“Replicants are like any other machine: they can be an advantage or a risk. If they are an advantage, they are not my problem”, said Harrison Ford in Blade Runner: in the complicated debate on the danger of artificial intelligence and robotics, the emotional part obviously plays an important role. And from this point of view, what will soon happen in many car factories is scary: the use of humanoid robots.
We know that in every factory there are machines that produce machines and here – for years – robotics has now reigned supreme. But they have always been presses, small cranes, arms, levers. Never humanoids. And therefore seeing small robots similar to us working in the factory on the one hand realizes the terror of trade union struggles (where workers lose their jobs due to automation), on the other dramatically re-proposes the theme of “Modern Times” which, in 1936 when it arrived in cinemas, it posed for the first time the problem of defending the dignity of man against the domination of the machine.
It all starts with the sensational announcement of the robotics startup Figure which declared that it had signed a partnership with BMW Manufacturing to implement its humanoids in the car manufacturer's Spartanburg plant in the United States, in South Carolina. Here among 11 thousand people in flesh and blood, the “monsters” (as several American bloggers now call them) will be integrated into the production processes. It is already known that their apprenticeship will last 12 months and that they will end up in the bodywork and warehouse departments.
And it's just the beginning: Honda and Hyundai have been experimenting with humanoid robots for years to perform repetitive and dangerous jobs on assembly lines. Tesla is doing the same and its latest humanoid in development, Optimus Gen 2, will have to be produced – these are official declarations from CEO Elon Musk, not a flat-earther – in one billion specimens by 2040. We all hope that ” they are just an advantage” and therefore Harrison Ford in Blade Runner never has to deal with them.
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