Making the Machines that Replace Humans
A visit to a robot factory in Ohio
MIAMISBURG, Ohio—A humanoid robot greets visitors to the Dayton-area offices of Yaskawa Motoman, a Japanese company that produces the machines being installed at thousands of factories around the globe. Its right arm is holding a screen, which playfully challenges visitors to compete with the robot in a manual task: tracing the word YASKAWA as quickly as possible.
It’s a trick, of course: The robot always wins. On the multiple times I tried, I never beat the robot, and lost in both accuracy and speed by large margins. The robot could complete, in just a few seconds, a task that took me eight seconds at my fastest, and much more at my slowest (and
