“The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is banning imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, citing national security risks, in a move that targets China. Beijing quickly accused the U.S. of protectionism,” reports the Associated Press.
The measures are likely to test relations with Beijing ahead of a planned U.S. visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in September. China dominates the global market for humanoid robots with an estimated market share of roughly 85%.
The FCC’s ban also includes new imports of quadruped robots, often referred to as four-legged robot dogs. The agency said imports of advanced robots pose cybersecurity and other national security risks. Offshore production of such equipment also leaves U.S. supply chains vulnerable to disruptions.
While Chinese robots might post cybersecurity risks, it would be unfair to ban all foreign-made humanoid robots. Some foreign-made humanoid robots are made in Korea, which is a U.S. treaty ally under a 1954 mutual defense treaty.
South Korea produces and actively develops humanoid robots. They include
- HUBO, the pioneering bipedal humanoid created by KAIST.
- IGRIS, a high-degree-of-freedom humanoid tested by LG.
“Amazon has developed a warehouse robot that can be assigned tasks using plain conversational English (and haul around carts weighing up to 400 kilograms),” which will enable normal people to easily manage it. It will likely cost less than $40,000 to produce.
The new Proteus robots will soon join the over 1 million robots already used by Amazon.
Rented robots are doing “the worst jobs,” helping factories keep their human employees, reports the New York Times.
Japan is turning to robots to care for its elderly as its birth rate shrinks. “With around a third of its population over the age of 65, Japan is increasingly turning to robots to care for its elderly citizens. New research suggests that this isn’t as dystopian as it sounds. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which surveyed robot adoption in Japanese nursing homes, found that the machines are associated with improvements in both the quality and productivity of elder care,” says the Cato Institute. Robots improve care in the nursing homes, and also improve the productivity of the humans working in them.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. On some American farms, there are drones with artificial intelligence, and robots that use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Scientists have developed tiny robots to repair damaged cells, and nanorobots to destroy cancerous tumors.
German robots hunted the North Sea for tens of thousands of unexploded World War II bombs.
Doctors used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery.
