Tim Harford introduces inventions, ideas and innovations that have helped to create the modern economic world. Robots threaten the human workforce, but are crucial to the economy.
Robots threaten the human workforce, but their ubiquity and growing competence make them crucial to the modern economy. In 1961 General Motors installed the first Unimate at one of its plants. It was a one-armed robot resembling a small tank that was used for tasks like welding. Now, as Tim Harford explains, the world's robot population is expanding rapidly (the robot "birth rate" is almost doubling every five years) and, coupled with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robots are changing the world of work in unexpected ways.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon.
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- Wed 21 Jun 2017 12:04±«Óãtv Radio 4
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