I’ve always been interested in science fiction, and it is beginning to seem that more and more of what I read as a kid, is beginning to look a lot less like fiction, and a lot more like reality. As society becomes more reliant on technology, and as companies try to gain a competitive edge through workplace efficiencies, we look to technological solutions to solve workplace challenges.

This gets me to thinking about the use of robots in the workplace.  What can they do for business? What is the upside? What is the downside?  Will we need human employees at all?

In the article “Robots Used in the Workplace” Koening describes the genesis of robots in the workplace:

“The first robot in the workplace was created in 1956 by an engineer called Joseph F. Engelberger and an inventor and entrepreneur called George C. Devol. Known as the Unimate, the robot extracted die castings from machines and carried out spot welding on vehicles in General Motors. The success of the Unimate led to further development of robots for labor purposes. Companies started buying robots to see how they could incorporate the machines into in the workplace(Koening).”

It would seem that robots would be good for tasks that are very repetitive,  that require a high degree of accuracy and that would be dangerous to humans. Having robots perform these type of tasks could certainly be a benefit to companies. At the time that Koening published her article, she questioned whether robots might be able to drive vehicles one day. Now, just a short time later, self driving vehicles are already on the road.

With the speed of technological advancements, we can anticipate that robots in the workplace will only become more common as time goes on. This raises the question of whether this is a good thing or not. Will this have a detrimental effect on the global job market? Will this have a negative impact on humans in the workplace? Will the efficiencies that companies gain through this kind of automation be worth the human cost?

Please feel free to check my blog regularly to gauge my thoughts on this growing trend.