Dawn of the age of the robot

The robots are coming. The second decade of the 21st century will see the rise of a mechanised army that will revolutionise private and public life just as radically as the internet and social media have shaken up the past 10 years. Or so says Marina Gorbis, futurologist and head of Californian thinktank The Institute for the Future.

The IFTF is one of the world's most venerable thinktanks and has been plotting the course of the future for corporate and government clients since it was spun off from the RAND Corporation in 1968.

Gorbis says robots will increasingly dominate everything from the way we fight wars to our work lives and even how we organise our kitchens.

Robots are likely to prompt a political storm to equal the row over immigration as they increasingly replace workers, says Gorbis. But it's not all bad news. "When IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to beat chess grand master Gary Kasparov people said that's it, computers are smarter than people," she says. "But it didn't mean that at all. It means they are processing things faster not that they are thinking better." Working together she believes robots and humans will be able to create a world of new possibilities impossible before our new industrial revolution.

Gorbis says the robots are already here. The US military is backing the development of a four legged mechanical pack-carrying robot, called the BigDogs. Guided by its own sensors BigDog can navigate treacherous terrain carrying 150kg on its back. In the air robot drones are stalking targets in Afghanistan, remote controlled helicopters are ferrying supplies.

Military technology from the Roman road to the internet has a habit of hitting the mainstream, and robots are already spreading their influence. Robots may soon do building work. The University of Southern California has developed a system called Contour Crafting that allows machines to construct buildings in layers guided by computers. The system can reduce construction times and costs by 75%, according to USC.

In South Korea robots assist teachers in language classes, repeating words and phrases over and over and assessing how well they are parroted back. Google is working on cars that drive themselves. "What is that other than a robot," says Gorbis. Amazon and shoe retailer Zappos' huge warehouses are organised by an army of squat orange robots designed by Kiva Systems.

Inevitably the rise of the robots will put people out of work. Gorbis believes that this and other trends will mean unemployment will remain around 10% in many parts of the developed world over the coming years.

"We are in transition. It is similar to when we mechanised agriculture. After that we went through a period of high unemployment as people transitioned to new kinds of jobs. People learned to do other things," she says.

There is potential for a huge backlash. "But once a technology is invented, it is very rare that it disappears. You can delay the introduction but it is going to be used. If someone can produce something cheaper and faster, you are competing in that environment."

Robots get a bad press. With a few cute exceptions the robot has been an evil character in movies going back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis in 1927. In Japan and Korea, where many of the great robot innovators are likely to come from, attitudes are more positive.

Gorbis says there had been some speculation that the Japanese were more attuned to robots because they would rather mechanise than import foreign labour. "I'm not sure that's true. Whatever the case, there is a fascination with technology. And more political support. In a small aging population perhaps of necessity you think of machines as your labour force," she says.

We too are likely to become more robotic, she believes. "We have been modifying ourselves with technology forever, with eyeglasses, cochlear implants. We are going to see more of that. Sensors are going to be on our bodies, in our bodies letting us and others know what we are doing, what is going on with our health. All kinds of applications we haven't even thought of yet."

Gorbis says she is often asked if the future is arriving faster than ever. "I'm not sure that it is," she says. "We know more, we have access to more information but if you lived during the period of electrification or the building of railroads, I'm sure you really felt the pace of change too. It's all relative."

With all this information being bombarded at us it so no wonder that people worry, she said. "I feel schizophrenic myself. Half the time I feel really depressed when I look at say climate change or the potential to misuse technology. But then I get really excited about how we are reinventing ourselves through technology."