Robots at Pyeongchang 2018 – a sign of the times or a sci-fi throwback? - Feedback - Community Feedback

7 Robots at Pyeongchang 2018 – a sign of the times or a sci-fi throwback?

CIPD Staff

16 Feb, 2018 15:55

Perhaps you’ve been keeping up to date with Team GB via Olympics coverage (or are cheering on other nations). Perhaps you’re not remotely interested and can’t wait till the Winter Olympics are over. Either way, there’s one team you may be interested to know have been performing very well at Pyeongchang 2018 – Team Robot.

20 robots have been taking part in the Winter Olympics, most notably in the opening ceremony and taking part in the Olympic torch relay. A robot resembling Short Circuit’s Johnny No. 5 carried a torch whilst breaking down a brick wall (presumably symbolic of barriers being broken between humanity and technology). Flying drones were also some of the privileged few chosen to bear the torch once it reached South Korea.

Robots have even been competing in their own ski tournament in Hoenseong for a $10,000 USD prize. Eight ‘skibot’ teams from universities, institutes and private companies raced down a beginner ski slope as their human counterparts in Pyeongchang waited for wind conditions to settle before being able to compete. All robots were required to be more than 50 cm tall, stand on two ‘legs’ and have joints resembling knees and elbows. Robotic vacuum cleaners have also been spotted cleaning the main press centre in Pyeonchang alongside humans using traditional vacuum cleaners.

Is robot participation an example of future technology augmenting rather than replacing humans? I asked my 7 year old what he thinks about robots performing with humans at the opening ceremony and he thought it was ‘cool.’ Colleagues at work were not as bowled over. I found it exciting to watch and then wondered what it meant for future human-robot relations. Is it celebrating South Korea’s leading role in technology? Does it remind you of the film and television robots which are no longer fiction?

South Korean officials have said that they expect robots to feature alongside all future Winter Olympics. However, in their Olympic flame-lighting ceremony press release, robots are referred to as a ‘means of transportation’ for the Olympic torch. The opening ceremony drones I watched performing alongside skiers were awe-inspiring and not a means of transport. They were fully fledged performers contributing to the ‘augmented reality’ which had been kept top secret before the ceremony.

Whether they’re cleaning buildings or flying down ski slopes, I think we’ll be seeing more of our robot colleagues at worldwide events in the future.

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Johanna | 0 Posts

CIPD Staff

16 Feb, 2018 18:04

I saw those robot skiiers! Part of me was evilly satisfied that they kept falling over on the slalom ;)
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Anna | 0 Posts

18 Feb, 2018 10:44

In reply to Johanna:
I thought the skiing robots were very lifelike - they skied just like me :-)
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Robey | 0 Posts

19 Feb, 2018 09:34

I think that, increasingly, physical robots are something of a false flag in stories about threats to jobs. Physical robots are primarily used under human supervision to perform tasks that humans either can't or won't do: entering risky or compressed areas (like vacuuming under the sofa!), for example.

Far more interesting - and threatening - are the non-physical robots.

Rather than gears and pistons, their machinery is comprised of algorithms in increasingly dense and complex relationships that are able to turn data into decisions - not flawlessly, but then no human decision-making tree has ever been flawless, either. These ghostbots aren't artificial intelligence, because they aren't designed to resemble intelligent behaviour. They are machines as much as their physical counterparts, but their outputs, rather than movement or illumination, are decisions.

They are the robots that decide what adverts will appear in your social media stream. They are the robots that decide what your insurance premiums will be. They are the robots that pick the right song to play you, and the right variety of wine to order. They are the robots that decide what news you see, what voices you hear and what jobs you are offered. They are the robots that will eventually identify who will be made redundant and why. They are beginning to help police to sift through digital evidence: deciding what is and what is not relevant from mountains of data.

I don't oppose either kind of robot in principle. I can think of a thousand ways that Alexa and her ilk can help make my life a little more easeful. But I would caution people not to be distracted by Johnny 5 and Roomba when the robots they should really worry about are the ones they can't see.
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Victoria Dmochowski | 0 Posts

CIPD Staff

19 Feb, 2018 10:22

In reply to Robey:
Hi Robey and community,

Do you think that the use of robots at the Olympics is a sign of the unity people can have with machinery at work? Or a gimmick? My son thought that the opening ceremony showed that, 'Robots can also help. Robots can work together with people.' This backs up current views about technology augmenting, rather than replacing the work that humans do.

I currently enjoy the fact that BBC iPlayer can recommend to me programmes it thinks I will enjoy (it doesn't always get this right). But there's nothing like word of mouth from a friend or colleague telling me about a great programme I should catch. So... while I'm not having iPlayer replace people recommending something to me, I do find it useful. Is that augmenting?
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Owen | 0 Posts

19 Feb, 2018 11:30

In reply to Robey:
I for one welcome our robot overlords, and I hope in the future they recall this message before deciding whether or not to send me to one of their human work camps.
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Johanna | 0 Posts

CIPD Staff

21 Feb, 2018 11:43

In reply to Owen:
oh that's me done for after my comment about their skiiers!
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Robey | 0 Posts

22 Feb, 2018 15:15

In reply to Victoria Dmochowski:
Mostly a gimmick, although naturally it has a powerful psychological impact (as on your son). The robots at the Olympics were choreographed or pre-recorded or performing under very carefully controlled conditions (the skiers, let's be honest, were hardly up to the standards of their human counterparts).

I think ghostbots in concert with augmented reality are going to be far more potent, fluid and useful assistants than their physical cousins.

Looking around my 21st Century office at the piles of paper timesheets and hand-written scribbles, a physical robot would be nothing but an unwelcome interference. But the idea of a virtual assistant who can read digital and physical media, interpret them and compile the data into a form suitable for me to review and approve - and who will learn what sort of data should be organized in what form - is extremely appealing.

Instead of spending five hours every month doing payroll, it could take a few minutes and I could do something more fulfilling.

But, in this picture, there remains a substantial gulf between the ghostbot assistant who can perform routine tasks and learn their correct application, and "true" AI who could do the job of both assistant and HR Manager.

Not that this gap couldn't ever be filled, of course. But by that point, the line between human intellect and artificial intellect will be so blurry that we're well and truly into the realm of science fiction. If the zombie apocalypse doesn't get us first!
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