Transcript 0:00 [rock music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:17 I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. Today, we're looking at robots and what they really mean for workers. 0:23 And so there's been this fear about job loss, but in the reality, is this a job loss, or is it more than people and robots are stepping in to reduce injuries, handle maybe repetitive tasks, free up humans from higher value work? 0:42 Or are we really transforming the workforce in a way that we need to be prepared, but are we prepared? So across manufacturing, construction, logistics, automation is already being transformed by these robots. 0:58 In some cases, we're seeing people being displaced, and we're seeing many people are already trying to figure out what that means. So where does it leave us today? 1:09 In a world where robots are present, AI is already here, and success depends on blending human intelligence with machine intelligence, what are the questions we're asking and answering? 1:24 Robots, many say, don't replace humans. They replace the work that shouldn't be done by humans. But what does that mean about the existing workforce? 1:36 So to answer some of these questions and maybe to ask a few more, I've asked my good friend, Tim Linder, to come back, who is a wonderful warehouse automation consultant, to help me talk about this. 1:48 Tim, welcome back to the show. Hey, Peggy. Thank you very much, and thanks for having me. 1:54 Tim, we've been asking a lot of questions, and we've been talking about the humanoid robots, and we've been talking about robots in general. 2:01 But I think the bigger question is we have to figure out what does this mean for workers? There's this shift you and I have been talking about, the human side. People worry about job loss. 2:12 But the reality is we have more jobs than people are able to fill them. So this idea that robots have come in and helped me here. 2:22 We said robots will reduce injuries, they'll extend careers, take on dull, dirty, dangerous tasks. We've talked about this over the years. Free humans to do higher value tasks. That's the story, right? 2:35 Create entirely new category of jobs. That is the conversation. So I want you to ask and maybe answer for me, maybe how is the workforce being transformed by robots, robotics in general? 2:54 Okay. 2:55 [clears throat] And I'm glad you asked because as I go into warehouses, distribution centers, and look at the landscape as it is today compared to it was even two or three years ago, with especially artificially infused robotics, 3:12 I see a shift in the type of people that companies that deploy robots will need. There's always the question of, okay, does the robot replace people? 3:25 And to a, a certain extent, sure, because a robot, theor- to your point, in dirty, hazardous, whatever jobs, if it can do that, it is a 3:37 better proposition for the company, but not necessarily the person that used to do that. But when you deploy robots, okay, whether they replace people or work with them, however they are deployed, 3:53 you are going to need a new category of worker, which I call the robot wrangler. 4:01 Like the cowboys wrangling cows, the robot wrangler is a specialized person that can get robots running if they fall off track. They can solve problems, they can maintain them. 4:17 These are the people that will keep the fleet of robus- robots moving and doing function as specified. 4:27 That's a much more complicated role and requires more education, especially with regard to the types of robots and what type of intelligence has been baked into those robots. 4:43 So the robot wrangler is going to be a rising role in employment, especially within these distribution centers and warehouses. Does that make sense? 4:55 So if we talk about this, the robot wrangler, is this something that we're supposed to say that AI is elevating the worker who adapts this-- I mean, because this robot is being trained, the intelligence through it is from AI, I would imagine here in all the things we're talking about. 5:13 Is that upskilling, reskilling, new skilling, is that all gonna be something this individual is going to have to figure out what matters most in a robot-enabled workforce? 5:26 The person, a robot wrangler, I'll give you an example, okay? So I go to trade shows, and I go to some pretty big ones for material handling. 5:36 And at the most recent one I attended, our booth was across the way, across the street from a major robotics company that specialized in order selection and so forth. 5:50 And they were running robots around a track, but the robots would fall over. Side note, one-- uh, quite a crowd developed on my booth watching them all and laughing at the robots as they fell over. 6:01 But out of a little pit-Came humans would get up out of the pit, and they would run over and right the robot and jiggle the dials and be able to get it running again to enormous applause by the audience that was ga-gathered. 6:16 These are the wranglers that solve the operational problems that the robots encounter, and their skill set will be specific to the robot, type of robot that they are responsible for. 6:34 It is entirely different from the person who used to select the au-- the stuff out of a bin and put it into a cart. It is a much more skilled labor kind of function. You will also have fewer of them. 6:49 So there's-- the, the rule of thumb is maybe for every ten robots you deploy, you'll have one wrangler. So whereas if you had ten order selectors, well, that's what the robots replace. 7:01 But the wrangler is the new wave of intelligent human work requirement for the warehouse that deploys the robotics. Well, it's interesting you said that. If you walk CES's show floor, robots were the talk of the town. 7:18 We saw Boston Dynamics. It wasn't Spot the dog anymore, it was Atlas. Exactly what you described, every time a robot, a Chinese robot or anybody boxing robots, you punched it, it fell down. 7:31 Everyone was, "Oh, see, you can knock the robot down." Everybody was cheering. It was just crazy town. And I think that's it, because everyone's, "Oh, see, you still have to help the robot." 7:40 And I think that's what you're saying. That wrangler concept got everybody going, "We're not fully there yet." 7:46 But I think it goes back to our conversation the last time we talked is the speed to which robots have accelerated. 7:55 When we talked about this back in twenty-fifteen, when we were first talking about robots being a threat to manufacturing or construction, when we were saying that twenty years ago, "Oh, we never thought it would be like it is today," but look at how fast, and we've seen the change of what can be done to create robots to say, "Wow, what is robots going to do into certain industries?" 8:20 And we're already saying, "Are robots going to be the backbone of the future workforce?" That's a different conversation than what we had twenty years ago. Yeah, exactly. That is exactly right. 8:31 I have my little-- I have a little test. When I meet people out in the field, one of the things I work into the conversation is, of course, people I talk to, they have to be of a certain age, okay? 8:43 I won't go into [laughs] that any further. But I ask the question, of all of the movie robots that you have watched, Lost in Space with Robbie the Robot, C-3PO from the Star Wars, ro-- what 8:59 robot do you think would be the one you expect to be most like the humanoid robot that you can work with or expect to work with going forward? And the answer surprised me. C-3PO. 9:17 Now, if you watch the Star Wars movies, he's clunky, right? But he functions, he's intelligent, he answers questions, he can solve problems. 9:27 He may not be the fastest thing in the world, but it is-- he is respected as a prime example of what a humanoid robot should be. Isn't that interesting? 9:38 But does that go back to it being this labor force multiplier for people to see that, wow, it can do so many things, is what we think about? 9:48 So it says to me when we think about people can relate to that, what are we then saying? Which-- does it say robots will be filling some gap in people's mind? 9:59 I can relate to that from a perspective that's bigger, or are they more comfortable with that because they don't feel like it's replacing them, they feel like they can-- it's empowering them to do things or it empow-- I'm, I'm not sure I under-- I have an answer for that. 10:17 But I guess when we look from a societal, economic, or an ethical implications, I'm curious if they would ex-e-expound on that kind of response is where what I'm saying to you. 10:30 I guess I'm curious what they feel the industry, the, the impact on robotics would be for them. Yeah. I think it comes down to where does a person stand in relationship to the-- 10:45 what role does the person have in the company, and should that person look at a robot as a threat or as a partner? 10:54 Now, where robots have been very strong in replacing people is where the person did a simpler, more repetitive kind of function. 11:08 Where there is more complexity, robots have not yet gotten there, but could. And I think that's where collaboration, where a robot is seen more as a collaborator than as a threat, like the C-three-- C-3PO model. 11:24 But if you are just doing simple functions, repetitive functions, if you're at the lower end of the 11:35 job scale, then I think your threat and your antagonism towards robotics would be more heightened because it's more of a threat. I, I see people who-- 11:51 I talk to people, "Oh my god, a robot's gonna come in and replace me." I say, "What do you do?" And then when you talk to them and say, "We do this to them." 11:58 They said, "Okay, then I don't think you should worry about it because you've just named a bunch of stuff that a robot can't do yet."But there's an apprehension, and that apprehension 12:10 is very real in the mar-- in the workforce today, Peggy. Then let's take it a step differently. How do you see AI and robotics reshaping productivity? 12:22 I don't even want to say the next decade, although that's what we could say because if we look just in the last couple of years, it's changed dramatically. Let's just even say in the next few years, what do you see? 12:33 Okay. Productivity traditionally in, especially in terms of warehouses, distribution center measurement of productivity has been related to how fast and accurate people are in doing a function like order selection. 12:52 If you look at the impact to productivity, how would you measure it if a single device, a robot, could work continuously over three shifts replacing three people? 13:07 Then you're going to have to come up with a different kind of productivity measurement because it's not-- it would be apples not, not equal to oranges. 13:18 You need to redefine what productivity means when something can be done twenty-four/seven by the same device versus three different people over the course of a day shift. So 13:31 productivity measurement and the discussion around that has got to evolve to reflect the nature of what a robot can do that people can't do and change the dynamics of the measurements appropriate to what the robot can do, not what the people can do. 13:50 So there's gonna be this discussion, it's already started as to, okay, how do I now measure productivity? 13:58 A-a-and does it matter any-- Peggy, does it matter anymore if productivity measurements were designed to create incentives to make people work faster? 14:08 If they don't need those people anymore, and a robot can do that twenty-four/seven, then what do you worry about productivity for? What are you worried about incentives for? There's no need to incent a robot. 14:19 You raise a very good point, and we're running out of time, but this is how I-- what I'm hearing you say. I think this next era of productivity, safety, and innovation, and it's all happening right now. 14:30 So now if we think about the speed of it, will it really matter? But the future, I think, is changing fast, and as our discussion has just revealed in my mind, I think anything's possible. 14:42 Anything is possible with the way we're looking at it, and AI is coming. It's not that it's coming right now, it's here. 14:48 So we can't say, and it's in robotics, and what we're gonna do is it's not a matter of it's going to replace people. It-- what it's going to replace is our ability to do work in a different way than humans were doing it. 15:01 So I think right now it's all about looking the possibility and really con-- reconsidering, and humans have to think about what i-- are robots gonna do. They can't do what the human imagination can do. 15:15 So I think that's where we have to leave it. It's all about the human imagination, and that's where we are with robotics at this point. 15:22 So I think that's the one thing we-- it's clear, robots do not have the human imagination. Not yet. [laughs] Not yet. Tim Linder, warehouse automation consultant, thank you for your time. 15:35 Where can our listeners get more information and get in touch with you? Peggy, I c-- everything I do, I post on my LinkedIn page, Tim Linder at-- in LinkedIn, so that's where you can go to see it all. 15:47 Thank you again, Tim. I always enjoy having you on the show. Thank you, Peggy, for everything. Appreciate it. Okay, listeners, that is all the time we have for this segment. 15:55 Make sure to share and subscribe to our episodes each week. Share your thoughts with me on X @ConnectTheWorld or follow me on LinkedIn or YouTube and continue the conversation there. 16:03 Please check out our website at connecttheworld.com, our show website at thepeggy medleyshow.com. Remember, we broadcast live every Tuesday at twelve PM Central. 16:12 This is The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. [upbeat music]
