The Robotic Explosion
 
For 3.3 billion years, Earth was inhabited by nothing more than clumps of single-celled organisms with varying degrees of symbiosis. Then suddenly, in 5 million years or less, every phylum of animal life that has ever existed on this planet appeared. This event is called the Cambrian Explosion.

Today, for better or worse, were witnessing a "Cambrian explosion" in robotics, with species of all sizes, shapes, and modes of mobility crawling out of the muck of the lab and onto the terra firma of the marketplace. They are about to enter your home, your office, and your shopping experience.

Robots have been around in fact and fiction since the early 20th century. Peter Diamandis, creator of the X Prizes for innovation, attributes the nascent "robotic explosion" to the emergence of four transformational ecosystems:1

- Sensors: The sensors that cost $10 today would have been military secrets costing tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago and will cost under a dollar in less than a decade. Sensors that listen, look, feel, and navigate are plummeting in price, size, weight, and power consumption - thanks to the smartphone revolution.

- Infinite Computing: The mobile phone processor is equivalent to a supercomputer from 20 years ago. More importantly, its connected to the cloud and puts near-infinite computing capacity literally in the palm of your hand. Combined with sensors, this allows robots to have situational awareness and "comprehend" contextual information in real time.

- 3D Printed Parts: Smart design software and 3D printing technologies are allowing entrepreneurs to rapidly design, prototype, and build novel robots and test them in the market before committing to production. Suddenly, little bets in hardware and software can be made by anyone with natural selection determining the winners.

- The Open-Source Movement: There is a massive online open-source network in play; sharing designs, posting software updates, answering questions, and more. Whatever expertise a robotic innovator needs can be found online, 24/7, often for free. Just post a question and get it answered. Its like Steve Wozniak and the "Home Brew Computer Club" expanded to a global scale.

In prior issues, the Trends editors have focused on applications involving autonomous automobiles and commercial vehicles, drones, autonomous weapons platforms for the military, and personal-care robots for use in homes, hospitals, and assisted living facilities.

Beyond those large and essentially "green field" applications are a number of existing functions that currently employ tens of millions of people in OECD countries. Until recently, these appeared highly resistant to automation. Consider a few examples:

OSHbot, implemented at Lowes Orchard Supply Hardware stores, was created by robotics startup Fellow Robots. It employs a suite of new technologies that let it field simple customer questions, identify items, search inventory, act as a guide, and facilitate video chats.2

The five-foot-tall, gleaming white OSHbot has two video monitors, two lasers for navigation and obstacle avoidance, a 3D scanner, natural language processing, and a set of wheels to navigate the store. Customers walk up to OSHbot and ask where they can find a particular item, or if they dont know the items name, they can show it to the 3-D scanner.
OSHbot matches up the customers inquiry with store inventory and autonomously leads the customer up the right aisle, using its on-board sensors to navigate the store and avoid obstacles. As the robot works, it creates a digital map of its environment and compares that map to the stores official inventory map.
 
Of course, memorizing long lists and locations is a skill particularly well suited to machines, and its something humans struggle to do. The robot speaks multiple languages, including English and Spanish, and its video interface could prove a great help for hearing impaired customers.

Notably, humans are still a key part of the experience; if a customer has a more complicated problem, like needing advice on a home improvement project or a product comparison, OSHbot wirelessly connects to the best available expert across the companys network of stores and facilitates a human-to-human video chat.

Then there is Saviokes Botlr robot: a sort of "robot butler."3 Botlr is a fully autonomous robotic hotel servant, programmed with a detailed map of the hotel and able to deliver a toothbrush, boarding pass, or newspaper to a guests room.

Beyond customer service functions in hotels and stores, another emerging opportunity is to deploy a suite of specialized robots across the quick service restaurant. The recent clamor for a higher minimum wage simply makes the business case for these solutions stronger.

Unlike traditional dining establishments, quick service restaurants typically separate the order taking and payment functions from the food preparation function. Order taking and payment lends itself to automation because its essentially a communication and information processing function. Customers have been conditioned by the World Wide Web to accept, and even prefer, "no nonsense" e-commerce transactions.

We already see how ordering kiosks and phone apps are replacing counter personnel, freeing them to work on food preparation and housekeeping functions. An early leader in this technology segment is NEXTEP Systems.4

The bigger news relates the rapid progress being made in the automation of food preparation ranging from burgers, to pizzas, to burritos. And neither baristas nor bartenders are safe from similar robotic competition.

Lets start with burgers. As Alexandros Vardakostas, co-founder of Momentum Machines, has said "Our device isnt meant to make employees more efficient. Its meant to completely obviate them." Thats because robots are finally capable of doing jobs once thought to be the sole domain of humans.

The Momentum burger-bot is essentially a burger assembly line.5  Ingredients are stored in automated containers along the line. Instead of pre-prepared veggies, cheese, and ground beef, the burger bot chars, slices, dices, and assembles it all fresh.
 
Momentums robot improves consistency and sanitation, and can make a burger in 10 seconds; thats 360 per hour. This can translate into superior quality, because the restaurant is free to spend its labor savings on better ingredients; that potentially means gourmet burgers at fast-food prices.

Momentum Machines says an average quick serve restaurant spends $135,000 a year on "burger line cooks" who work in a chaotic kitchen environment. By replacing human cooks, the machine reduces liability, management duties, and at just 24 square feet, the overall food preparation footprint. Resources once dedicated to preparation can instead fund better service.

If youre more inclined toward Mexican, consider the first ever burrito-making robots launched by Box Brands. The orange Burritobox offers six types of burrito, including a breakfast burrito, and several sauces.6

The customer selects the type of burrito desired and which sauces to add from a touchscreen menu, then swipes a credit card. One minute later, the machine dispenses a hot "hand"-rolled burrito.

Box Brands, a Florida-based company founded in 2011, is marketing the robot to gas stations, corner stores, and other small merchants. To maximize revenue, the machines touchscreen menu displays a "video commercial message" while the burrito is made.

If you prefer pizza, consider Lets Pizza, a pizza-making robot that produces fresh 11-inch pizzas in 2.5 minutes for about $6 each.7 It mixes the flour and water, kneads the dough, then adds sauce, cheese, and other toppings, and finally bakes it in an infrared oven for about a minute. Currently, the machines offer cheese, pepperoni, ham, smoked bacon, and fresh veggies.
 
The entire pizza-making process is automated and viewable through a window at the front of the machine. Each machine is connected through the Web so that refrigerated inventory, which includes enough ingredients to make 90 pizzas, can be replenished as needed.

The company intends to offer opportunities for franchising one or more of the machines in the U.S., but it is also entertaining companies that want to distribute the machines.  The price is $32,000 and it has been marketed for the last three years in Europe. Its been especially successful in Italy - a testament to the quality of the pizza.

These initial successes in quick service restaurant automation have been encouraging to innovators, and were also beginning to see robotic baristas and bartenders entering the fray.
For example, at the University of Texas, a startup called Briggo has installed a coffee kiosk run by a robotic barista, which is visited by 10,000 students a day.8 Designed by Deaton Engineering Inc., the kiosk is segmented into brewed coffee and espresso drinks; the drinks can be prepared according to customer milk, syrup, and sweetener preferences.
 
Inside the kiosk is a "big industrial machine" with about 250 sensors that mirrors the physical motions of a human barista. Students submit an order online, via mobile phone, or at the kiosk, and they can even receive a text or email when the drink is ready. The brewed coffees take 15-30 seconds to prepare, while espresso drinks require about two minutes.

Customers can easily submit an order and then head to the kiosk to pick up their coffee just as its completed. Each coffee is labeled with the customers name, which is also displayed on the kiosk monitor. Prices are cheaper than typical coffeehouse prices, and kiosk operators still oversee the flow and refill stock.

The system is designed so that each variable that goes into the perfect coffee can be adjusted, just as in a manufacturing process. The startup has a vision to introduce robot kiosks into other universities and high-volume locations such as convention centers, hospitals, courthouses, airports, and train stations, where the customers resemble the up-all-night college students. They are also working on a smaller version, with the possibility of franchising to build the brand.

When it comes to bartending, the offerings range from the $3,900 Monsieur robot designed for homes and smaller commercial settings, to the multimillion dollar Makr Shakr, first installed on some Royal Caribbean Cruise ships.9
 
Makr Shakr is really an industrial robot working within the confines of a carefully designed and well-stocked workspace. Once an RFID payment token logs you into its tablet interface, you select your drink from a menu of specialty cocktails or define a "special recipe" by combining its inventory from a menu list.

Today, the appeal is novelty and consistency. However, within a few years, this technology will be price-competitive with human bartenders in high-volume venues.

Given this trend, we offer the following forecasts for your consideration:

First, the robotic explosion will reinvigorate affluent economies, like Japan, Korea and the EU, now facing a manpower shortage.

As highlighted in prior issues, the OECD countries outside North America are on a collision course with demography as their populations rapidly age and even shrink. To maximize the focus, Japan and Korea have allocated annual budgets of $155 million and $500 million respectively; the EU has allocated $125 million a year; in each case, private investments already dwarf these government programs. The United States government is primarily focusing on military applications from which technology for consumer and business solutions will ultimately filter down. Japan, Korea, and much of the EU see robotic technology as preferable to large-scale immigration.

Second, the impact on human standards of living will remain cloudy through at least 2020.

The relationship between robotic technology and human employees takes many forms. One consideration has to do with where the line exists between "assistive technology" that makes people more productive and "autonomous robots" that effectively replace humans. This distinction is much like the one contrasting a true "artificial heart" to a "ventricular assist device." In the former case, the machine completely replaces the heart by connecting to relevant nerves and blood vessels and pumping blood. In the latter case, the device does what the damaged heart cant and the viable portions of the heart continue to function. Today, true artificial hearts are mostly in the laboratory, while ventricular assist devices have changed the lives of millions, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. Both technologies will lower the costs for products and services, making them less expensive for everybody. Robots like the Momentum Machines Burger Bot could eliminate lower-level jobs in a slow-growth economy, but other automation solutions will increase human productivity in areas where OECD companies would otherwise lose out to competitors in the developing world. The net impact on humanity will be positive, but the impact on various segments will depend on how individuals, companies, and countries implement those solutions.

Third, winners will create an adaptive structure that seizes opportunities as they are created by the robotic explosion.

542 million years ago, no one looking at bacteria and protozoans could have anticipated birds, whales, dinosaurs, or humans. Similarly, no one can reliably foresee how digital technology will evolve over the next 20 years to fill nearly every imaginable niche in the global economic ecosystem. As Harvards Michael Porter highlighted in the December 2014 issue of Trends; every business strategy must accommodate to the realities imposed by smart, connected technologies. Robots ranging from toy drones to military weapons systems to household appliances represent the cutting edge of that new reality. The Trends editors are committed to being your "technology early warning system;" your challenge is to adapt to such emerging signals to address your own competitive needs.

References
1. SingularityHUB, December 1, 2014, "The Day Youll Prefer Robots to Humans," by Peter Diamandis. ⓒ 2014 Singularity University. All rights reserved.

http://singularityhub.com/2014/12/01/the-day-youll-prefer-robots-to-humans/

2. The Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2014, "Newest Workers for Lowes: Robots," by Rachael King. ⓒ 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.  

http://www.wsj.com/articles/newest-workers-for-lowes-robots-1414468866

3. Gigaom, August 20, 2014, "Saviokes First Robot Begins Its Career as a Hotel Bellhop," by Signe Brewster. ⓒ 2014 Gigaom, Inc. All rights reserved.

https://gigaom.com/2014/08/20/saviokes-first-robot-begins-its-career-as-a-hotel-bellhop/

4. com, February 10, 2011, "Kiosks Order Up Faster Fast Food," by Cherryh A. Butler. ⓒ 2011 Networld Media Group. All rights reserved.

http://www.kioskmarketplace.com/articles/kiosks-order-up-faster-fast-food/

5. SingularityHUB, August 10, 2014, "Burger Robot Poised to Disrupt Fast Food Industry," by Jason Dorrier. ⓒ 2014 Singularity University. All rights reserved.

http://singularityhub.com/2014/08/10/burger-robot-poised-to-disrupt-fast-food-industry/

6. SingularityHUB, January 11, 2014, "Burritobox Joins Growing Number of Fast-Food Making Robots," by Cameron Scott. ⓒ 2014 Singularity University. All rights reserved.

http://singularityhub.com/2014/01/11/burritobox-joins-growing-number-of-fast-food-making-robots/

7. SingularityHUB, July 16, 2012, "Next Up for Robotic Automation: Serving Pizza Untouched by Human Hands," by David J. Hill. ⓒ 2012 Singularity University. All rights reserved.

http://singularityhub.com/2012/07/16/next-up-for-robotic-automation-serving-pizza-untouched-by-human-hands/

8. For additional information about a coffee-making robot, visit the Sprudge website at:

http://sprudge.com/this-one-time-i-met-a-coffee-robot-2.html

9. New York Post, November 19, 2014, "A Robot Bartender Hit on My Wife During Our Cruise," by Sid Lipsey. ⓒ NYP Holding, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://nypost.com/2014/11/19/the-robot-bartender-hit-on-my-wife-during-our-cruise/