The Economist - USA (2022-02-12)

70 Science & technology The Economist February 12th 2022

other sensors, to avoid bumping into staff.

Hence  they  tend  to  move  slowly  and  are

cautious,  which  can  result  in  bots  fre­

quently coming to a standstill and slowing

operations.  However,  machines  that  are

more capable and aware of their surround­

ings are on the way. 

For instance, nec, a Japanese electron­

ics group, has started using “risk­sensitive

stochastic  control  technology”,  which  is

software similar to that used in finance to

avoid  high­risk  investments.  In  this  case,

though, it allows a robot to weigh up risks

when  taking  any  action,  such  as  selecting

the safest and fastest route through a ware­

house. In trials, necsays it doubles the av­

erage  speed  of  a  robot  without  making

compromises on safety.

New tricks

The  toughest  job  to  automate  in  a  ware­

house  is  picking  and  packing,  hence  the

demand  for  extra  pairs  of  hands  during

busy periods. This task is far from easy for

robots  because  fulfilment  centres  stock

tens  of  thousands  of  different  items,  in

many shapes, sizes and weights. 

Nevertheless,  Amazon,  Ocado,  Exotec

and  others  are  beginning  to  automate  the

task by placing robotic arms at some pick­

ing stations. These arms tend to use cam­

eras  and  read  barcodes  to  identify  goods,

and suction pads and other mechanisms to

pick them up. Machine learning, a form of

ai, is employed to teach the robots how to

handle  specific  items,  for  example  not  to

put potatoes on top of eggs.

Ocado is also developing an arm which

could  bypass  a  picking  station  and  take

items  directly  from  crates  in  the  Hive.

Fetch Robotics, a Silicon Valley producer of

logistics robots that was acquired last year

by  Zebra  Technologies,  a  computing  firm,

has developed a mobile picking arm which

can travel around a fulfilment centre. 

Boston  Dynamics,  another  Massachu­

setts  robot­maker,  has  come  up  with  a

heavyweight mobile version called Stretch,

which can unpack lorries and put boxes on

pallets.  On  January  26th  dhl,  a  logistics

giant, placed the first order for Stretch ro­

bots. It will deploy them in its North Amer­

ican warehouses over the next three years.

That  timetable  gives  a  clue  that  pro­

gress will not be rapid. It will take ten to 15

years  before  robots  begin  to  be  adept  at

picking and packing goods, reckons Zehao

Li,  the  author  of  a  new  report  on  ware­

house robotics for idTechEx, a firm of Brit­

ish  analysts.  Some  companies  think  their

bots will be able to pick 80% or so of their

stock  over  the  coming  years,  although

much  depends  on  the  range  of  goods  car­

ried by different operations. 

Objects  with  irregular  shapes,  like  ba­

nanas or loose vegetables, can be hard for a

robot to grasp if it has primarily been built

to  pick  up  products  in  neat  packages.  The

bot might also be restricted in what weight

it  can  lift,  so  would  struggle  with  a  flat­

screen  television  or  a  heavy  cask  of  beer.

Further  into  the  future,  systems  could

emerge to overcome many of these limita­

tions, such as multi­arm robots.

So what jobs will remain? On the ware­

house  floor,  at  least,  that  mainly  leaves

technicians  maintaining  and  fixing  ro­

bots,  says  Mr  Li.  He  thinks  there  are  also

likely to be a handful of supervisors watch­

ing  over  the  bots  and  lending  a  hand  if

there remains anything that their mechan­

ical brethren still can’t handle. It is not just

inside  the  warehouse  where  jobs  will  go,

but  outside,  too,  once  driverless  delivery

vehicles  are  allowed  (see  box  on  previous

page). At that point many products will tra­

vel  through  the  supply  chain  and  to  peo­

ple’s homes untouched by human hand. 

Peoplewillalsobeemployedbuilding

robots.AmazonRobotics’snewfactorywill

createmorethan 200 newmanufacturing

jobs,althoughthatdwindlesintoinsignifi­

cancecomparedwiththemorethan1m

jobswhichthepioneerofe­commercehas

createdsincethefirstrobotsarrivedinits

fulfilmentcentres.Alotofthosejobsare

boundtogo,althoughmanyaremonoto­

nousandstrenuous,whichiswhytheyare

hardtofill.

However,otherjobswillemerge.Tech­

nological change inevitably creates new

rolesforpeople.Inthe1960sthereusedto

be thousands of telephone switchboard

operators,ajobwhichhasalmostdisap­

pearedsinceexchangesbecameautomat­

ed.Butthenumberofotherjobsintele­

comshassoared.Aslogisticsgetsmoreef­

ficient throughgreater automation, and

onlinebusinessesgrow,theoveralllevelof

employment ine­commerce shouldstill

increase.Manyoftheseroleswillbediffer­

entsortsofjobs,justastherearemanydif­

ferentsortsofrobot.n

Botany

Deafened

M

any animalsdepend upon sound to

find food, detect predators and com­

municate with one another. These species

understandably  suffer  when  loud  motor­

ways cut through their habitats. Some cope

by  singing  more  loudly,  some  change  the

timing  of  their  calls  to  occur  when  fewer

people  are  driving,  others  just  move  to

quieter locales. 

All  of  these  actions  come  with  signifi­

cant  costs  attached  and  scientists  have

longdocumented the  ecological  damage

caused  by  noise  pollution.  It  has  always

been  assumed,  however,  that  noise  is  a

problem unique to animals. But a new stu­

dy by Ali Akbar Ghotbi­Ravandi, a botanist

at  Shahid  Beheshti  University  in  Tehran,

has revealed that plants suffer too.

That plants can be hampered indirectly

by noise pollution has never been in doubt.

Since most flowering species depend upon

pollinators and most fruit­bearing species

need  animals  to  disperse  their  seeds,  it  is

obvious  that  if  these  animal  partners  are

harmed  by  noise  then  their  botanical

counterparts  will  do  badly,  too.  What  has

remained  unknown  is  whether  or  not

plants  themselves  suffer  directly  from

noise pollution.

Sounds  are  concussive  pressure  waves

transmitted through gases, liquids and sol­

ids.  Scientists  have  previously  hypothe­

sised that plants may be able to sense these

waves as they are struck by them. A num­

ber of experiments  have confirmed this in

recent  years—plants  bombarded  with

ultrasound  in  the  lab  have  shown  a  range

of adverse responses including the expres­

sion  of  stress­related  genes,  stunted

growth and reduced germination of seeds.

Yet  blasting  plants  with  ultrasound  is

not the same as growing them in the pres­

ence of actual traffic noise. To this end, Dr

Ghotbi­Ravandi  decided  to  set  up  an  ex­

periment to study precisely this question.

Working  with  a  team  of  colleagues,  Dr

Ghotbi­Ravandi grew two species in his lab

that  are  commonly  found  in  urban  envi­

ronments—French  marigolds  and  scarlet

sage. The plants were grown from seed and

allowed  to  mature  for  two  months  in  the

same  space  before  they  were  divided  into

two  groups.  One  group  was  exposed  to  73

decibels  of  traffic  noise  recorded  from  a

busy  motorway  in  Tehran  for  16  hours  a

day. The other group was left to grow in si­

lence.  After  15  days  had  passed,  samples

Plants are adversely affected by the

racket of urban traffic

Stress and the city