The Role of Robotics and AI in Pursuit of Happiness

I was recently asked to give a short speech to students at Magnolia Public Schools. Here is what I told them….

Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to talk to you. I am a professor in the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC. I work in the area of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, also known as AI.

Many students ask me for career advice. I believe that all of us should find a line of work that adds value to society and makes a positive impact. I believe that Robotics and AI technologies will have a positive impact on society and that is why I am working in these areas.

The US Declaration of Independence introduces the pursuits of happiness as one of the keystones of our society. So let us focus on bringing happiness to people as a guiding principle when we are thinking about career options.

Being happy requires us to have fun. Let me begin with an old joke about having fun. It is well understood that having fun requires three basic ingredients: (1) time, (2) money, and (3) good health. When you are young, you have time, and hopefully, you are in excellent health. But you have no money, so you cannot have fun. When you are done studying and have a job, you are making money and hopefully still in good health. But you are really busy with your job and so you don’t have any time. So you are unable to have any fun. Finally, when you have retired, you have money and time. Unfortunately, your health is not good, so you are unable to have fun. You see --- modern lifestyle conspires to make sure that we don’t have fun in our lives.

I believe that people take the "pursuit" part of “pursuit of happiness” more seriously than the "happiness" part. Young people are told to study so that they can get good jobs. Unfortunately, for a large number of people studying using the traditional methods does not bring happiness. Once people get a job, they focus on making money. For many people, work does not bring happiness. So they leave happiness for the retirement. Happiness is not a ball. You cannot chase it all your life and finally catch it in retirement.

I believe that idea of having to wait until retirement to have fun is flawed. We should focus on having fun during all phases of our lives.

For most people, the lack of happiness comes from doing activities that they don't want to do and not being able to do things that they want to do, often due to poor health. Robotics and AI technologies can help in solving both of these problems.

Let us begin with education. I believe that we need to change the focus from studying to learning. Learning has to be a fun activity and not a chore. No one likes to memorize pointless facts. I believe that robotics and AI can truly revolutionize learning. I am sure that some of you have participated in FIRST robotics and had fun. AI-based personalized tutors, AI-based games, robot competitions, art created by 3D printers, and virtual tours of historic places can lead to learning while students are having fun. I believe we should create technologies that make learning truly a fun activity. I hope some of you will create new technologies that will revolutionize schools and universities and bring joy to countless future students. Hopefully, you will also have fun in doing this and become rich.

Now let us focus our attention to work. All jobs currently have some components that people do not enjoy. There is no need for humans to do dangerous and tedious tasks as a part of their job. I believe that Robotics and AI can eliminate the need for humans to do things that they do not want to do. This will make work truly fun and let us focus on adding value to society. I hope that some of you will invent robotic assistants that can attend boring meetings on my behalf. I hope some of you will invent AI that can write perfect jokes to start meetings that we cannot skip.

Many of us spend a long time commuting to work every day. As you know, driving in LA is farthest thing from having fun. I cannot wait for driverless cars to arrive and enable commuters to be productive during their daily commutes. Advances in robotics and AI are the basis for advances in driverless cars.

We all spend time at our homes doing chores that we do not want to do. I hope that some of you will invent robots that can cook, clean, and extract items from packages delivered by Amazon. This will increase the time available to us for having fun.

Aging poses many health challenges for people. Advances in AI and robotics and can help elderly people in living at their homes with dignity. It can remind them to take their medicine, monitor their vitals, cook their favorite meal, and help them in getting around their homes.

I hope that these examples have convinced you that robotics and AI can be important tools in achieving happiness. I hope that some of you will choose these fields as careers.

We are heading towards a future where we will need to learn and add value every day. I hope we can soon figure out how to turn learning and work into activities that give us joy. Thank you very much for your attention. Enjoy the rest of your day don’t forget to have fun!

Is there anything on the horizon that will challenge the dominance of smartphones?

I was born in the late sixties in India. In the early seventies, our home had only a few appliances that used electricity – a couple of fans, few light bulbs, and a radio. As the middle class in India started catching up to the western standards of living, by late nineties my family in India had acquired televisions, video cassette players, audio cassette players, refrigerators, phones, washing machines, food processors, evaporative coolers, water heaters, etc. Our family was not an early adaptor of technology. By the time my family was ready to buy a new gadget, there were at least another hundred million families in developing economies that were acquiring the same gadget. Each new gadget had a market size of few tens of billions of US dollars and its wide-scale adoption added hundreds of thousands of jobs to the manufacturing sector worldwide. The growth in the sale of the manufactured products was a proven strategy to grow the economy.
 

I came to the US in nineteen ninety. We acquired a large number of electronic gadgets over the twenty year period including camcorders, digital cameras, navigation systems, cell phones, personal digital assistants, voice recorders, CD players, MP3 Players, handheld game consoles, alarm clocks, digital wrist watches, pedometers, televisions, DVD players, cordless phones, etc. Every year there was a new and exciting electronic gadget on the market that was on our wish list. The list of must-have products was growing and new hardware companies were springing everywhere to offer new products. Middle-class consumers have been fueling the economic growth and raising the standards of living for people through expansion of the global manufacturing sector.
 

The consumer electronic landscape started changing with the arrival of iPhone in 2007. My wife was an early adopter. She was using her iPhone to play music and get driving directions. She did not need her navigation system or her MP3 player. Soon the camera on her upgraded iPhone was quite decent and she abandoned her digital camera. Her wrist watch and the alarm clock on her nightstand were the next items to disappear.
 

Products made obsolete by smartphones (Cordless Phone Image Source: https://www.vtechphones.com/; Pedometer Image Source: https://www.amazon.com/; Digital Alarm Clock Image Source: https://www.amazon.com/; Hand held Game Consoles Image Source: https://www.forbes.com/; MP3 Players Image Source: http://www.ebay.com/; GPS Navigation System Image Source: http://www.navigadget.com; Digital Camera Image Source: https://www.bestbuy.com; Camcorder Image Source: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/; Electronic Voice Recorder Image Source https://www.amazon.com/; Personal Digital Assistant Image Source: http://itsolutiontest.blogspot.com/; Scanner Image Source: https://www.amazon.com/; Radio Image Source: https://www.amazon.com)

The list of products impacted by smartphones includes: (1) digital cameras, (2) video cameras, (3) navigation systems, (4) personal digital assistants, (5) MP3 Players, (6) voice recorders, (7) handheld game consoles, (8) alarm clocks, (9) pedometers, (10) cordless phones, (11) radio, and (12) scanners. Some people are also using smartphones as calculators, barcode readers, searchlights, mirrors, remote controls, keys, translators, wallets, and paperweights. All signs indicate that smartphones will make many more products vanish from the market over the next few years. Recent media reports are touting the ability of smartphones to function as metal detectors, digital projectors, and mosquito repellents! This phenomenon has never been seen before. Usually, a new product made a product with similar functionality obsolete. For example, DVD players made video cassette players obsolete. Smartphones are simply absorbing the functionality found in other products and altering the consumer electronic product landscape.
 

So far large screen TVs, high-quality headphones, and health monitoring systems (e.g., fit bits) appear to be immune from smartphones’ takeover. As I am writing this blog post, I am realizing that with the exception of a TV, a couple of headphones, and few fit bits, we have not bought any new electronic gadget in the last three years. Every few weeks, we get excited about new apps for our smartphones and we are constantly discussing which smartphone to get next. However, we are simply not keeping up with our previous pace of consumer-electronic hardware purchase. Smartphones have altered consumer behaviors and expectations and have ushered in the era of the app-based economy. 

Cars and homes depicted in sci-fi movies have not yet materialized. However, smartphones have fundamentally changed the way humans communicate, commute, shop, and bank. They have also opened up new channels for news delivery, advertisement and entertainment. Many people are now attached to their smartphones and cannot imagine life without them. The fear of not being to check one’s smartphone is now a recognized phobia. Twenty-four seven connectivity makes is difficult for people to disengage from work and induces a high level of stress. Smartphones are being blamed to cause several different kinds of sleep disorders. Smartphones have had the biggest impact on daily lives of humans since the advent of personal computers and fundamentally changed the cultural norms and human behaviors.

A reasonably good quality smartphone costs between $500 and $1000. Most people look forward to upgrading their smartphones to newer models in two (or fewer) years. Many previous electronic products such as digital cameras were shared by members of the family. Smartphones are not meant to be shared. Everyone needs to have their own smartphone. This is fueling growth in smartphone sale. Annual smartphone sales volume has already crossed the one billion mark. Soon revenues generated from smartphone sale will be more than one trillion US dollars. Smartphones have fundamentally altered the consumer electronics landscape and had a profound impact on the industry. Most high technology companies want to a part of this action and are launching their own smartphones. If this trend were to continue and the popularity of ride-sharing apps slow down the sale of automobiles, then smartphones might take over the automotive industry in terms of worldwide sales revenues. Smartphones currently appear indispensable and imagining life without them is not possible.
 

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher said that change is the only constant in our lives. I am sure that dominance of smartphones (at least in the current form) won’t last forever. I am beginning to wonder what will replace smartphones. With easy access to the cloud, we don’t need to do any serious computing on the handheld devices. Miniaturizing is creating powerful sensors that can be easily integrated into other items carried by people. The key innovation offered by smartphones was the touchscreen-based user interface. The next generation brain-machine interfaces might reduce reliance on touchscreen interfaces. If augmented reality-based glasses become popular and everyone starts wearing them, then it will be easy to simply add smartphone functionalities to them. They will certainly provide a better display and sound quality than smartphones. People have been talking about smart clothing for a while. Would smartphones survive in the current form if smart clothing idea takes off?
 

Is there anything on the horizon that will challenge the dominance of smartphones?

2017 NIST Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC)

This year NIST organized a simulation based competition called Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC). The idea was to move away from traditional robots that execute preprogrammed motion. Teams were challenged to build a system that can dynamically respond to failures in grasping, defective parts, and priority orders. Teams were expected to do this by using the minimum number of sensors. The task in the competition was focused on building assembly kits. The robot had to pick parts from bins and a conveyor and place them on automated guided vehicles.

Please see https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2016/01/nist-launches-international-competition-make-robots-more-agile for details on this competition.

My group fielded a team in ARIAC. Team members included Matt Buckley and Brual Shah. Competition results were announced on July 5, 2017. Please see https://www.osrfoundation.org/ariac-finals-results-announced/ for details. I am happy to report that our team won the competition.

You can check out our competition entry in the video shown below.

Effectively Utilizing Advanced Manufacturing Requires a New Approach to Closing Skills Gap

Advances in manufacturing technologies are fundamentally changing the nature of work at manufacturing enterprises. As new technologies are deployed, a large number of workers find themselves with obsolete skills and lose jobs. On the other hand, companies that are contemplating deploying new manufacturing technologies are unable to find workers with the right skills and hence many available manufacturing positions remain vacant.

The rate of rapid changes in manufacturing technologies is pointing to a future where major manufacturing technology refresh will occur every five to ten years. This means that a worker will need to face the challenge of skill obsolescence multiple times in a typical career. Overcoming this challenge using the current workforce education and training paradigm is not practical. Not finding a scalable solution to this challenge will lead to a major disruption to the way of life for the middle class.

Over the last few years, I have interacted with workers, companies, and colleges and discussed challenges and opportunities in the manufacturing workforce training area. Based on my analysis, the main challenges are the following:

1. Acquiring new manufacturing skills often requires six months or more. Displaced workers are economically vulnerable and simply do not have cash reserves to complete the training. 
2. Many displaced workers do not have math and programing prerequisites to learn advanced manufacturing technologies. Completing these prerequisites takes extra time. 
3. Many advanced manufacturing technologies are expensive. Colleges and training institutes are unable to acquire them in sufficient quantities to rapidly build the capacity needed to retrain the workforce. 
4. Workers are unable to travel to far away training locations for long periods of times to complete the training due to family constraints and/or economic considerations.

The workforce retraining will need to occur frequently. Therefore, simply relying on government grants to sustain the current training models will not suffice. Manufacturing enterprises have embraced innovations and learned how to deliver personalized products at low costs with highly compressed schedules. Once we start viewing the workforce training enterprise as a part of the manufacturing supply chain, we realize that many principles that led to significant efficiency gains in manufacturing will be applicable to the work training as well. We should aim to realize a new workforce training enterprise with the following attributes:

1. Enable trainees to participate in training remotely. 
2. Accelerate the training process. 
3. Reduce time needed to complete prerequisites. 
4. Leverage spare capacity on existing machines to reduce capital investments.

Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to meet these needs. The solution will require development of new technologies and pedagogical tools to accelerate learning, commitment from individuals to life-long learning, and cultures at companies to incentivize acquisition of new skills. Government will also need to provide education based tax credits. Colleges will need to master the agile manufacturing principles to quickly roll out new programs to meet emerging needs. Addressing the workforce training challenge this will be a step towards solving the most pressing societal problem faced by the advanced economies.

Why Automation is a Key to Innovation?

Every week I see news items that identify automation as a major threat to jobs. This is beginning to paint automation as an enemy of financial well-being of a large segment of human population. However, there is a different side to the automation story. Automation has been a major force behind many modern innovations and associated industries. Unfortunately, the connection between automation and innovation has not received much attention in the media. 

Often automation has been presented as a means to eliminate the need for humans to do dull, dangerous, and dirty tasks. Moreover, the value of automation is often rationalized in terms of cost reductions. If automation is viewed only with this lens, then it basically comes across as an instrument to replace humans with machines and hence exacerbating employment prospects for many people. In many people’s mind automation is all about “dumb” machines doing the same task over and over in a monotonous way. Innovation requires human ingenuity and creativity, so automation cannot be farther away from being an enabler for innovation. This view is too myopic and prevents people from seeing the value of automation in enabling innovations and growing new industries.
 
Automation’s biggest contribution has been in assisting humans to overcome their inherent limitations in speed, strength, size, accuracy, consistency, and reaction time. Constraints associated with human capabilities ultimately limit what types of products can be realized with manual operations. Automation presents a solution to overcome these constraints. Once we think about automation from this perspective, we realize that automation can help us in realizing products that have complex shapes and small feature sizes and require high accuracy.
 
Automation has been leveraged to create many innovative products that cannot be made using manual operations. Here are few representative examples of innovations from the medical industry that were enabled by automation:

• Computer Controlled Laser Machining: Computer controlled lasers have revolutionized machining. The software automatically controls the laser and can create really complex shapes on hard to machine metals in a matter minutes. Stents have been credited with saving many lives and they will simply not exist without computer controlled laser machining to realize complex shapes with small features.
• 3D Printing: 3D printing epitomizes automation. A computer analyzes three dimensional model of the desired part and generates instructions so that a machine can automatically build it layer by layer. Shapes that cannot be produced by any means can be realized easily using 3D printing. Customized hearing aids will simply not exist without automation. 3D printing is also enabling customized implants and prosthesis. 
• Automated Printed Circuit Board Assembly: Robots and motion control stages have revolutionized how printed circuit boards are assembled today. Automation enables printed circuit boards to utilize very small components that are packed very tightly in a confined space to create lightweight miniature electronics. The quality of life for diabetes patients will significantly deteriorate without glucose meters. Modern glucose meters rely on lightweight miniature electronics to function. These products will simply not be possible without automation in manufacturing of printed circuit board assemblies.

In summary, many innovative medical devices will simply cease to exist without the “helping hand” from automation.
 
I am concerned that all the negative press about automation will create a backlash against it. We really need advances in automation to realize the next generation products that will improve the quality of life. Automation is certainly creating challenges for the workforce and we need to find a solution to address it. However, we need to acknowledge the value of automation in driving innovations.

KUKA Innovation Award 2017

My group at the University of Southern California fielded a team in KUKA Innovation Award 2017 competition. Team members included Ariyan Kabir, Sarah Al-Hussaini, Abdullah Alsharhan, Vivek Annem, Iain Brookshaw, Qi Deng, Alec Kanyuck, Nithyananda Kumbla, Joshua Langsfeld, Rishi Malhan, Fadel Muci, Brual Shah, and Shantanu Thakar. 

After two preliminary rounds, our team was selected as one of the five finalists. Applicants for this award were expected to demonstrate an innovative robotic application using Kuka iiwa arms. Our team traveled to Hannover Messe in Germany to showcase our entry in the competition. This is one of the largest trade fair in the world. Usually, more than 250,000 visitors attend this trade fair. Distinguished visitors this year included Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.

The focus of our application was automation of finishing processes such as grinding, sanding, and polishing. We combined planning, control, perception, learning, and augmented reality technologies to create a new robotic system for finishing operations. Our setup used two robots. The first robot held the part and the second robot manipulated the cleaning tool. We used external sensors to monitor the task progress.

Our application was significantly different from the traditional robotic applications in manufacturing. Robots in traditional manufacturing operations use pre-programmed motions to carry out the tasks. This idea only works when a robot is used is mass production application to make the same part over and over and this approach does not help in low volume production. An example of this is post-processing operations in additive manufacturing of custom parts. For metal based 3D printing, surface finishing operations are still manual and can take a very long time.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany walked past our booth (Image Source: Kuka)

Visitors at our Booth (Image Source: USC CAM)

Our Booth at Hannover Messe (Image Source: Kuka)

Picture at Awards Ceremony (Image Source: Kuka)

Our team with the Finalist Trophy (Image Source: USC CAM)

Manual surface finishing tasks are very tedious and time consuming and contribute significantly to the total cost in manufacturing. They also pose risks to the health of the workers. Our team believed that robots should do the tedious labor and humans should perform high level decision making in surface finishing operations. This way, we can increase the productivity of human operators and improve their quality of life.

The automated finishing system needed to manage the interaction between robots, tools, and the part to be finished. Robots needed to learn and optimize parameters on-the-fly for any given object and plan their moves. A perception system was also required for detection and localization, assessing surface quality, and ensuring safety. To achieve these goals, we integrated new planning and learning algorithms with the existing technology for perception and control.

Overall we received a lot of positive feedback on our demonstration. Many companies were interested in deploying our technology. Our team returned back to USC with a resolve to mature the technology and get it ready for deployment.

Are there any positive implications of autonomous cars on jobs in taxi industry?

Many people have raised concerns about the negative impact of autonomous cars on people’s ability to make living as Uber, Lyft, or regular taxi drivers.

Clearly autonomous cars will eliminate the need for drivers and hence people’s ability to make a living as drivers-for-hire. Let us dig a little bit deeper in this area and figure out if autonomous cars will create opportunities for people in the taxi industry to make money in some other way.

The cost associated with driving a personal car is approximately 50 cents per mile. This estimate includes the cost of a modest car, gasoline, insurance, and maintenance. The labor cost of drivers makes the cost of taxis four to six times higher. Taxi fares should go down dramatically once autonomous cars become mainstream. This will make taxi services a lot more affordable. Hopefully, this will encourage people to spend more time in taxis.

Once people start spending more time in taxis in complete privacy, they might want to spend that time more productively from work and/or leisure perspectives. Here are examples of activities that they might do in autonomous taxis:

• Doing video conferencing
• Eating
• Getting manicure/pedicures
• Personal grooming
• Watching movies
• Shopping
• Taking scenic detours
• Wine tasting
• Checking blood pressure

The above list just gives a few examples. Basically, autonomous cars will have captive customers and a wide variety of services can be offered to them by creative people. New technologies will create new service possibilities that cannot be imagined today. This should give creative people an opportunity to make money by offering services to people in autonomous taxis.

Designing such services and offering them will require a different skill set than driving. Hopefully, a proactive discussion about such service possibilities will help people get ready for the future when driving skills will be inadequate to earn a living.

I am curious to know your thoughts on what services can be offered to people spending time on autonomous taxis.

What can robotics community learn from artists with disabilities?

The robotics community aspires to build general purpose robots that can perform complex tasks effortlessly. In reality, we see the current generation of robots struggling to do even simple tasks.

We as roboticists admire human painters that can breathe life into canvasses with few brush strokes and sculptors in whose hands a marble slab melts like butter and an stunning awe-inspiring form emerges. We sigh with envy and hope that someday our robots will be good enough to carve a recognizable shape into the marble without us writing few hundred thousand lines of code.

We often look at human hands and eyes and marvel at the ingenious “design” behind the two. Everything from the available number of degrees of freedom to highly adaptive and high resolution sensing is truly remarkable. Human hands and eyes working in tandem endow artists with impressive hand-eye coordination capabilities that enable them to perform “miracles” and create mesmerizing art.
 
We compare human hands and eyes with the “clunky” hand designs and “dumb” cameras found in robots of today and resign to the fact that with current robotic hand and vision technologies, we are not going to get too far in terms of mimicking any impressive human feat. Do we need to wait for significantly improved robot hand and perception technology to build more capable robots or can we do better with what we already have?
 
I have been recently researching art created by artists with different types of disabilities. I am developing a very different perspective on whether the current hand and eye technology limitations are holding back the robotics community.  


I recently was introduced to paintings created by artists with severe visual impairment. A good starting point is “10 Remarkable Paintings by Blind and Visually Impaired Artists”.  This work is truly inspiring. Figures 1 and 2 show two representative paintings.

Figure 1: A painting by 
John Bramblitt (Image Source: http://illusion.scene360.com/art/78311/blind-artists/)

Figure 2: A painting by Eşref Armağan (Image Source: http://esrefarmagan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/24.png)

Doug Landis is paralyzed from the neck down. He holds a pen in his mouth and creates amazing drawings by controlling the pen with his mouth. His art work is called mouth art. Figure 3 shows one of his drawings.
 

Figure 3: A painting by Doug Landis (Image Source: http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/doug-landis-mouth-art.html)

These examples show that humans are able to create amazing art despite serious physical handicaps. Something magical happens in the brain and it enables the artist to create amazing art by controlling the available sensing and manipulation modalities. Many years ago Matt Mason told me that "simple hands" are capable of doing quite a bit. My recent explorations seem to support that point of view. We need to develop a better understanding of what minimal sensory and manipulation capabilities are needed to create a piece of art.  

Hopefully, this post will inspire roboticists to stop waiting for the perfect robot hands and eyes. We ought to be able to do better with what we have right now.   

Latest manufacturing advances create new vulnerability to cyber threats

A number of recent reports have pointed out the vulnerability of manufacturers to cyber threats. Small manufacturers are an important part of the manufacturing supply chain and simply do not have expertise and resources to take proactive preventive actions against sophisticated cyber threats. These vulnerabilities can be exploited to cause disruptions to the supply chain. 

The introduction of advanced manufacturing technologies is expected to revolutionize manufacturing, enable innovation, and create new businesses. However, emerging manufacturing technologies will create new vulnerabilities from the cyberattack perspective. Here are representative examples of vulnerabilities created by the introduction of new manufacturing technologies.

• Digital Manufacturing: The manufacturing sector has moved away from paper–based blueprints and has embraced digital models. 3D models are being used to manage design and manufacturing processes and speed up the product development process. However, the reliance on digital data and models creates new vulnerabilities during cyberattacks.
• Network-Connected Machines: The Internet of the Things is revolutionizing manufacturing by finding applications in prognostics and health management, on-line process monitoring, and process optimization. It is expected to increase manufacturing resource availability, reduce energy and water consumption, and fundamentally alter the ways manufacturing equipment gets maintained and serviced. However, a machine connected on the Internet can be a target for a hacker.
• Cloud-Based Services: Cloud based services are increasingly being used to exploit big data related technologies to make sense of the data being generated by manufacturing enterprises. It can be leveraged to make smart decisions and improve the operational performance of the organization. However, the need to transfer data back and forth between the cloud and the manufacturing equipment creates new vulnerabilities.
• Automation: The use of robotic manipulators, 3D printers, and automated guided vehicles is expected to increase productivity in the manufacturing sector. These technologies can be run untended for days at a time. These technologies can not only reduce operational cost, but also offer new functional capabilities. For example, 3D printers can be used to fabricate designs that would have been impossible to make using traditional manufacturing methods. The absence of human operators means that tempering of the machine by a hacker is likely to go unnoticed for a considerable period of time and can cause serious problems.
• Miniaturization: Modern products increasingly use miniaturized subsystems. This delivers improved performance and packs many functions in a single product (e.g., smart phones). To meet this need, today’s manufacturing technology is able to create very small features. This also means that malicious tampering is very hard to detect. For example, a hacker can insert small features in a part being built on a high resolution 3D printer. Such features will be very difficult detect.
• Complexity: Modern manufacturing is a complex network consisting of hardware, software, and people connected over the network. This complexity will make it difficult to secure manufacturing enterprises from cyberattacks and detect an attack in progress in a timely manner.

Cyberattacks on a manufacturing enterprise can cause serious problems. The following list presents representative examples:

• Cyberattacks can be used to steal proprietary information and product designs.
• Activities in a factory can be monitored to develop reconnaissance on planned future missions and capabilities without even the need for stealing the product data.
• The digital data being used by the factory can be altered to make subtle changes in the products. These changes can sabotage the products or provide backdoor entry into the product.
• A hacked robot or automated guided vehicles can simply run around on the factory floor at a high speed and cause major damage to the expensive equipment on the shop floor in a matter of few minutes. A sensor reading can be modified during the process control loop execution and can be used to cause serious damage to the equipment and the product being made.
• A critical machine can be simply shut off by a hacker and cause major production disruptions. This can have a significant crippling impact on the downstream supply chain.
• Critical information and data stored on a computer can be corrupted and rendered useless. This can lead to the loss of critical knowledge and trade secrets.
• Infected machines and robots can cause physical injuries to people in the factories.
• Infected machines can trigger fire and other environmental hazards for the nearby residential communities.
• Shutting down of a factory by a cyberattack can have significant economic impact on the local community as many members of the community (e.g., food vendors, retailers) rely on the factory workers for their livelihood.

Significant progress has been made in the field of Cyber Security for Information Technology based systems. Securing manufacturing enterprise from cyberattacks presents many new challenges. Machines and equipment used on factories have a long life (e.g., 20 to 30 years). They have limited memory and computing power and often unable to run the latest security software. Upgrading them frequently is economically not viable. The strategy of simply shutting down a machine in the middle of an expensive build is also not practical as it will lead to significant waste. Most small manufacturing companies do have people with the right expertise to monitor and recognize cyber threats. The physical aspect of a manufacturing enterprise means that simply taking a machine off the network will not contain the damage. The robot may continue to move and keep causing physical damage despite being off the network.

Making manufacturing enterprises safe from cyberattacks is a challenging task. It will require developing new cyber-physical security technologies and training people to combat cyberattacks and take proactive measures to secure the equipment. Manufacturing companies will need to build a culture that ensures that people take appropriate preventive measures to reduce vulnerability to cyberattacks. The presence of WiFi-connected smart phones and smart watches on the factory floors poses a major challenge to securing the factory network.

Recent Computing Advances: Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Intelligence?

There have been significant advances in computing over the last twenty years. These advances enable computers to perform amazing feats that are far beyond the capabilities of humans. Here are few examples.

• Ability to “read” millions of documents in a few minutes and index the information contained in those documents
• Search for digital artifacts (e.g., documents, images, etc.) based on user specified criteria in a fraction of a second from a diverse set of digital repositories
• Detect complex patterns and anomalies in real-time in a datastream consisting of several gigabytes of data
• Systematically generate and explore millions of options within a few seconds to determine the optimal course of action

These capabilities have been harnessed to build systems that can beat human grandmasters in chess, design novel devices that can be patented, detect barely visible early stage tumors in CT images, and predict fraudulent credit card transactions with a high degree of accuracy.

The computing technologies behind the above mentioned capabilities are often referred to as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some are predicting that AI will surpass human intelligence in the not too distant future. These predictions are beginning to alarm a segment of the general public. This raises several questions. Will human intelligence be relevant if AI continues to make rapid advances? What jobs will humans do if AI continues to surpass humans on tasks that are currently performed by intelligent humans?

I view recent computing advances from a different lens. I believe that these advances will augment human capabilities instead of competing with humans. Computers and humans have different strengths. In the previous paragraphs, I outlined some of the ways in which computers are excelling. Let us now review the particular strengths of human beings. Only humans can relate to human emotions and their underlying origins (many of these often defy logic in the mathematical sense!). I strongly believe that only humans can understand needs, wants, and desires of other human beings. Human contact and social interaction is the only way to lift the spirits of human beings and inspire them to do their best. Humans are very creative and capable of inventing artifacts and services that other human beings want. They possess the judgment to figure out how to assess values of different options in a complex decision making problem. They are capable of incorporating ethical, moral, cultural, and legal considerations in the decision making process. Humans also have an innate ability to generalize from a very limited number of observations to draw broader conclusions.

The latest advances in computing are freeing humans from biologically-imposed constraints on memory, computing speed, and communication bandwidth. We can view recent advances in computing as a way to augment human intelligence, therefore the term AI should stand for Augmented Intelligence. Using augmented intelligence, every human will be able to communicate with thousands of people at the same time, communicate in virtually every language, explore millions of options before making a decision, and access all known human knowledge. Leveraging augmented intelligence will enable humans to excel by exploiting their creative energy and their ability to connect with their fellow humans. I believe that humans armed with augmented intelligence will have the potential to improve virtually all facets of our lives. Here are ten ways augmented intelligence will help people in doing their jobs better: 

1. Currently educators are unable to provide personalized attention to students to suit their learning style and pace. With augmented intelligence, professors and teachers can use augmented intelligence to provide personalized attention to students by designing and grading tailored assignments to match the learning needs of each student. 
2. Nowadays, due to the large volume of the published research, practicing doctors are unable to remain current with the latest findings. Doctors can use augmented intelligence to ensure that each patient’s treatment plan is informed by the latest advances in the field by taking into account all the relevant latest research on treatment options and side effects of new medicines.
3. Most challenging problems require an interdisciplinary approach. For example, engineers want to take inspiration from biology. Engineers can use augmented intelligence to analyze all the relevant literature outside of their narrow field of expertise (e.g., biology) to draw inspiration and automatically construct models from the published experimental data. They can focus on asking the right questions and leave the more tedious work to the computers.
4. Law enforcement agents can use augmented intelligence to gather and analyze all the evidence instantaneously by searching and integrating information from many disparate information sources.
5. Designers can use augmented intelligence to synthesize optimal designs by rapidly generating and evaluating billions of options. They can use their insights and judgment to steer the computer search in the right direction. For example, this can help in designing betters drugs.
6. Marketing professionals can use augmented intelligence to mine the vast amount of social media data to understand the recent trends and customer needs. This can help them in developing the right marketing strategy in order to craft advertisement campaigns that appeal to the taste of their prospective customers.
7. Augmented intelligence can enable entertainers to stay in touch with their fans by providing personalized response on social media and analyzing fan feedback to create art that truly inspires.
8. Using augmented intelligence, writers can get access to documents written in virtually every language to draw upon and can transcend the language barrier to reach a worldwide audience.
9. Financial advisers can use augmented intelligence to offer affordable personalized advice to their clients by better understanding client needs and the market conditions in today’s fast changing world.
10. Public policy professionals can analyze the implications of their proposed policies by conducting extensive computer simulations and customized surveys. The execution of both of these tasks can be improved by using augmented intelligence to automate these tasks.
    

Unfortunately right now, access to augmented intelligence will be restricted to a privileged few. This will exacerbate the already existing digital divide. Society will have to work that much harder to ensure that access to augmented intelligence technology will be available to all.

Robots for Social Good

News stories that portray robots as “villains” often get much publicity by creating fear and panic among the general public. For example, as a result of recent high profile news stories, many people are beginning to view robots (and automation technologies in general) as a major threat to their jobs and financial well-being. The widespread availability of drones —I consider drones as a type of robot-- is raising serious questions about their roles in spying on the unsuspecting pubic and the loss of privacy. Concerns about the dangers of weaponized robots that could intentionally or accidentally kill human beings have been raised at several international forums. Robots equipped with advanced artificial intelligence are beginning to raise alarm that self-learning robots might lead to a doomsday scenario by subjugating the human race. I find all this negative publicity highly one-sided and a recipe for a Robophobia epidemic. We really need to pay attention to the positive side of the rise-of-robots story to get an accurate assessment of the situation.

A large number of people are working on applications of robots that focus on the social good. I want to use this post to highlight this aspect of robots. Here are a few representative examples:

• Robots are expected to significantly improve agriculture practice by monitoring crops constantly and using water, fertilizers, and pesticides more precisely. This emerging area is called precision agriculture and can significantly conserve water and reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides to make our farms more eco-friendly. 
• Robots are being used to monitor wildlife population and curb poaching of endangered animals by more effectively mobilizing limited law enforcement agents and gathering evidence for prosecution. 
• The next generation prosthetics is is expected to be based on advances in robotics and will help people with disabilities in gaining independence and living a more productive life. 
• Robots will enable elderly people to live in their own homes with dignity and hence significantly improve their quality of life. 
• Robots can bring high quality healthcare to remote regions through tele-robotics concepts. This is expected to improve access to healthcare and control outbreaks of deadly diseases. 
• Robots are showing potential for use in behavior therapy for autism spectrum disorders. 
• Human-safe robots will help manufacturing workers to increase their productivity and reducing the chances of workplace injuries. This can be used to grow new businesses and maintain high paying jobs in the manufacturing sector. 
• Driverless cars are expected to significantly reduce transportation fatalities caused by human errors. This will also make personal transportation accessible to people who cannot drive due to disabilities or declining abilities.
• Robots can be used to deliver humanitarian aid to regions that become inaccessible due to natural disasters. 
• Robots have emerged as invaluable tools in K-12 STEM education. FIRST Robotics continues to grow, gain momentum and inspire millions of young people worldwide.

I view robots simply as tools to augment human abilities. Like any other major technological advance, robots can be used by some humans to harm other humans. However, the potential of robots to enable humans to do social good far outweighs this risk.

How many jobs can a fully automated factory create?

I am in favor of decreasing physical labor through automation on factory floors in the US. I consider this the only viable strategy for improving the employment picture in the manufacturing sector in the US.

Some people hear this and start doubting my ability to do simple arithmetic. Their perspective is that automation kills manufacturing jobs and hence it is to be avoided if we want to boost employment numbers in the manufacturing sector.
 

This blog post tries to explain how automation creates high paying service sector jobs. As a thought experiment, imagine a factory that is fully automated --- no human contributes to any physical activity needed to transform the raw material into finished products. It is highly unlikely that a factory would be of any practical value. The presence of humans provides tremendous flexibility in manufacturing operations. However, for the sake of argument, let us assume that such a factory exist. Would such a factory be useful to the community where it resides from the employment perspective?
 

Below is a representative list of tasks that humans will need to perform to support a fully automated factory. 

• Design/Engineering Services: Manufacturing companies work closely with customers to help them design and refine their products to make sure that products are optimized for manufacturing. 
• Financing/Accounting: Running a factory requires actively managing the cash flow. 
• Sales/Marketing: Drumming up business for the factory requires a competent sales and marketing team. 
• Purchasing/Procurement: A functioning factory needs to purchase raw materials, tools, and supplies. 
• IT Services: A modern factory cannot run without IT services. 
• Infrastructure Maintenance: In order to function, a factory requires access to infrastructure. This infrastructure needs to be maintained. 
• Shipping and Transportation: The raw material and finished products need to go in and out of the factory. 
• Equipment Maintenance and Service: The equipment in the factory needs to be maintained and serviced to keep it functional. 
• Utilities: The factory needs access to utilities such as energy and water. 
• Building/Construction: Factory buildings need to be maintained and updated. 
• Insurance: Factories need tailored insurance products to manage risks. 
• IP/Legal Services: Factories need legal services to protect their IP.

All of the jobs listed above will continue to be performed by humans in the near foreseeable future. My analysis indicates that a region with healthy manufacturing operations gains quite a few service sector jobs. In my opinion, it is better to automate and keep the service jobs to support manufacturing operations rather than let the manufacturing move to low wage countries and lose both manufacturing and service jobs. Unfortunately, in a globally connected economy there is no other viable alternative. Ultimately, continued erosion of  critical manufacturing infrastructure will compromise the national security.  Hence, we have no choice but to embrace automation to maintain a healthy manufacturing base.

Unfortunately, existing robotics technologies do not help small production volume operations in reducing manual labor. Hence, such operations often find themselves in an unfavorable position from the cost perspective with respect to low wage countries. Recent advances in robotics are creating hardware and software that enable robots to be used on non-repetitive tasks. Hopefully, this will lead to a wide scale adoption of robots in small production volume operations and help in growing manufacturing operations in the US. 

The transition to increased automation in the manufacturing sector will not be easy. We will need workforce training programs to ensure that people who are laid off as a result of automation are trained to do other jobs at the factories.

I would like to thank Scott Macdonald, CEO, Maryland Thermoform Corporation for his insightful feedback on this topic.

What is the Next Frontier in 3D Printing?

During its early days, 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) was mainly considered a rapid prototyping process. It provided people a convenient way to prototype complex shapes. Over the last twenty years, the popularity of 3D printing has grown tremendously and it is now being used in a wide variety of applications. Here is a representative list:

Production Parts: People are now making production parts using 3D printing. It enables production of complex custom shapes without requiring specialized tooling. This offers designers a much wider variety of shapes and significantly cuts down the lead time. Geometric shape flexibility afforded by 3D printing can be used to reduce weight and reduce the part count in the product. Famous examples of this category include fuel nozzles in engines and custom hearing aids.

3D Printed Fuel Nozzle for Engine (Image Source https://gereports.ca/slideshow/look-ahead-master-class-advanced-aviation/)

Example of a 3D Printed Hearing Aid (Image Source: https://audicus.com/hearing-aids-3d-printing/)

Biologically Inspired Robots: 3D printing enables manufacturing of biologically inspired robots that have complex shapes and mechanisms to realize biologically inspired locomotion and manipulation.

R2G2: A 3D Printed Robot Developed by My Student James Hopkins that Uses a High Speed Rectilinear Gait

Cars: 3D printing is being used to fabricate the body and structural members of the custom cars. 

Local Motors 3D Printed a Car (Image Source:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a16726/local-motors-strati-roadster-test-drive/)

Prosthesis: 3D printing has been used to create hand prosthesis because of its ability to offer custom designs to fit the patient's size and needs. 

Examples of 3D Printed Hand Prosthesis (Image Source: http://enablingthefuture.org/upper-limb-prosthetics/raptor-reloaded/)

Molds and Dies: It used to take months to make molds and dies used in popular mass production processes such as injection molding and die casting. The use of 3D printing has reduced the mold making time to few days. 3D printing is able to incorporate internal features in the molds that significantly improve cooling time and hence improve the performance of the molding process. 

Example of 3D Printed Insert for Injection Mold (Image Source: http://www.eos.info/press/customer_case_studies/fwb)

Chocolates: 3D printing is now being used to produce custom chocolates. There are many other products in the food sector that are being considered as potential candidates for 3D printing. 3D printing can faithfully reproduce complex intricate shapes and offer novel food textures. 

A Chocolate Printed on ChefJet Pro Printer (Image Source: http://www.3dsystems.com/)

Biological Organs: Technologies inspired by 3D printing are being explored to create biological organs such as kidneys and ears. 

3D Printed Ear that Fuses Biological and Electronic Parts (Image Source: http://www.nature.com/news/the-printed-organs-coming-to-a-body-near-you-1.17320)

Drugs: 3D printing can be used to produce fast dissolving drugs to speed up absorption in the body.

Example of a Fast Dissolving Drug from Aprecia Pharmaceuticals (Image Source: https://www.aprecia.com/)

Buildings: Large 3D printers are being built that can print entire buildings.

A Large 3D Printer for Printing Buildings (Image Source: http://www.wasproject.it/w/en/)

Sculptures: Artists have also embraced 3D printing. They can use it to make new sculptures quickly and explore shapes that would have been almost impossible to sculpt manually. General public can also use 3D printing to print copies of famous sculptures at home.

Example of a 3D Printed Sculpture (Image Source: http://airwolf3d.com/)

Education: The uses of physical models can be of tremendous help in explaining complex concepts in geometry, molecular structures in chemistry and biology. 3D printing is being used to create physical models to enrich the educational experience. 

3D Printed Models to Explain Geodesic Spheres (Image Source: http://www.shapeways.com/)

Entertainment and Recreation: This industry is also utilizing 3D printing to innovate and pursue new creative avenues. Marketplaces are emerging to enable people to buy and sell 3D printed toys.

Example of a Toy that can be 3D Printed (Image Source: http://www.shapeways.com/superfanart/mylittlepony)

Clothing: Visionary designers are creating 3D printed clothes. This is not yet a mainstream trend. However, as wearable technologies get integrated into clothes, 3D printed clothes might start gaining momentum.

Example of Dress Created by Michael Schmidt Studio (Image Source: http://www.michaelschmidtstudios.com/dita-von-teese.html)

Jewelry: 3D printing is well suited for making custom jewelry and gaining popularity in the jewelry industry. 

Example of 3D Printed Jewelry from Artizan Work (Image Source: http://www.artizanwork.com/)

What is the next frontier in 3D printing? Here are my thoughts:

• The current generation of 3D printing technologies has focused on offering flexibility in geometry. The next generation 3D printers are expected to offer many more choices in material. Once we have the freedom to select the material of our choice, the design space will expand and we should be able to realize novel products.
• Setting up traditional manufacturing factory in space will be hard. 3D printing will be an attractive option for manufacturing in space or other planets.
• A 3D printer that can replicate itself will revolutionize manufacturing.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts about the next frontier in 3D printing.