Austin Peay Extras AI and the Robot Revolution

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[Music] Hi everyone this is Grayson Nicholson  the host of the Austin Peay Experience Podcast.   Welcome to the Austin Peay Extras, the podcast  Series where we share the fascinating talks and   lectures hosted by the university each semester.  We're back with the most recent Science On Tap   featuring Jody Alberd assistant professor of  engineering technology presenting his talk,   "The robot Revolution: Navigating AI Automation  and the Workforce of tomorrow." Enjoy! All right welcome everybody to Science on Tap  our October 3rd Edition. Thank you so much for   coming tonight my name is Karen Meisch, I'm  the dean of the College of science technology   engineering and Mathematics, College of stem  and of course our purpose tonight as with every   Science on Tap is to try and help the community  understand a little bit about certain topics uh   in stem and so tonight's topic is going to be  very interesting and and wonderful uh given by   Professor Jody Alberd from engineering technology  I'm going to let him uh introduce it and then   uh as always you'll find that there are comment  cards on each of your tables and so please make   sure you fill those out not only is that a great  way for us to generate more ideas about the topics   we can cover on science on tap but it's also how  we can actually draw our prize uh for the end of   the science on tap talk. At the end of The Talk  today we'll also be having a really fun reveal  

of the name of our robot dog that you might have  seen uh walking around earlier tonight uh and so   we'll do that at the end of The Talk and of course  I was trying to give a plug for next month's talk   so no November 7th is next month's talk which  is 11 election day uh and so uh how Democratic   is our democracy the map behind politics uh  so given that it's election day we thought   it might be a good time to delve into some of  the math uh behind politics for next month all   right and without any further Ado I'm going to  go ahead and turn it over to Professor Albert hey all right thanks everybody for coming out I am  uh my name is Jody Albert I'm a faculty member   at Austin PE State University in the department  of uh engineering technology it's part of the   College of stem uh I am originally a manufacturing  engineer by trade uh I've worked in a lot of the   regional industries from Electrolux to Train  Commercial insulating glass out in cumland   city and mssc and Hopkinsville so I have uh a  deep interest in technology specifically uh in manufacturing I got to hold it really close  okay I'll try to be a loud talker and I'll   try to remember to keep this up if I tend to  drop my hands as I do in class just give me   a quick reminder so without further Ado uh  in 1976 I was 6 years old and I was standing   in line at the Capri twin theater here in  Clarksville and I was waiting for a movie   to come out that I had never heard of called  Star Wars and by the end of this movie I was   fascinated and I was uh Enchanted by the star of  the movie the protagonist the hero R2-D2 now you   couldn't convince me that R2D2 was not the hero  of this story uh everything happened because of   R2D2 Luke Skywalker would still be a moisture  farmer hanging out at tshi station with his friends but I was enchanted with technology at  that point SciFi began to hold an interest and   as I grew through my life uh sci-fi  continued to hold my interest with   television shows such as Star Trek the  Next Generation and other movies that   came along during that time and I began to  develop a deep love for technology because   in every utopian vision of the future  we accomplish great things alongside technology and As I Grew into adulthood I began to   see some of these things that I saw  in technology actually coming into fruition all of a sudden we had computers  that we could interact with by talking to   uh we were able to communicate with  each other over vast distances we   had Computing technology in the palm of  our hands that had access to Limitless information and I was excited about the future  and what all this technology was going to hold   for us and I was looking forward to such great  things that technology promis but as I contined   to see these things become more common in our  everyday lives I began to notice that there was   a reluctance a hesitancy and sometimes even  a fear of what this technology meant for the future and as I saw this happening I began to  ask myself what happened when did we all of   a sudden start dreading a future alongside  Tech technology when did we stop embracing   the excitement and the promise that it held now  that's a very complex topic and it has a lot of   aspects but I want to focus on one tonight  and that's how is this going to affect us   in the workplace how is this going to affect  our future and our jobs further down the line   so tonight's talk is the robotic Revolution  navigating AI Automation and the workforce of tomorrow now it would be appropriate to start  this off with the just addressing the elephant   in the room what are our concerns what are  our doubts that we have about technology and   when we label concerns and doubts they take  two very different characteristics under our   concerns we may ask questions such as will a  robot take my job how is this going to affect   the economy what about about my data and  my privacy what about my ability to make   decisions for myself in the future and most  importantly is it going to be safe now on the   other Spectrum we have doubts and these doubts  are a little less tangible and a little more   subjective we ask questions like and make  statements such as I don't understand how it works maybe we are concerned with whether it's  going to last is it going to be something that   we need to even be concerned with is it  going to be around tomorrow Google Glasses   maybe we don't think that it's actually  useful to us and we don't see the purpose   of it or we don't think it's reliable and  again we just have a hesitancy because of   concerns about safety things that we can't  necessarily quantify but we can articulate the truth is that none of these fears or concerns  are unfounded but neither are they new these   concerns have gone back over 200 years if we go  back to the first Industrial Revolution which was   occurring in the late 1700s and the early 1800s  we saw the mechanization of the textile industry   in Great Britain uh that's when they began  taking jobs that had traditionally been done for   Generations by manual labor and converting them  into machine processes and that's when we saw the   rise of a group called The Lites the Lites were a  19th century movement of English workers and they   were opposed to the mechanization in the textile  industry and they began they took their name after   a figure of folklore called Ned lud and much like  Paul bunan or Johnny app seed Ned lud was believed   to be B based on a real person he was actually  uh someone who had sabotaged industrial equipment   and they saw him as a symbol of their movement so  they began to engage in industrial sabotage they   began breaking the machines that were taking their  jobs or that they saw as a threat to their future   employment and this led to uh legislation and  more importantly in the in 1918 or 1812 the frame   breaking Act and this made that the destruction of  industrial equipment a capital offense leites who   were punished under this act were actually subject  to penal deportation and even the death penalty uh   approximately 60 to 70 leites were hanged over  a 2-year period for destroying and sabotaging   Industrial Equipment this was a significant impact  on the gross national product of Great Britain   at the time and today we use this to describe  some someone who is opposed or resistant to new technology now over that 2-year period the Lite  movement began to fall out of favor and it began   to fade out but the concerns and the fears and  the doubts continued and persisted even into   the Modern Age we now have what we refer to as  neoism neoism is a leaderless movement opposing   many forms of modern technology and they do  so for a variety of reasons whether it's for   uh environmental reasons or concerns or for labor  concerns or even ethical concerns and this brings   us to the Lite fallacy the Lite fallacy is the  mistaken belief that there is a finite amount   of work available and If we have machines do all  this work there won't be left for any of us to do   and we we call this a fallacy because historically  this just hasn't proven to be the case now there   are many prominent neolites uh one of the most  prominent was a math prodigy known as Dr Theodore kazinski Theodore kazinski better known as  Ted kazinski or the unibomber uh in 1969   left his teaching position at UC Berkeley  and adopted a livestock of avoiding and   issuing technology he moved out into the  woods and into a cabin where he had no   running water no electricity and he began to  send a series of explosive devices for over   20 years devices that killed and M several  people so the tactics of neoism have taken   anywhere from a just a peaceful protest to  a more radical uh aggressive stance of it so are they right are they are the Tendencies of neoism incorrect well  yes and no while it is true that machines can do   work that was traditionally done by human labor  the truth is that they typically do the easy work   we have them do the things that are simple  they require less skill less Talent NE less   knowledge and that typically tends to be where  machines come into play first the difficulty of   that statement though comes in to the fact that  what we Define as easy begins to get higher and   higher as technology advances see there's a small  window that goes above What machines can do that   human workers have to do but then we reach a  peak of what we can accomplish there's only   so much Computing that we can do there's only  so much information we can process at a given   time the work that lies beyond what we can do  as human beings uh requires us to turn back   to technology now as technology advances that  window does tend to get smaller and smaller what   we looked at as easy work that we could easily  automate starts taking up a greater amount of space another neolite self-described was Steven   Hawkings and Steven Hawkings said  that the means of production will   be controlled by the machine owner class  and Technology will create more economic equality so is he correct again we look back at  history uh when we look at those who controlled   oil production and those who controlled  steel production yes there was a class   that played into that technology that were able  to control that technology so neoism does have a   very real statement to make in that context  but we need to look at it with a more open mind so we get to the question at hand will  a robot take my job probably probably yes it   it's not a popular statement to make but probably  but the real statement is is it going to be a job   that you don't want a robot to take in 2013 Oxford  University completed a study and it suggested that   47% of jobs were at risk of being automated over  the next 20 years so between 2013 and 2033 47% at   risk of being automated and that's an alarming  figure but it's really kind of a figure without context when we say that jobs are at high  risk what kind of jobs are we talking about   what kind of tasks more recent Studies  have indicated that automation doesn't   replace jobs automation replaces tasks and it's  very important to understand that distinction   we perform tasks in the performance of our  job and while we may automate certain tasks   within that job the idea that our job will  be eliminated completely is part of that Lite fallacy in truth automation again  doesn't replace jobs it replaces   tasks and this frees workers up to  perform other tasks other things   that we can do things things that  would be more productive more value added and we know this is true because we can  simply look at something like the agriculture   industry in the early 1900s the agriculture  industry employed 41% of the nation's Workforce   41% of our nation's Workforce were engaged in  the agriculture industry a century later only   1.9% from 42 41% to 1.9% and this number  continues to drop as we continue to see   advances in the agriculture industry this was  brought about largely due to mechanization in   the form of tractors and combines and machines  that are able to do the work much faster and   more efficiently than we could expect human  workers to do that work and this has been   driven also by our increase in demand as our  population is grown we have an increased demand   for agriculture it's predicted that robots will  continue to assume tasks such as planting weeding   and you and sorting out units using AI enabled  cameras and that 1.9% is going to continue to drop so if we went in a century from 41% to  1.9% what happened to the unemployment why  

have we not had 39% unemployment over  the past Century because Automation in agriculture because automation replaces tasks  it doesn't replace jobs those workers have   found other opportunities and other avenues and  we'll talk about some of those in just a few minutes now I said at the beginning  that I'm a manufacturing engineer by   trade so my area of Interest typically lies in the   area specific to manufacturing so  what about the role of Robotics and Manufacturing robots in manufacturing really  hit a hit a surge in the 1970s even as a   child growing up I was aware of the impact that  robotics was taken in the automotive industry as   well as the concerns that it began to present  in 1969 the Stanford arm was developed with 6   degrees of freedom and that's typical to what  we see in industrial robotics today this boom   continued into the 1970s and today robots  are essential in keeping Automotive plants   competitive with over half of the industrial  robot purchases in North America being made by automakers that automation has not  necessarily driven large scale unemploy   employment what it's done is kept the  automotive industry competitive it's   kept them functioning and able to meet the  demands of an increasingly mobile Society uh but what about within our industrial  environments and our facilities today   forklift accidents there's not an industrial  facility in the country that doesn't have   forklifts we use them for Material Handling we  use them for material positioning and there are   millions of forklifts Across America in industrial  environments but they result in 34,900 injuries   and almost 62,000 non-serious injuries every  year uh when you look at a safety environmental   safety and health department of most manufacturing  facilities one of the areas of concern is forklift   operations because they're entirely based on human  interaction we have human forklift drivers we have   human people walking around a facility and these  accidents are driven by any number of factors   whether it's driver fatigue worker complacency  not looking when they step out into a traffic path so these safety concerns are  definitely something to be worried   about but OSHA estimates that 70% were  preventable and that they were based on   human error now a lot of facilities have  begun turning to automated guided vehicles   for Material Handling these automated guided  vehicles or AGS are a $ 1.31 billion market   and it's expected to double in the next 5  years right now facilities such as Amazon   Amazon is one of the largest users of agvs  so much so that the company they were buying   all of their robots from they just bought the  company and now it's Amazon robotics it it made sense 520,000 automated guided  vehicles in Amazon plants across   the country that's more than all other  Industries combined but more facilities   are seeing the value of replacing their  forklift fleets with Auto guided vehicles   in terms of safety to workers in terms  of safety to material and safety to the facilities so there are tradeoffs they're  slower about 50% but they've proven to be   safer and more consistent they're not as  versatile so do I expect that forklift   drivers are going to become OB obsolete over  the next 5 years as we double that industry   no probably not forklift drivers still have a  role to play in our manufacturing facilities   forklifts are a lot more versatile they're able  to perform and accomplish things that automated   guided Vehicles just can't do they don't have  the the agility they don't have the uh ability   to to be versa in that environment so I do  think that we're going to continue to see   forklifts but the average life of a forklift  is about 20 years depending on the model and   the maker so 20 years for a forklift and I think  as we begin to see these forklift fleets start   to age out rather than replace those forklifts I  think what we're going to see is companies begin   to turn more and more to automated guided  vehicles to solve their Material Handling Solutions so what we're seeing in industry is  that the role of robots is evolving we're going   from a high volume Automotive only technology  to something where now we're asking where can   we put a robot where can a robot fill  a need where does it add value to our Enterprise now currently the manufacturing  industry employs about 11% of the US   Workforce 11% one in every 10 workers  is employed in a manufacturing facility   somewhere in the US this is an actual  decline over the last 5 years of about 1.4% as more jobs become automated we're  noting a decline but the question that we   really need to ask is has this increased  automation driven the decline in labor or   has the decline in labor driven the  increase in automation it could be 50/50 my experience is that we're facing a  labor shortage most manufacturing facilities   are competing for labor in their facilities  and are competing with with other facilities   in their region does anybody know what the  starting pay at a manufacturing facility   for someone coming off the street with no  skills or qualifications whatsoever prior   to or prior experience is going at right now  20 to 21 an hour when I left Electrolux two   years three years ago it was between 20 and  $21 an hour and that was because all of the   other facilities in that area had started  hiring at 19 and 20 and it's not because   they can't find people who are willing to  work there are a ton of people willing to work but for whatever reason or choices we have  a shortage in our labor pool if we need a 100   people in a facility and we can only hire 80  people what do we do about the other 20 jobs   I can only get 80 I've offered as much money  as I could possibly offer and I still can't   get the workers in the door well the answer is  we have to automate those 20 jobs that we can't fill so is the decline in labor driv driving  the increase of automation I would say yes as   our demands increase as we begin consuming more  it's going to continue to to drive increases in   a necessity for automation uh despite economic  factors we consume now more and we have a greater   demand for manufacturing than we have ever had  at any point in our history so manufacturing   increases the demand increases our need for tasks  to be performed increases but our labor rates are   kind of remaining the same so automation helps us  fill those gaps but what do we automate what jobs   should we automate first whether are the jobs  nobody wants to do in robotics we call it the   4ds the dirty dull difficult and dangerous  these are the jobs nobody wants to do in   the first place you can't pay me enough to do a  dirty job okay maybe you could pay me enough but   not enough that makes it economically feasible  dirty jobs painting pain train in is a dirty job dull jobs monotonous repetitive jobs at  LG there's somebody getting paid $20 an hour   to shoot screws in a dishwasher over and over  and over again and it's a boring manous job   and it has its own ergonomic challenges as  well difficult jobs jobs that are just too   hard for us to do or too complex perhaps we just  can't keep up with the pace needed to meet the   demand we can't just tell workers work faster  that's really not an answer so we automate and   jobs that are dangerous jobs working in  dangerous environments that are hazardous   to our workers why put people at risk when I  can just automate that job and make it safer   for everyone now we speak of these in terms of  Robotics but this applies to any implementation   of automation if we're going to automate this  is the first area we look for what are the 20   jobs out of a 100 I cannot find anybody to fill  because it's a dirty dull difficult or dangerous job so what are the results of this  increased automation well first is   job displacement and some sectors  you're just going to see robots   and automation replace these tasks  that are dull dirty difficulty and dangerous but you're also going to see job creation deployment of automation  historically has resulted in a net   job increase that's right automation is a net job Creator these jobs typically revolve around  other Associated functions necessary to support   automation maintenance and operation  ations the development Innovation and   the implementation and integration of  automation systems and sometimes it's   entirely new industries that are created I  had a conversation with a gentleman before   we started tonight and we discussed about  you know a 100 years ago my grandparents   could not fathom or conceive of the jobs that  would be available to us today and I Can Only   Imagine what type of jobs and new Industries  are going to be created a 100 years from now job transformation in many cases automation  just transforms a job rather than eliminating   them one of the examples I like to give is  I was automating a process when I worked at   a manufacturing facility and I had an operator  who had worked on that process for 10 years they   were super proficient at this job they were very  good at it but it was a very labor intensive job   so when we automated that I needed an operator  who could watch and observe and monitor that   automation who better than the person who had  been doing it for so long who could note any   variations in the process any errors or mistakes  in the automation equipment who better than the   operator that had been doing it by hand to  now monitor the automation doing the job and   that's what we did we began transforming that  job from one of manually performing a task to   monitoring the automation that was performing  that same task and as a result we ended up   with an operator who was able to give better  feedback was able to uh notice much earlier   in the process when the system was failing  and we had a stronger process in the end a   lot of times these tasks require more problem  solving creating creativity and human judgment   and that's where our operators really Excel doing  the D dirty difficult and dangerous jobs are not   where our operators Excel they excel in being  able to use their own creativity and problem solving some times there's industry specific  impact has anybody been to the noodle place   they got the robot that comes around and serves  your food to you what's the name of that I I I'm   not going to say because I don't I don't want to  compete with strawberry alley I do love their food here but uh I have not been I had a student  who was bringing that up to me that there's   a noodle place that has a robot server come  around to your table certain industries are   all already shifting into automation they're  finding these jobs that in the food service   industry for example now there's these  self-served kios where you can just order   your own food the food service industry has a  huge labor shortage so they're automating the   jobs and why are they automating them well they  can't find people to do the jobs but we still   want our Burgers and Fries we still want to  go through the drive-thru and have our order   taken we still expect that service so certain  industries are seeing this impact sooner than   others whereas some industries that require  that creativity that emotional intelligence   and the decision making are less likely to be  automated soon but eventually we're getting there sometimes they complimentary roles  automation Technologies are designed to complement   human workers we have what's called cobots or  collaborative robots and these are robots that   are designed to work with a worker the robot will  pick up the materials that may be too heavy for   the worker to manipulate or ergonomically unsafe  for them to manipulate and it'll present the work   to the worker who can then perform a complex  task on that work and we're seeing that more   and more in Industry collaborative robots are  safer they're more able to be integrated and   they work better with complex tasks that still  require human intervention but would benefit from automation economic and social factors  the broader economic and social context   also plays a role the government will  continue to make policies labor unions   will still have a voice and the labor market  and Society impacts are still going to have   to be a factor that we consider and and how  it's going to affect our employment in the future to mitigate this though we turn towards reskilling and education  upskilling workers to prepare them for new roles   that align with the changing job landscape as  I said at the beginning I teach engineering   technology along with my friends Matt and  Mahesh we see a large number of students   coming through Who currently work in an  industrial environment but want to upskill   they see the value that automation is bringing  they see the impending increase in Automation   and they want to get ahead of that curb so they  begin upskilling and training and education and   sometimes employers do that themselves as well and  support that what about that question is it safe self-driving vehicles have become a Hot Topic  lately we see it on the news quite frequently   uh this is the weimo according to all state  a typical driver goes 165,000 mil before an   accident on average the number of driving we the  amount of driving we do in the US 165,000 miles   weo which if you never heard of whmo you might  recognize it as the Google self-driving car they   actually branched off into their own subsidiary  and they're running what is a self-driving Uber   service they're being marketed or tested in  Arizona and San Francisco and for many years   they drove with a safety driver behind the wheel  but now they're completely autonomous uh Teslas   Teslas are not self-driving Teslas have an  autopilot feature that is not a self-driving   feature teacher um Tesla is a Class 2 and wh  MO is a class 4 in terms of Automation in 1   million Rider only miles with no driver or human  interaction whatsoever they've only logged two   two collisions that required reporting  to the National Highway Traffic Safety   adviser 55% of the non-reportable accidents  involved D human drivers hitting a stationary vehicle uh and in almost every case  uh human drivers violated Road Rules   or behaved Dangerously in every vehicle to  vehicle event their safety record is amazing   so we have concerns about the safety but the  data and the statistics show us that they have   a very good safety record and they've had no  reported injuries in 1 million rer only miles uhoh I lost two TVs there we go what  about tractor trailers my father was   a tractor trailer driver for  10 years trucks account for   4% of the vehicles on the road but  they're involved in 9% of the fatal crashes huh he's on the wrong side of the road he   is he is on the wrong side  of the road I didn't notice that now this is actually a driverless  vehicle that's being tested so it is   on a test track or I flipped the image one of the two so would self-driving in vehicles improve  that safety record if we began looking towards   the mechanization or the automation of our truck  driving industry which we rely on heavily would   that improve that safety record uh the data and  the statistics point to yes is that a likelihood   probably not right away the implementation  and the integration of the technology is   significant the cost would be a very significant  but truck drivers are already taking note of it   and beginning to look at ways they can upskill  as well and again truck driving also is being   affected by that labor demand they're also  being affected by that struggle to find people   that are willing to drive so is Automation in the  trucking industry inevitable at some point I would   say yes yes it is inevitable will it happen  tomorrow or in the next 5 10 years probably   not but it is inevitable and our Workforce  has got to start looking and preparing for it what about chat GP and artificial intelligence  that's really hit the news lately I I like this   Photograph because I'm a big admirer of his  Holiness Pope Francis and I know in my heart   of hearts that he would never wear an outfit  like this but the photograph is so good that   I had to double check it just looks so real  and it's actually an AI generated image that   went viral a while back and Chad GPT is a  language learning model and you can read I   actually generated this slide from chat GPT which  I thought was pretty awesome because they did a   great job of describing it I don't know that  I could have described it as well it takes a   large data set of text and it's able to take an  input and provide an output that at this point is   almost indistinguishable from human interaction  and that's generated concerns I just it's scary   it's a concern because how do you know if you're  actually communicating with a human or automation   now Chad GPT is just one model there actually  uh I checked there's I saw at least three dozen   language learning models that are currently  available and more are being developed uh incrementally the wga the writer Guild of  America and the Screen Actors Guild are   currently on strike because they're protesting  the use of AI on the basis that it supplants   creative artists and writers the intro credits  to Marvel secret Invasion were AI generated by   Method Studios now their concept artists from  Marvel Studios commented on this secret invasion   is AI generated I'm devastated I believe  AI to be unethical dangerous and designed   solely to eliminate career artists and that  concerns me because of two words I believe no   quantifiable evidence but just I believe I think  Mr Simpson is just looking at it from the wrong angle so is it unethical dangerous and is it  design to eliminate artist careers nothing   could be further from the truth it's simply  technology technology is developed with the   intent of helping people are they unethical by  using Source material without attribution well   that comes back to the user how is the user using  that technology and does it replace creativity or   can it support more complex creativity well the  answer to that is in the strike itself the wga and   sag strike stes have set the movie and television  industry back significantly and they've estimated   that it's going to take a significant amount of  effort to get their Productions back on track   oddly enough the same thing that was a concern  might actually be the solution the solution being   suggested is using these AI generative tools as  a supplement to the current creative Endeavors   being put forth to help get it back on track that  it can assist writers and it can assist artist uh   none of these things even the secret Invasion  intro are completely done in a vacuum they do   require artist interaction and Method Studios has  stated that they've actually seen an increase in   their Workforce because they needed more people  in order to generate that introduction so again   it's created jobs jobs rather than replace  jobs ultimately AI integration much like   CGI has a greater value as a tool to augment the  current workers than to supplant them it has the   ability to create opportunities for increased  productivity without putting excess pressure   on workers simply telling them to work harder  and faster is not going to be the good answer   we can use it to streamline data processing and  customer service everybody's gotten those phone   calls about your car's extended warranty go ahead  and update that before you break down but we get   the calls we don't like the robo calls we've  called for customer service and we've got the   AI generated customer service please State the  nature of your problem but ultimately it helps   us streamline those Services it helps with  software coding because while it can generate   certain lines of code it is not perfect by any  means and it still requires human interaction   to touch it up it can help with marketing design  in so many other areas one of the areas I ask is   in education how can I encourage AI integration  while maintaining creativity and computer science   actually had the answer to that so during the  most recent Innovation experience that we do   in the College of stem every April uh one of  the student projects in the computer science   department was developing a computer a card  game application uh that I was very impressed   with and they stated to me that one of their  biggest challenges was they're not artists they   don't create artwork they're programmers and  they had created this game but they needed a   lot of artwork so they used an AI generative  program to create the artwork for their game   because ultimately it was a programming project  and as a result they were able to complete their   project in time so in my opinion we began instead  of worrying about chat GPT taking away student   creativity we look at opportunities to increase  student creativity we look at ways in which we   can encourage them to use AI generative programs  to help increase the quality of their end product   uh in engineering technology we're not writers  we're not creative we work with technology so   when my students have to communicate not so  creative they communicate well in technical   terms but maybe I need them to communicate in  layman's terms this is where AI gener generative   AI can help out so what do I do if a robot  takes my job well in the US we begun embracing   a technology or a concept known as kaizan or  change for the good this overall philosophy   Embraces reduction in waste and workers aren't  seen as a waste but they're seen as a resource   and that by investing in that resource and that  concept of value added we get a better trained   Workforce that is more reliable more productive  and overall a general happier workplace relying   on new employees to come in with the required  training that we need for this incre in Reed   automation is not going to be sustainable  not in the competitive labor market that we have historically I've said that technology  has resulted in being a net job Creator in   many Industries there's a likelihood of a  lateral conversion to a new and better job   and implementation of new technology takes time  it requires us to allow workers to acclimate and   prepare for new roles where we're already being  acclimated to technology if you've checked out   of a grocery store or a department store recently  you've gone through a self checkout or seen the   self checkouts available that's acclimating us  to a time when we don't even have to check out   we just have rfids on our products we select  them from the shelves and we walk out we're   beginning to acclimate to new technology and  resistance to that change is certainly a concern many times jobs require retraining and  in Tennessee we have a lot of programs   designed to help support that we have  Tennessee promise and Tennessee assure   or Tennessee reconnect which helps uh students  out of high school as well as adult Learners   get some of that retraining that I talked  about a lot of employers provide tuition   assistance for their employees to be able to go  or tuition re imbursement programs for them to   be able to go and get those up skills that  they need in order to be competitive in a   labor workforce many offer in-house training and  Tennessee even has worker training grants that   are provided to employers to incentivize them  hiring lower skilled workers and training them up overall the net impact of Automation in  the workplace is going to depend on how the   businesses government and Society embrace it how  do we adapt to these changes how do we invest in   education and Workforce Development to help  us upskill and prepare our workers for the   increased Automation in the workplace and  beginning to Foster innovation in emerging Industries the future will involve continued  advances in technology history has shown that   you can't UNC that bottle technology is  going to continue to advance but it's   our human capacity to utilize these advances  to our greatest potential that will dictate   what the future looks like so overall I  like technology I think it's positive and   I think we have reluctance and concerns  and we address those but we can't ignore   it cuz it's still going to happen but  if we ignore it we're not going to be prepared so that's my talk for today I appreciate  you coming to hear it um don't forget we do have   a solar a partial solar eclipse coming up on  October 14th that's going to be happening I   think around noon I think noon is the best  time to see that are there any questions so when does a computer that is Computing become  a computer that is doing Ai and I think not being   a computer expert CU I'm engineering Tech  but I think that computers when we Define   it as artificial intelligence is when it is  able to exhibit that creativity now a lot   of times we throw the term AI out there  and we misuse it quite often but I think   when we begin designing computers that can be  completely creative you know a computer can't   even generate a random number right right it's  based off the clock so when we begin developing   that and I think that's currently Beyond this  but is that impossible for us to develop it   seems like everything's going exponentially  faster you know so I don't think that's far off is the US a major Center for manufacturing of  robotic techology is is the US the major centor   for the manufacturing of robotic technology have  all those has all that stayed here or has it gone   to another big country is the US a major Center  for ma for manufacturing technology or robotics   robotics for robotics technology uh us still has  a significant presence but it does go into foreign   markets Japan is a huge innovator in robotics  particularly personal robotics so one day when   I have my own R2 D2 unit that I dreamt about as  a six-year-old it'll probably come from Japan but   do we still have it yes companies like Amazon have  invested so heavily in robotics that we are still   one of the leading manufacturers we're not the  places like ca comes from CA actually comes from   Germany but was bought out by China uh fanic is  us-based I believe so there's still a lot that is   overseas but then again do can we really meet the  demand for robotics with our current manufacturing   probably not there's such a huge demand that we  can't now when the self-driving car industry we   are number one weo is the leader in self-driving  car technology by far and that's us-based yes sir do I foresee a time when all  the fast food restaurants will be   completely automated no I think there  will always be a demand for service   industry but in terms of fast food I  think we're going to see it change um   the pandemic already saw a huge shift into  drive-through service and takeout service   and food delivery service so I think we'll  still see it I think it'll look different though other questions I appreciate your interest  in technology I appreciate your interest in stem uh h that is my wife do not take a comment card  from [Music] her you're going to ruin my GPA all right let's give JY  one more big round of applause

2023-10-14

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