machine into society.

One ghost should be laid to rest, however: the fear that thinking robots will make our own brains wither away. Years ago many predicted such a fate for our muscles when mechanical transportation became widespread. These doomsayers forgot the old-time cowboy who wouldn’t walk across the street if his horse was within a mile; they couldn’t know that the first four-minute mile, seven-foot high jump, and fifteen-foot pole vault would come long after man would supposedly have atrophied into two hands to grip a steering wheel and a right foot to push the gas pedal. For the same reasons, our brains are not going to shrivel either. Electronic computers have already freed scientists of much drudgery so that they can spend more time on true creativity. Thus, our brains are actually more productive.

As the number of robots grows, and they even learn to reproduce themselves, the question is no longer whether or not they are going to take over. It is simply how we are going to get along with them now that they are doing it. Assembly line worker TransfeRobot 200 is a case in point. As mentioned earlier, the TransfeRobot’s annual “dues” are being used to finance intelligent studies of the problem in a foundation set up by U. S. Industries, Inc., and the International Association of Machinists. Such studies, we hope, will show that dictionary definitions to the contrary, the robot has a heart after all.

Toy “Pugs” Fight Rousing Battle

A PUGILISTIC encounter by puppets two feet high and manipulated from the sidelines is the latest in amusements. Dressed in prize fight garb, they stand up in the ring and swing gloves at each other. Their actions are guided by wheels in the grips of the men playing the game.

A referee in the ring judges the points scored in the five rounds of one minute each. The point of the chin is the susceptible place for a “haymaker,” and when that is struck the manikin goes down for the count.

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Aluminum Man Startles London

He talks, walks, stands, sits down, rolls his eyes and waves his hands, but he isn’t a man at all — nothing but a mechanism of steel and aluminum, cables and gears and electric motors! His life-like actions astonished London at a recent scientific exhibition.

ALL LONDON recently flocked to see “Eric,” the talking mechanical man who opened the popular scientific exhibition organized by the British Model Engineer. With an anatomy composed mainly of steel rods and bars, and a stylish suiting of sheet aluminum, he is an ideal representative of the race of Robots who at some future date are to dominate the world. At least, we have been told so in a very successful play, and many people are seriously looking forward to the time when much of the toilsome labor will be performed by mechanical workers.

“Eric” weighs a little over 100 pounds; he will get up and bow at the word of command, he will make a speech, he will answer questions, he will move his arms, and head to give point to his remarks, and when told to sit down, he obeys at once without a protest. He is very docile, but his eyes flash while he is speaking, and crackling sparks at his mouth give brilliance to his oratory.

He is actuated by 12-volt electric motors, supplied with current from a battery. There are wheels, belts, levers, and joints, all ingeniously geared up to give the required movements. His speech is the voice of his master, or of his master’s man, but how it gets to “Eric’s” lips is one of the mysteries which W. H. Richards and A. H. Reffell, the joint inventors, are not yet prepared to disclose. His powers in this direction have been turned to good account, for he has earned the distinction of being the first mechanical man to open an exhibition. At the appointed hour on the opening day, he solemnly rose and bowed to a gathering of some thousands of eager folk drawn thither by the remarkable rumours which had run like wildfire round London during the previous week. Unabashed by the tumultuous applause which greeted him on rising, he delivered a most eloquent oration, descriptive of the purpose of the Exhibition, and then formally declared it open to the public.

Many prophecies have been made as to “Eric’s” future. He is not yet prepared to scrub floors, or do the domestic washing and ironing, nor can he operate a hand-crane or a lathe. But he would make an excellent salesman in a department store, telling the virtues of the bargains there displayed. At present he is merely a clever combination of well-known mechanical and electrical devices arranged and dressed to grip the popular imagination.

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THE ROBOTICS REVOLUTION WILL YOU SURVIVE?

By Steven K. Roberts

Robots—capable of two to three times the efficiency of flesh-and-blood workers—threaten to displace large numbers of people from jobs. Humans may prevail, but, strangely, the result might be mass unemployment, anyway.

IF YOU EVER want to get a spirited conversation going, just wander into an employee lunchroom somewhere in Detroit and start singing the praises of industrial robots. After you pick yourself up off the floor, you’ll probably become embroiled in a bitter dispute over worker displacement, Japanese auto imports, productivity and union contract terms.

There are two problems that make this issue of robot-aided manufacturing a complex and emotional one. First, the machines do indeed represent a threat to workers whose jobs they can accomplish with two to three times the efficiency. Second, there is a prevailing image of robots as so-called mechanical men that are bent on taking over society. Even at the recent robotics conference in Detroit, a couple of exhibitors saw fit to further advance this notion by using androids as crowd pleasers—an event which, of course, received national television coverage.

Like it or not, robots are arriving in large numbers on the doorstep of American industry. According to Norman L. Naidish of Revlon, Inc., “Robots could replace one million workers in the U.S. in the hard-goods and electrical industries by applying the technology in use today. . . . Currently, about 5,000 robots are in use in the U.S., or about 0.3 percent of the potential.”

This is not part of some dark design to force workers onto the streets; it’s simply a result of the need to compete effectively in the world market. With Japan and many European nations running well ahead of the United States in productivity increases (Germany showed a 4 percent increase last year alone, while the U.S. has managed only .01 percent in the last six years), we are faced with the need to clean up our act or fall hopelessly behind. For some industries—like automobile manufacturing—it may be too late already.

Accomplishing the dramatic productivity increases that will enable us to survive is not a simple task. American industry is heavily burdened by a variety of problems: management structures that often penalize innovation; complex relationships with unions; public relations problems; and a dwindling supply of research and development capital. This is hardly an ideal climate for wholesale revision of established methods.

But there is little choice. It has been estimated that the cost of operating the average industrial robot is close to $6 per hour, compared to about $16 per hour for a typical plant employee. If the robot offers greater dependability, speed and efficiency—leading to reduced inventory requirements and a generally tighter-run ship—then those basic $10-per-hour savings are increased even further.

But this is not a line of reasoning likely to meet with the approval of an assembly-line worker who is being replaced with a computer-controlled arm having an arc welder for a hand. What’s needed through all this is a healthy understanding of the long-term implications of robot use, including its effect on production workers. As Thomas L. Week-ley noted in a 1979 UAW position paper on robotics: “If workers perceive robots, or technology generally, to be the cause of unemployment or loss of income, they will no longer have a cooperative and receptive stance toward technology introduced by their employers.”

A SHORT HISTORY One of the key features of human intelligence (at least as we humans see it) is the ability to create and use tools. This phenomenon has a long and colorful history, beginning with the fossil records from Rift Valley residents of two million years ago and continuing with increasing vigor to this day.

When the industrial revolution rolled around, there was considerable development of tools that would automate the manufacturing process. Not only did these allow faster and more efficient production, but they also gave companies closer control over quality, scheduling and so on. We know that dehumanizing factory conditions ensued, but in theory the use of automation was a good thing.

Even in factories full of specialized manufacturing equipment there still exist a number of 3-D jobs— those that are dirty, dangerous or difficult, not to mention the ones that are dull or dehumanizing. Nobody likes grueling labor, and the pay scales demanded by those doomed to perform it are high.

There’s nothing revolutionary about the idea of using machines to take care of some of these unpleasant jobs; for decades, specialized equipment has handled everything from surface grinding to part sorting. These forms of automation have displaced thousands of workers, but somehow it never became much of an issue. Why? Because the machines were very specialized. Adaptability on the part of a machine, however, is something that competes too closely with human talents.

An industrial robot briskly going about its business is sometimes a disquieting sight for people who have never seen one before. A car body is moved into position by a conveyor system, and a steel arm— with shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand—springs into action. Pausing only long enough to fire off spot-welds at intervals of a few inches, it works its way quickly around the door with the deliberate precision of a spider at work on her web. It is difficult to observe such a sight without feeling that the machine possesses intelligence—and that it is treading rather heavily on sacred ground once walked only by mankind.

This is, of course, quite untrue. The robot, while giving a convincing display of dexterity and planning, is actually nothing more than a blind, deaf, mute, numb, immobile output device for an uninspired computer that is performing a step-by-step sequence of simple instructions. If it has any senses at all—such as “feeling” it has bumped into something—they are primitive; if it has any adaptability to changes in the task, it is at a very low level. A human can select all the V4-in. bolts from a bin of miscellaneous hardware with hardly a conscious thought, but even the most sophisticated of vision-equipped industrial robots runs into serious difficulty with such a task. It will be a number of years yet before a robot will be adaptable enough to react appropriately to unexpected events and the complexity of a typical production line.

Despite all these limitations, however, robots offer a tremendous advantage over the special-purpose equipment traditionally used in factories. Where most of the in-place production equipment is dedicated to some specialized task (and must be replaced or extensively reworked to accommodate changes in a product line), robots are general-purpose devices and need only be taught the new or modified job. Many existing robot systems, in fact, can be computer-led through a task such as spray painting, welding or parts handling—after which they can repeat the operation tirelessly for months.

It is this sort of thing that raises the worker displacement issue. Clearly, a robot that is competent enough to replace a human or two and operate with minimal supervision represents a significant threat to the labor force. But this is counterbalanced to some extent by the increase in productivity—something that benefits everybody, not just company management.

THE REAL PAYOFF Talk of increased industrial productivity sounds, to many people, like a rather lofty and abstract goal that has little to do with the labor market. But take a look at what happens when two hypothetical companies adopt opposite approaches to the robotics issue: The Alpha Company and The Beta Company are competing firms engaged in the manufacture of gizmos. They have been around for 30 years or so and have historically shared about 85 percent of the domestic gizmo market. Lately, however, some low-cost, high-performance Japanese models have started carving out a substantial chunk of the U.S. market, and Alpha and Beta officials are worried.

To make matters worse, both companies are involved in labor disputes with the UGW (United Gizmo Workers) and have, during the last year, reported record losses to their stockholders.

Alpha management decides that the only way to avoid certain death is to drastically increase productivi ty, whatever the cost. They perform time/motion analyses, inventory analyses and efficiency studies, and quickly determine that their long-established way of manufacturing gizmos is, quite simply, outmoded. Alpha engineers start attending robotics trade shows, eventually producing a plan for a totally revitalized production operation.

Beta management takes a different approach. Even though company brass are aware of computer-aided design and manufacturing technology (CAD/CAM), they are guilty of short-term thinking: It is safer, from a manager’s standpoint, to maintain things the way they are rather than to institute a bold new initiative that might fail. Robots are discussed in countless committees, and the buck is tossed endlessly.

The UGW, bent on protecting its members from job loss, threatens Alpha Company with a walkout if it doesn’t agree to provide retraining for displaced workers and to share the profits from new technology with the union. The lawyers work on all that, while a trial robot work “cell” is installed and demonstrated.

Beta Company plods along, blaming the production line for its problems and losing market share.

In about a year, Alpha Company has completely revamped its production line with the latest in robotics technology and quickly begins reaping the benefits of more efficient manufacturing: lower personnel costs; reduced floor space requirements; increased safety; lower workmen’s compensation expense; reduced work-in-progress inventories and so on. Then the interesting effect begins to occur. Alpha Company is becoming so productive that it can lower the price of gizmos, compete more effectively with the Japanese, expand its operation and hire more workers!

Rather than fade away, as did the other domestic gizmo manufacturer, Alpha Company regained its health by applying new technology and becoming more efficient. Beta Company finally died, after selling off subsidiaries, laying off workers and trying unsuccessfully to obtain a government subsidy.

The lesson here is obvious, but the problem it creates involves the acceptance of harsh short-term problems in order to realize long-term benefits. This runs counter to the thinking of much of our industry and becomes a particularly painful issue when the number of workers on a payroll has to be reduced. Even if the very survival of the American gizmo industry depends upon the large-scale use of robotics, it is going to be quite difficult to actually bring it about.

ROBOT TECHNOLOGY It is quickly becoming clear that industrial robots are the technology of choice for boosting the productivity of American industry, especially now that over 4,000 of them are proving themselves in full-time, profitable use. (It is a bit disquieting, by the way, to observe that Japan currently has over 10,000 in operation and is producing around 7,500 more each year—five times the output of U.S. robot makers.) To be useful in a manufacturing context, robots must possess certain key features. By definition, they are basically programmable manipulators, capable of moving a piece of tooling (the hand) to any location within a defined operating space (known as the work envelope). There are endless variations on this theme, ranging from pick-and-place units designed for very simple parts handling to highly articulated arms with as many as seven degrees of freedom (the ability to rotate the wrist, flex the elbow, etc.). The cost varies accordingly, and is also affected by varying capacities for speed, precision and trainability.

The foundation of all this, however, is not the robot’s ability to move its tooling to any point in the work envelope, but the underlying intelligence that guides its motion. It is most correct, in fact, to think of a robot as a computer that happens to have an arm.

But computers are useless without programs, and the robots that will survive in this industry are the ones that can be easily trained to perform different tasks. There are a number of units on the market that offer impressive mechanical specifications, yet require considerable technical effort on the part of the customer when it comes to fitting them to a newly changed production operation. This is hardly acceptable, since any company turning to robots is probably interested in flexibility.

There are three primary methods of teaching robots. The first, which is simplest for the machine but relatively demanding for the human, requires the programming of specific steps: open elbow 62 degrees; rotate wrist clockwise 31.5 degrees; close hand; etc. This is cumbersome and is quickly falling into disuse.

The second method involves taking the robot through the intended path while the system is in the learn mode. Some models require that commands be explicitly entered via a small keyboard; others actually allow the operator to grab the robot’s tooling and lead it physically through the job to be performed. In either case, the operator is relieved of the need to understand the innards of the robot system in depth.

Third, and relatively avant-garde, is the integration of a robot with a CAD/CAM system. This permits the entire task to be simulated on a graphic display, while the computer calculates the most efficient paths, integrates the action of all the robot’s joints to produce smooth and well-planned movement and corrects for out-of-range joint rotation.

At some point in the evolution of robot sophistication, however, we run into a problem. Without senses—sight, touch and so on—a robot’s adaptability to its environment is severely limited. You could walk up to a machine briskly assembling automobile alternators, for example, wait for an appropriate moment, then swipe all the parts. The robot wouldn’t miss a beat: It would just assemble air.

Such an image seems absurd to humans who constantly adapt their actions to physical reality. But it suggests what is perhaps the most complex problem of all in the development of successful robot systems: creating useful senses.

At the robotics conference in Detroit, there were hundreds of units on display, all busily performing ‘demonstrations for the record-breaking crowd. But close observation revealed the machines’ fundamental stupidity: Almost all of them were blindly following a stored sequence of steps. If the flow of parts stopped, or if the pincers failed to pick something up, the machines would continue with the operation without correcting the problem. Most practical robots, of course, incorporate primitive sensors that prevent damage in the case of a jam or out-or-range operation, but only a few can adapt themselves to minor variations in the task.

Picking parts out of a bin is surprisingly difficult. Following a complex joint with an arc welder calls for more than technology now has to offer. Recognizing flaws in work-pieces, reattempting a failed operation, adapting to variations—all call for the implementation of senses and the computational power to process the information.

Although there are a number of impressive machine vision systems on the market, it is impossible to separate vision from intelligence. Computers, alas, are still so primitive that even a simple task such as recognizing a face requires a minute or more of processing time—even then, the answer is only of marginal certainty. We have a long way to go before truly adaptable and intelligent machines start making their presence felt in the workplace.

All of which brings us back to an earlier point: Along with the quite valid concerns of worker displacement by robots, there is a vague, popular uneasiness arising from a fear that these things are more than just machines. The marketing departments of systems manufacturers freely throw around terms like “smart terminal” and “intelligent system,” even though the objects in question haven’t the intellectual power of a two-year-old child. The news is premature.

This technology is indeed revolutionary. But today’s robots are not the androids of Star Wars—merely the flexible outgrowths of traditional industrial control equipment.

Worker displacement? It’s inevitable. But the law of the jungle will prevail. Alpha Company will survive and grow; Beta Company will perish. Some of Beta’s ex-employees will go to work for Alpha. The robots will do the dirty, dull, dangerous and difficult work. And people (the most valuable commodity of all) will be put to work on tasks that require their intelligence—if they have been adequately trained in this newest of growth industries. After all, somebody has to build, transport, install, program, teach and maintain all these robots. MI

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Robots ARE People!

By Richard Dempewolff

Modern scientists can make automatons that walk, talk, see—even think like a man. But only an 18th-century artisan created ‘human9 puppets.

A fantastic family lives in Neuchatel, a watch-making town hidden deep in the Swiss Alps. It’s a small family—only two boys and a girl; but it has a long history. For each one of the three was born nearly 200 years ago!

Despite two centuries of living, they show no signs of age and still look fresh and elegant in their fancy 18th-century costumes. One brother is an artist, the other a writer and the young lady a musician. These wonder children may keep all their endearing young charms and continue to use their creative talents for a thousand years. Neither youth nor health ever fails this remarkable family, the uncanniest members of that queer race man dreamed up—the robot people.

The Neuchatel robots are no jerky, mechanical dummies. One of the robot boys actually breathes. His sister puts a very real, heart-melting pathos into the music she plays on a genuine old harmonium.

They are so amazingly human, not only in looks and individual personality but also in their apparent exercise of free will and reason, that they make flesh-and-blood observers gasp in awe. And, like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous story, these robot children nearly caused their father’s death.

Turn back to a dramatic day some 20 years before the French Revolution. Pierre Jacquet-Droz, Neuchatel theologian and watchmaker, was jolting along in a fashionable coach on the high road winding through the Jura Mountains toward Paris. In a rickety, big-wheeled wagon closely following the coach were three mysterious black boxes, each measuring about six by five feet. Near a wayside inn a group of curious peasants crowded around the strange wagon and inquired about the black boxes.

“The bodies of a young woman and two boys that I myself have created,” called out Monsieur Jacquet-Droz with a quick flourish of his hands. “Each can perform wonders when I bring them to life—which J do at will!”

If he hadn’t added that he was taking his black-box magic to the Royal Court of Louis XVI by special command, the superstitious country folk would have hacked him to pieces with their scythes. Indeed, they threatened to do it, anyway—but M. Jacquet-Droz threw dust in their eyes with his hasty departure.

Before he finally reached Paris with his three black boxes, twice he had to rattle away from inns in the dead of night when friendly innkeepers warned him that bands of peasants were preparing to burn him at the stake.

In Paris, Jacquet-Droz and a secrecy-sworn French assistant unpacked the black boxes at midnight behind locked doors. With great care the watchmaker lifted the two “dead” boys from their coffin boxes, then raised the body of the wistful girl with the exquisite little nose and the supple, tapering fingers.

The awe-struck assistant faltered in his help as the robot creator posed his boys before desks and his girl before a spinet. Then he brushed the children’s human hair and touched up the rouge on their life-like cheeks and lips. After adjusting the drape of their costumes, he gently flicked off the dust from their journey. With a spit-moistened finger he redefined the children’s eyebrows and reformed the curls at the nape of the young lady’s neck.

“Now they are ready to come to life at my bidding!” he muttered as he covered each with a throw of purple damask. When he turned, the assistant had fled. The robot creator smiled.

For all his visions, the Swiss was a shrewd businessman. He had deliberately frightened his assistant. While the master technician ate a sound supper, his terrified former helper was spreading the word through the streets of Paris about the “metaphysicist” who could create living people. Jacquet-Droz had known he, too would. He figured that the publicity would catch up with him by the end of the week. It did.

All the notables in Paris flocked to the opening of his exhibition. Hearsay had turned to genuine belief. Gossip grew hot about what Jacquet-Droz had brought from Switzerland in those three strange black boxes.

“Be careful,” a duke of France cautioned his mistress, “lest one of these puppets suddenly forsake his pleasant manners and descend from his stool to attack us.”

The chance that such a thing might happen added the lure of unknown danger to the mystery about these wonderful puppets that came to life. Some speculated on whether a dwarf was hidden inside. Others whispered that Jacquet-Droz had driven a bargain with the devil.

Meanwhile, Jacquet-Droz happily counted his gate and kept an eye peeled to make sure no crank tried to assassinate one of his marvels.

The girl musician was most startling. She actually played the harmonium and her recital lasted a full hour. As a player, she showed all the skill of Haydn, the noted Austrian composer. Her eyes moved and her lips and entire head quivered with emotion. Noblemen commented on her probable virtue while showman Jacquet-Droz, artfully pretending to adjust a fold in her dress, set in motion other parts of her clockwork-driven drum. Pins in this drum made her fingers and arms move deftly over the keyboard of the spinet and play the new tunes that Jacquet-Droz himself had written.

The writer neatly penned numerous letters and messages, then dashed off a flattering toast to King Louis XVI. The artist—apparently at will, sketched complex line drawings of Cupid in a chariot, whipping up his butterfly steed; the laurel-crowned head of Louis XIV; a hound, with its name “Mon Toutou” inscribed under the belly; and. of course, Louis XVI and his consort.

Now and then the artist raised his pencil, bent his head forward with a studied expression and blew gently across the drawing so that the pencil leavings would not smudge as his hand proceeded with the sketch.

This was the master touch, for the caress of the robot artist’s breath against the cheeks of the ladies present made several of them swoon. When they revived, they claimed that this wonderful breath had been “perfumed like a meadow of Normandy poppies.”

Newspapers of the day marveled at these “living” puppets. In every sense they were the rage of Paris. Even governesses of noble brats held up the three robot children as a shining example of good conduct for the younger generation.

The Swiss watchmaker’s miracle children were not the first man-made people. Manlike monsters stalk through all folklore. Since earliest antiquity men have dreamed of strange beings created in their own image. Lots of human energy has gone into speculation on the chances of producing an artificial man that might really draw the mysterious breath of true life.

Back in 2634 B.C. the Chinese Emperor Houang-ti ordered his craftsmen to make him a man who could always point south. They turned out a clever magnetized figure—probably the first robot in history. He was set up on the rear end of a battle cart to help the Emperor pursue his ancient enemy Tschi-yeou in southern China.

Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Cretans and Greeks also dabbled in robot making. They used hydraulic and pneumatic devices to move their hand-carved little men and thus astound worshippers in their temples.

In the Middle Ages, Albert Magnus reportedly spent 30 years in building a mechanical man that answered the door and saluted the visitor.

Camus made a fancy toy carriage for Louis XIV of France. The tiny coachman cracked a whip and the little horses’ legs moved naturally. When the carriage arrived opposite the King’s seat, a page hopped down and opened the door for milady, who then stepped out and presented a petition to the King.

Rene Descartes, the 17th-Century French philosopher, thought “bodies are all mechanisms” and created an automatic female to prove his theory. When he tried to ship his mechanical woman across the English Channel, a tempest arose. The young lady began “to jump about in an unseemly fashion” within her sealed box. The ship’s captain had the box opened. When he saw the strange woman inside the box, he promptly tossed her overboard.

“Back to the devil, where you belong,” he cried.

Modern robots usually get better treatment than did Descartes’ restless lady. The term robot derives from the Czech word robit, meaning “work,” and came into wide use in 1923 when Karl Capek wrote a play R. U. R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), in which mechanical beings did all the work for man.

In real life, scientists are yet to achieve this happy, workless state—but they have created many ingenious robots that are taking over some of our monotonous tasks— from answering the phone to piloting planes or working out complex mathematical problems.

Bell Laboratories’ weird electronic brain called Vodor can put words together mechanically and “talk.” In Washington the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey has a complicated machine known as The Great Brass Brain. When questioned, this robot can predict tides accurately for every port in the world—years in advance.

Not only can some of today’s robots think out difficult mathematical problems and talk, but others have sensitive fingers and ears, can test chemicals by “sense of taste” or see through photo-electric eyes. But even the best of modern robots look more like clever gadgets than like people.

Despite all the new tricks, our latest mechanical men lack the personality that made critics of Jacquet-Droz insist that he had sold himself to the devil for the privilege of creating people more lasting and clever than God’s. Nearly 200 years have passed since his mechanical boy dotted his first “i,” the artist drew his first cupid and the girl tapped out her first minuet. Yet the trio remain as startling as the day their creator popped them out of their black boxes in Paris.

Today, in the historical museum at Neuchatel, the artist’s eerie breath still draws a gasp from his audience. The young lady of the little robot family still minuets with a skilled human touch no modern, mechanical player can copy.

Only the writer has lost some of his human quality. Over and over again he must scribble out “Welcome to Neuchatel” for the gaping visitors. Some day, as he hears the same gasp, sees the same gesture of surprise, gets the same request for a souvenir of his writing from the staring line of spectators, he may slip a cog and jot down on his pad, “PEOPLE are robots!”

Take it from Pierre the Penman. He’s had almost 200 years of very personal experience with robots—he should know.

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Robot Suits for Animated Youngsters

ANY costume party, parade or trip in a space ship will be a real pleasure for the young live wire in your family when he is clad in this bizarre suit (Fig. 1). The dimensions in the drawing will make a suit that fits the average seven to ten year old, but vary the size to fit the child who will wear it.

Completed suit has a one-piece head and body, two arms and two legs. Prepare the body box first (Fig. 2), cutting out the bottom completely. ‘ In the top cut a hole slightly smaller than the head box (by about 1/4 in. each way). Cut arm holes in each side.

If you can’t find a properly sized box for the head, make one from flat corrugated cardboard, cutting the openings first, then forming it into a box. Give the facial features the unrealistic touch by cutting one-sided, flexible cardboard strips 1-1/4 in. wide and the circumference of the openings for eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Glue into the openings so they extend 3/4 in. on the outside.

Make arms and legs for the robot suit from sections of flexible cardboard glued together, while still flat, with a joint of cloth or burlap. To allow flexibility, the cloth should be about two inches wider than the cardboard. Run a thread loosely through top and bottom of cloth, then gather fabric on thread to fit cardboard. Leave most of the fullness near the back of the elbow and top of knee. Then tape the cardboard into tubular form and stitch the cloth. Have the arm sections fit snugly enough so they won’t slip down when worn. Place a wire hook at the back top of each leg in such fashion that it will hook into the pockets or belt of the child’s jeans. Then form the units into cylinders and fasten with glue and staples.

Reinforce the box joints with gummed tape, and glue and tape head to body.

Make a cardboard box large enough to take two D-size flashlight batteries side by side and tape to the forward, inside right hand corner of the body box as in Fig. 2A. To hold the flashlight bulbs on top of the head box, take a wire coat hanger apart, straighten the wire and rebend it to the shape shown in Fig. 2B. Fasten two flashlight bulbs to the ends with fine copper wire and solder to the wire frame. Then hook up the batteries to the bulbs as shown in the wiring diagram Fig. 2B. The door-bell switch, bolted to the right hand side of the body box will enable the youngster to flash the lights off and on at will.

To the center of the body box tape a small aluminum foil pie pan into which you have pricked holes to make it look more complicated. To further decorate the suit, give it a coat of aluminum paint, paint rivet heads around the edges of the body-head unit and place a spaceman name in the lower right corner. Glue a small thermometer to the lower left corner and label Weather Checker; just above that tape a small balloon and call it Weather Balloon. To the upper right corner fasten a tapered popsicle stick with a brad. Letter the words Slo and Fast at either side of that and place numbers 1 through 9 around the circle. The letters UHF in the upper left corner add a final fanciful touch.

To don the suit, the youngster first puts on the leg sections, wriggles up into the bodyhead section, pulls on his sleeves, and he is ready to go!— George Laycock.

Electric Hand is made of a lightweight metal, driven by a tiny motor installed in the wrist. The electric engine operates off a six-volt battery. A button attached to the user’s upper arm allows the motor to be switched on or off merely by pressure against the body. Device was developed by Friesecke & Hoepfner of Erlangenbruck. Germany.

Robot Plays Card Games Press Button – It Deals a Hand

TO PLAY a game of cards with this robot merely press a button. Miniature cards are speedily shuffled and a full hand of five cards flash into view. Each hand is awarded points according to the value of the cards. A pair counts five, three of a kind counts fifteen, a straight represents fifty, and so on up the scale.

The miniature cards are made by pasting, side by side on a sheet of cardboard, fifty ordinary playing cards (a complete deck excepting two deuces). These are taken outdoors and photographed, as large as possible, with a 4″x5″ or post card size camera. Trim the tiny cards from a contact print of the negative.

Ten of the cards are glued to each of five wood wheels measuring 2-1/4″ in diameter and 3/8″ thick. The wheels are weighted with lead slugs and revolve loosely on a length of doweling. Each wheel has ten small brads nailed into it and one brad fixed near the axle to engage a bit of spring brass driven into the doweling.

When the doweling axle turns in a clockwise direction, the wheels are engaged and turn with it. Stopping the axle allows the wheels to continue to turn with their own momentum. When they finally stop, a strip of spring on the baseboard brushes two of the ten brads in order to frame one of the cards of each wheel in its window. Each of the springs has a different tension so that no two wheels rotate with the same speed.

How to Make the Control Button

The control button is another piece of dowel resting in a drilled-out block containing a stiff spring. It should be covered with an inch of thin rubber tubing where it rubs against the dowel axle.

A press of the button spins the axle, giving the card wheels sufficient momentum so they rotate a number of times. Each stops at a different moment.

Here’s a Servant Out of This World
A seven-foot eight-inch robot does its master’s bidding in M-G-M’s new movie, “Forbidden Planet.” Made of plastic and synthetic leather, the robot is animated by electricity. Ears are rotating antennas, and its grillework month hides a loudspeaker.

Amateur Chemist’s Robot
Hyman Cordon, chemical student, of Boston, with a “man” he built out of rubber, glass, and other scraps. It eats food and digests it in human fashion, having heart, intestines, lungs, bladder, etc. It was exhibited at a recent “science fair.” (Int. News)

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ROBOT Planes to FIGHT ENEMY AIR RAIDERS

by DOUGLAS ROLFE

Automatic airplanes, steered and flown by special photo cell equipment invented by the Englishman, Mr. Sidney G. Brown, may revolutionize war air raids.

WINGING their way with deadly precision towards the apparently unsuspecting city which is their objective the enemy bombers are alive with bustling activity as the bombing crews take station and prepare for the impending attack.

Although the machine gunners at their several posts keep vigilant watch for defensive interceptor fighters, no one is seriously alarmed at the possibilities of effective defense measures and even when the surrounding gloom is shattered with appalling suddenness by the piercing glare of a hundred searchlights, there is little concern on the part of pilots and gunners of the swiftly approaching planes.

Are they not flying at an altitude of at least 20,000 feet and at a speed in excess of 200 miles per hour? What pursuit plane could hope to attain height and find them in the short time that will elapse before they, their awful mission accomplished! are miles away on the return journey and within protective range of their own fighters!

Suddenly the searchlights, which hitherto have contented themselves with an aimless probing of the starry vault, swing with deadly unison and pick them up. Almost instantaneously the cold hand of an unreasoning fear clutches at the squadron leader’s heart as in the tremendous glare he sees the ship next in line disintegrate before his eyes. While he is still frantically groping for an explanation—for there have been no signs of gun fire—the wreckage goes whistling to its doom and is followed by another and yet another of the ships which comprise his command!

Some burst into flames or explode, but for the greater part the stricken planes appear simply to crumple in the air. The illuminated night is full of falling planes and at this moment the bewildered commander’s fear mounts to sheer terror when his ship staggers under a frightful impact from some unobserved object.

As the few lucky survivors hurriedly retreat from the scene of disaster there is muttered talk about collision in the air but all agree that, even allowing for the blinding glare of the searchlights impinging upon them, it is unthinkable that so many ships would have piled into each other. Yet here is practically an entire squadron destroyed within a few minutes of its objective!

This is the devasting picture painted for the outcome of bombing attacks in the future if Sidney G. Brown, world famous English inventor, develops his latest invention for combating aerial raids.

Realizing how powerless even the most up-to-date ground defenses are in the face of high speed bombing attacks from the air, Mr. Brown proposes to build robot destroyer planes which will bring down or at least incapacitate enemy bombers the moment they are within range of the defense areas.

Robots to Attack at 500 M.P.H.

As this attacking unit, or “destroyer,” carries neither pilot nor armament, and since its entire flight period is a matter of seconds or minutes at the most, Mr. Brown points out that it need consist of little more than a powerful motor and rudimentary wings carrying a minimum of fuel. The steel body containing the steering devices which form part of Mr. Brown’s invention and supporting the control surfaces would be correspondingly small and light. Thus it is perfectly credible that today these “destroyers” can be built to exceed the required attack speed which has been tentatively set at around 450 to 500 miles per hour.

The secret of the steering lies in the use of a telescopic sight which is coupled to photo-electric cells and thence to the gyroscopic controls by means of four electromagnets. Differing from other devices of this nature, the recently suggested control for robot-torpedoes for example, the mechanism is not dependent upon the presence of infrared rays but is controlled by an ingenious arrangement whereby any disturbance of the photo-electric cells is transmitted to the electro-magnets in such a way as to ensure steering at all times in the direction of the sighted target.

Targets Aligned by Telescope

Thus when the telescopic sight is aligned on the target the image of the bomber falls on any one or all of the four sections of the photo-cell screen. Should the image deviate from center the balance of the cells is upset and less light will fall on one or more of the cells. Mr. Brown utilizes this simple fact to control the electro-magnets in such a way as to correct any deviation from the target.

In practice these minute but powerful “pursuit ships” would be launched at acute angles from specially designed catapults which would also serve to start the motor of the unit as it left the catapult. Light weight plus great power, assisted by the impulse of the artificial start, are expected to ensure that full speed will be almost instantaneously attained and the “destroyer” thus launched will reach the highest bomber at such speed as to be virtually invisible.

For use against day raiders Mr. Brown proposes that the telescopic sighting “eye” be set on an automatically controlled quadrant and that the destroyers be released at a tangent to the target. The difference in the lines of flight would be gradually taken up as the angle of the telescope is automatically and gradually reduced in flight. Thus the pro- jectile would approach its victim at a fairly normal angle of climb and then attack vertically from beneath.

For use at night in conjunction with searchlights equipped with the latest “electric ears” it would be only necessary to pick up the target and then launch the “destroyer” into the searchlight beam. In this case the telescopic sight would be reversed so as to point backwards into the beam and the projectile would “ride” the light beam to its victim.

Here’s what a ROBOT “thinks” with!

WHEN you see a Robot obey its inventor’s commands to rise, walk, talk, sing, and smoke, you wonder what kind of imitation brain it has.

The New Merriam-Webster tells you that the Robot’s “gray matter” is made of Selenium, and its chemical relatives, which also make possible all the other modern marvels achieved with the photocell, or “electric eye.” And the same kind of information which ”The Supreme Authority” gives on Selenium is also furnished on the other 91 elements known to the world of chemistry!

For scientific information, turn first to the New Merriam-Webster!

Send for FREE BOOKLET, “The New Merriam-Webster: What It Will Do For You.” G. & C. MERRIAM CO., Dept. 300, Springfield, Mass.

Radio Controlled Robots Stage a Realistic Boxing Match

TWO pugilistic robots, built by the Veronda brothers of California, recently staged a furious six round boxing match in which they slugged each other’s metal bodies with all the realism of a human fight. The actions of the mechanical fighters were controlled by short wave radio. At the height of the fray, however, the wires got crossed somewhere. With smoke rising from their innards the fighters lost their heads and began lashing out wildly, dealing terrific clouts with both fists. Finally one robot went down and the other collapsed on top of him.

Century Old Lady Robot Writes Letters, Draws Pictures

ROBOTS are not strictly a modern invention. At the left is seen “Miss Automaton,” a robot doll over a hundred years old. When a motor is geared to its mechanism, which is located under the table, the doll writes letters and draws pictures with a pen which it holds in its right hand. In the photo she is seen drawing a ship for the amazement and amusement of spectators.

“Miss Automaton” now reposes in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and is the gift of John W. Brock, of Philadelphia, whose father, John Penn Brock, bought the doll in 1870 in France.

Dancing Robot performs a merry jig by remote control. Patrick Rizzo who built it in his spare time, claims the $100,000 creature is the first of its type.

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You’ll Own “Slaves” by 1965

The robots are coming! When they do, you’ll command a host of push-button servants.

By O. O. Binder

IN 1863, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. But by 1965, slavery will be back! We’ll all have personal slaves again, only this time we won’t fight a Civil War over them. Slavery will be here to stay.

Don’t be alarmed. We mean robot “slaves.” Let’s take a peek into the future to see what the Robot Age will bring. It is a morning of 1965. . .

You are gently awakened by soft chimes from your robot clock, which also turns up the heat, switches on radio news and signals your robot valet, whom you’ve affectionately named “Jingles.” He turns on your shower, dries you with a blast of warm air, and runs an electric shaver over your stubble. Jingles helps you dress, tying your necktie perfectly and parting your hair within a millimeter of where you like it, Down in the kitchen, Steela, the robot cook, opens a door in her own alloy body and withdraws eggs, toast and coffee from her built-in stove. Then she dumps the dishes back in and you hear her internal dishwasher bubbling as you leave for the garage.

In your robot car you simply set a dial for your destination and relax. Your automatic auto does the rest—following a radar beam downtown, passing other cars, slowing down in speed zones, gently applying radar brakes when necessary, even gassing up when your tank is empty. You give a friendly wave to robot traffic cops who break up all traffic jams with electronic speed and perception. Suddenly you hear gun shots. A thief is emptying his gun at a robot cop, who just keeps coming, bullets bouncing from his steel chest. The panicky thug races away in his car but the robot cop shifts himself into eighth gear and overtakes the bandit’s car on foot.

If you work at an office, your robot secretary takes dictation on voice tapes and types internally at the same time, handing you your letter as soon as you say “yours truly.” If you go golfing, the secretary answers the phone, records any messages, and also delivers any prerecorded message of yours.

At home, your robot reciter reads books to you from your microfilm library. His eye can see microscopic prints. Or you play chess with a robot companion, matching your wits against an electronic brain.

In 1956 research scientists already devised robot game players who always won against human opponents. Of « • course the 1965 robots can be adjusted as you wish by buttons for high, average or low skill.

When a heavy snow falls you don’t have to shovel the walk. Neither does your robot caretaker. He merely sprays cheap atomic heat around the grounds, melting the snow as fast as it falls. Yours is a robot home, too, turning all day on a foundation turntable to enjoy the utmost benefits of the sun.

At bedtime, you snap on the robot guard who detects any burglars electronically. It’s a cheaper version of the robot alarm system in 1956, guarding precious documents like the original Constitution, in the National Archives Building.

During the night, no mice or rats can escape the super-sensitive ears and infra-red eyes of your roving robot cat. Back in 1956 scientists experimented with the first robot animals, such as the robot mole that could follow light beams, the robot moth dancing around flames and robot mice finding their way out of mazes.

Fanciful, this picture of the near future ? A foretaste of such robot wonders surround us today, most of them arising in the short decade since World War II. Besides the well-known electronic brains and automation machinery, robot devices are multiplying with a fecundity the human race never achieved. Atomic plants have installed amazing robot hands and arms that look like the creations of a “mad scientist” to handle deadly fissionable products.

Most remarkable is General Electric’s new Yes-Man, a master-slave manipulator of incredible dexterity. Any movement the human master makes with his hands—even lifting a finger—is faithfully duplicated by the powerful slave machine. In a fantastic demonstration, Yes-Man fixed a girl model’s hair-do and applied cosmetics, all with the gentle touch of a woman’s hand.

With suitable telephone and television circuits, master and slave can be thousands of miles apart. Thus a doctor in New York could perform an operation, via Yes-Man in Los Angeles!

But robots are becoming more versatile than being mere mechanical hands. The Hanford atomic plant now has a robot chemical analyzer which, like a dozen human chemists, extracts valuable traces of plutonium from nuclear wastes.

Medical science has devised a life-saving robot heart-lung-kidney machine which keeps weak patients alive through hitherto impossible operations and fatal illnesses.

Datamatic Corporation has released the robot reader which records data and pictures on magnetic tape at the super speed of 100 inches a second. At this tremendous rate, a who library can be recorded in a few hours.

In national defense, robot radar “peers” 1,800 miles beyond our borders to guard against sneak attack. If it comes, robot missiles like the Nike rocket would seek out enemy bombers unerringly, even in fog or darkness. Robot anti-aircraft guns spot the enemy plane, determine speed and height, swing and open fire in split seconds— all by themselves!

Robot drone planes serve for target practice. But on the drawing boards are pilotless robot fighter planes capable of supersonic jet maneuvers that would reduce human pilots to jelly.

The Army is now testing a robot scout plane whose TV-eye can scan enemy positions and transmit all it sees back to its base.

None of this amazes Dr. Norbert Wiener of MIT, the “Father of Cybernetics”—which is the academic term for all robot and automatic systems. It was two of his major mathematical concepts, some years ago, that led to the first electronic brains and all robot devices we know today.

Dr. Wiener himself enthusiastically prophesies a coming age of robot marvels undreamed of today. His far-reaching imagination foresees even robot psychiatrists, tabulating all the infinite fears and anxieties of the human patient, working out diagnosis and therapy in one short sitting.

In 1965 they may ask “Is there a robot doctor in the house?” Drug firms today ¦ * use robot brains to name new products and juggle formulas for new wonder drugs. Planned are robot medics to sort out data and find miracle cures long before human minds can see them. Robot surgeons will eventually perform delicate major operations with tremor-less hands of superhuman skill and speed.

The personal “slaves” mentioned before have been forecast by Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, consulting engineer. He pictures a long series of “Electrobots” as our mechanical menials.

The space satellites going up in 1957 will carry an ingenious robot reporter, or telemetering system transmitting all the “space scoops” that will thrill the world.

The first “man” to reach the moon may well be a space robot, immune to flying-saucer speeds and radiations from the atomic rockets, ignoring the bitter cold and airless space, and able to survive any crash landing.

Criminology is turning to robot detectives, pinning down obscure clues unfailingly. No criminal mastermind will escape such a mechanical mastermind equal to a dozen Sherlocks.

Perhaps most inspirational is the idea proposed by Professor Ralph Meagher of the University of Illinois. He visions the government using a robot economist, robot financier, robot statistician, etc., to help promote the welfare of 170 million Americans.

Swiftly tabulating all national data such as supply and demand, unemployment, inflation or deflation, and the stock market, this robot brain trust will find the solution to nation-wide problems swiftly, where human experts take too long.

Dr. Wiener, the Father of Robotry, may not live to see this grand outcome of his cybernetic brainchildren. But in his own words there is “no limit” to what the Robot Age can bring.

One jarring thought comes up.

At the recent National Electronics Conference in Chicago, Curtis R. Schafer, project engineer for the Norden-Ketay Corp. warned that tiny radios placed in the brain may some day make possible the control and enslavement of entire nations. Schafer said the control of man himself may be the ultimate achievement of what is known as “bio-control.”

But the good seems to outweigh evil in the case of the robots and someone will probably come up with a robot worrier to put our minds at ease.

One thing is certain—the robots are coming. The wonders of electronics will dominate every phase of our future life to make it more successful and pleasurable for everyone who lives on Earth.

Servo-Servant

Answer to a housewife’s — or fireman’s — prayer is a life-size, remote-controlled servomechanical robot built by Vienna engineer Claus Scholz.

The MM47 can do almost anything from housework to handling radioactive materials or fighting fires from the inside while the operator stays at a safe distance. The 105-pound plastic robot cost about $760 to build.

First Robot in history is said to be this soldier with an automatic bellows blowing a trumpet. It was made in 1910 by Friedrich Kaufman of Dresden, Germany, and is on display at present in the Munich Museum. Clockwork spring drives it.

Robot Introduces Banquet Speakers and Makes it Snappy

RECOMMENDED for speakers tired of the general run of chairmen is a new robot speaker created by Prof. William Beard of the California Institute of Technology, at Pasadena.

Prof. Beard takes the robot with him to lectures, sets it beside him, and the phonograph within the robot speaks: “Friends and fellow robots, if any. Now I have got to be a chairman and introduce this distinguished gentleman on the right who has a message of importance to give you. Unlike most chairmen, I am not going to talk you to death, but will cut it short. Okay, professor, shoot.”

Prof. Beard’s robot is made from sheet iron, a coffee pot, toothbrushes for eyebrows, electric lights for eyes, and a self-starting phonograph for a voice.

MECHANICAL RAT FINDS WAY IN MAZE

As if endowed with powers of reasoning, a mechanical “rat” devised by Dr. Stevenson Smith, University of Washington psychologist, threads its way through an artificial maze like those used to study the behavior of living rats. The three-wheeled, electric-powered device moves along a grooved path that divides at several points, obliging the “rat” to choose which direction to follow. If it takes the wrong turn and enters a blind alley, mechanical feelers cause it to halt, retrace its journey, and try again until the whole course is negotiated successfully. The odd model is designed to show how automatic reflexes differ from thinking processes.

Reading Thoughts by Radio

Can thoughts be read by radio? “Madam Radora” seems to prove that they can. Madam is not a human being, but a life-size automaton shown at the Permanent Radio Fair in New York. Her “thoughts” and movements are controlled entirely by wireless; no wires of any kind are attached to the table whereon she rests, and a liberal reward is promised the person who can prove that this is not true. Persons desiring to ask questions simply stand before “Madam Radora” with their hands resting on a special pedestal carrying a number of electrical contacts. Radora then bends over her crystal, and answers the questions put to her in a clear, feminine voice.

Inventor Forecasts Private Radio Systems

Private communication, on a par with the telephone, will be possible in the near future, Edgar DeForest, a Minneapolis
engineer, predicted recently. His plan involves a central station, continuously in action , and equipped with both sending and receiving elements, operating with what the inventor calls “waveless wireless,” without any alternating or pulsating current effects. Offices and homes would be equipped with small instruments, the cost of which would be nominal, and which, by automatic signals, would be put in touch with the person desired, so that the system would be limited to the two connected stations, just as with the telephone.

“Robot Man” Has Glass Body
PLACED on exhibition at the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition, a newly developed “mechanical man” features a body made of plate glass, revealing an intricate maze of cogs, gears, wheels, levers, etc., to public gaze. Employing a microphone which it holds to its mouth, the robot answers numerous questions put to it by means of a dial device, as demonstrated by the young lady (above). Two years were required to build the intricate robot machine.

“GIZMO.” a mechanical man. can walk, answer “yes” and “no” and grasp and release objects. Built by Wade Barrineau III, Georgetown. S. C.

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“I Can Whip Any Mechanical Robot” by Jack Dempsey

Picturesque former champion of world tells mechanical side of boxing. Challenges any robot.

I CAN whip any mechanical robot that ever has or ever will be made. Maybe that sounds a bit egotistical, maybe you will say it’s just the voice of a “has-been,” but I assure you that neither is true.

I was talking over old times with my friend Captain W. H. Fawcett and during the course of conversation he remarked that undoubtedly mechanical ingenuity has done much to improve the work of many boxers.

“That’s true,” I answered, “but nothing mechanical will ever be able to whip an honest to goodness boxer. Even right now, despite the fact that I am definitely through with the ring as a fighter, I wouldn’t be afraid of any robot or mechanical man., I could tear it to pieces, bolt by bolt and scatter its brain wheels and cogs all over the canvas.”

The reason is simple: Engineers can build a robot that will possess everything except brains. And without brains no man can ever attain championship class in the boxing game. It is true enough that we have had some rare intellectual specimens in the higher frames of boxing glory, but I can truthfully say that no man ever attained genuine boxing recognition without real headwork. The best punch in the world is not worth a whoop if the boxer doesn’t know what to do with it. The most damaging of all blows is the short, straight-arm punch to the solar plexus—the punch which came into being when Fitzsimmons took the championship from Jim Corbett in one of the boxing-game’s greatest surprise victories.

In hitting to the solar plexus, that spot just below the meeting point of the ribs, the blow travels only about six or eight inches and the result is comparable only to the terrific effect of being struck by a piston which moves forward as its arm slides out. There never has been and never will be a boxer who could remain on his feet after being struck by a mechanically perfect solar plexus punch.

Another blow, almost equally devastating, is the left hook to the “button.” This likewise travels only about six inches, but the impulse for this blow comes from the body as it moves forward, pivoting slightly at the hips. When, with the piston’s hard-driving precision, the fist and elbow turn instantly to travel over that six-inch span to the point of contact, the fighter’s previous forward motion gives him the greatest power it is possible for a human to achieve in the ring. If this blow meets its victim properly, the man who delivered it can turn away for the dressing room while the counting starts. He need not fear that his opponent will get up.

It was the left hook with which I dropped Luis Firpo three times in the first round when we met in New York back in 1923. And it was this same hard wallop that put the Wild Bull of the Pampas to sleep for good when the second round was but 58 seconds gone.

There are other parallels, too, between mechanics and boxing. The old lever principle governs the action of three primary blows known to every ring fan: the jab, the right cross and the upper-cut. In each of these blows the body acts more or less as an axis as the punches are delivered by a fighter in forward motion.

Any boxer’s success depends to a great extent on just how efficiently he is able to apply mechanical principles to his fighting. As an example, every blow I have delivered in my boxing career, with the exception of those used in infighting and designed only to war down an opponent, was intended to be a “perfect” punch. Those that fell short of perfection and failed to bring down my man failed because they were blocked or because the human eye and arm did not coordinate to achieve the highest degree of efficiency.

Best Machine Lacks Brains

The piston, to illustrate, drives at exactly the same spot in the same groove with only the most minute variance. The same cannot be said for the hitting arm of a boxer, except insofar as he is able to keep his “machine” in such excellent condition that it is always ready to carry out the telegraphic instructions from his brain.

I’ll venture to say, despite the fact that mechanics and boxing are based on the same principles, that the average clever boxer, facing a robot constructed with two or three vulnerable points, could leave such a creature in the trash heap. For no matter how perfect the machine might be, it lacks a brain, and the most killing of all blows is worthless when not delivered at just the crucial second.

Mechanical principles govern boxing only because man has realized the advantage through his study of science and harnessed these principles.

PAST PRESIDENTS “TALK” IN EXHIBIT

Five of our most famous presidents come to life in a unique historical exhibit designed by a New York inventor for display in stores and schools. Under the control of an operator offstage, figures representing Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Grover Cleveland rise in turn and deliver excerpts from some of their most famous speeches. Levers like those in a signal tower raise and seat the figures, and the voices are supplied by sixteen-inch phonograph records and reproduced by loudspeakers hidden behind the stage. Dummy microphones give the exhibit a modern touch, suggesting that these former chief executives might have assembled to take part in a present-day meeting.

Hidden Motors Give Life to Prehistoric Monsters

Saber-toothed tigers, giant ground sloths, and dinosaurs, inhabitants of the earth millions of years ago, have been reproduced mechanically by the New York firm of Mess-more and Damon for exhibition this summer at the Chicago World’s Fair. Within a huge hemisphere of metal, they will give visitors a glimpse of the world as it was long before man appeared. (P.S.M., June ‘32, p. 16.) Controlled electrically, the mechanical monsters swing their heads, roll their eyes, breathe, snarl, roar, and grunt in realistic fashion. A complicated mass of cogs, wheels, bellows, and silent motors produces the life-like sounds and motions. Beneath the canvas and papier-mache hide of each animal there are from one to sixteen electric motors. An operator controls the actions of the exhibits. At the World’s Fair, they will be seen in an environment of prehistoric vegetation.

Robot Checker Player Is Undefeated

OWNED by Frank Frain, of New York, N. Y., a mechanically created robot is said to have played in more than 25,000 checker matches without being defeated. Sponsored by a well know radio manufacturer, the “Magic Brain Checker Player,” as the robot is known, is making a tour of the country. Standing six feet tall and weighing 500 pounds, the robot disdainfully sweeps the checkerboard clear of checkers if its opponent attempts to cheat.

Robot Cow Moos and Gives Milk

Hidden Motors Give Exhibit for World’s Fair the Movements of a Living Animal

AN ELECTRIC cow that chews a cud, breathes, moves its head, winks its eyes, moos, and gives real milk will form one of the exhibits at the World’s Fair next summer.

This robot animal has just been completed at the New York City workshop of Messmore and Damon, specialists in creating mechanical beasts that range from prehistoric dinosaurs to modern puppies. It is an exact reproduction of a Holstein milk cow, the hide which covers the papier-mache body being that of the real animal. This particular Holstein was chosen as a model because it had a large black spot on one side. In the reproduction, this spot forms a door that can be removed if anything goes wrong with the mechanism inside.

How a single silent electric motor with-in the cow operates cams and levers to produce the various lifelike movements is illustrated by our artist’s drawing. The different-shaped cams vary the speed of the movements of the tail, jaws, head, ears, and eyes to make them more realistic. Forming the support of the head is a flat flexible bronze spring that bends from side to side as the head moves. The sides of the mechanical cow move in and out in regular rhythm to simulate breathing.

A glass milking machine milks the cow, real milk coming from a tank in the udder. Spectators see it drawn through transparent tubes into the glass container. But they do not see a small centrifugal pump, in the pedestal upon which the animal stands, which pumps it back again. The cow cost $3,000.

Are you a ROBOT – OR DO YOU THINK FOR YOURSELF?

DARE you throw off the shackles of tradition and orthodoxy? Do you close your eyes and say, “What was good enough for those before me is good enough for me?”

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ROBOTS STAGE REALISTIC PRIZE FIGHT

Mechanical men stage an exciting boxing contest in a new game invented for amusement resorts. Two contestants play the game, each controlling one of the boxers with a hand wheel. Animated by a system of electro-magnets, the figures swing their gloves up, down, or sideways and duck with surprising realism. If one of the dummies is struck by an upward-swung glove at a certain critical point on the chin, it falls to the floor, as shown in the photo below, and a knockout is scored.