A report Monday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicates that the U.S. is in serious peril of falling behind on next generation robotics research and development, and suggests that if immediate steps are not taken the country will succumb to foreign competitors, as it did with auto manufacturing and a host of other industries. To prevent this, a group of lawmakers, led in part by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), is in the process of mapping out ways to expand the research, development and use of robotics in the United States. Gingrey is co-chair of the Congressional Robotics Caucus along with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). According to its website, the caucus aims to do the following:
• Increase general awareness of challenges and issues among Members of Congress and policy analysts;
• Educate Members of Congress and congressional staff on current & future research and development, and utilization initiatives
• Serve as a forum where robotics-related policy issues can be exchanged, debated and discussed by members of Congress;
• Ensure that our nation remains globally competitive as the robotics industry expands and further affects the way we live our lives.
As Gingrey points out, “We do not need to get behind the curve on this. We don’t want to abdicate this to some other country like China or India.”
Two years ago a new program was initiated through funding from the Computing Community Consortium (in cooperation with the National Science Foundation) and in collaboration with 11 U.S. universities, in order to create an integrated national strategy for U.S. robotics research. The ‘roadmap’ will be facilitated by a series of workshops and conferences, with the results being reported to the Congressional Robotics Caucus.
Preliminary findings of the study indicate that the United States is already falling way behind in terms of investment in robotics related research and development. The European Union, for instance, recently committed more than $550 million to robotics research, in addition to hundreds of millions more it has already spent. Korea has committed to investing $1 billion in robotics technology development over the next decade. Japan is investing more than $350 million in robotics.
According to Henrik Christensen, chairman of the robotics department at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, the United States has spent hundreds of millions on robotics too, but almost all of it went to defense projects like unmanned aerial drones and other battlefield equipment. When defense projects are removed, the government-run National Science Foundation and related research programs have invested only around $50 million in robotics, he estimates.
What is uniquely interesting about the case of robotics research in the U.S., is that for a country with the broad depth of technological sophistry, intellectual capital, and financial resources as the U.S., surprisingly little work on the research and development of sophisticated robots has been undertaken. Currently, for example, the humanoid robotics market in the U.S. is wide open, waiting for the development of innovative design processes and entrepreneurial ventures that will facilitate the next generation of sophisticated robots. Perhaps the irony here is that despite a lack so far of technological focus on the construction of advanced robotics, such beings are increasingly depicted as a ubiquitous reality in this country, seen through the growing salience of robot depictions in the arts and entertainment industries, including music. The unfortunate depictions preserved for robots in most cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic scenarios as malevolent predators, have in fact spawned a veritable cottage industry around the prospects of creating an epic new understanding of humanoids as beings of good will and promoters of social justice.
It’s an exciting time to be involved in the robotics industry, both nationally and globally. As robots continue to achieve an enormous amount of salience and become the focus of mass public consumption on the silver screen, consequential reactions and images will emerge regarding how robots should behave, what kinds of social expectations and ethics will need to be adopted, and how people can expect to interact with intelligent machines. These are transformative steps that will require the passion, resources, and investments of innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs, who will be capable of leading this country into the dawn of Robotics 2.0.
Tags: Computing Community Consortium, Congressional Robotics Caucus, future of robotics, humanoid robotics
