{"id":397729,"date":"2019-03-01T17:24:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T16:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/record-number-of-robots-installed-in-the-workplace-in-2018-rt-usa-news\/"},"modified":"2019-03-01T17:24:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T16:24:10","slug":"record-number-of-robots-installed-in-the-workplace-in-2018-rt-usa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/record-number-of-robots-installed-in-the-workplace-in-2018-rt-usa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Record number of robots installed in the workplace in 2018 \u2014 RT USA News"},"content":{"rendered":"

American companies installed a record number of robots in the workplace in 2018, according to a new report. Automation helps companies cut costs and stay competitive, but the bots face a growing backlash.<\/p>\n

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In 2018, 35,880 robots were shipped, a seven-percent increase over 2017, states a report<\/a> from the Association for Advancing Automation, a robotics industry lobby group. All kinds of firms stepped up their orders last year, with notable growth happening in the food and consumer goods (48 percent), plastics and rubber (37 percent), life sciences (31 percent) and electronics (22 percent) sectors.<\/p>\n

Factory robots have long been most closely associated with the automotive industry. However, the auto industry\u2019s orders fell in 2018\u00a0to just 53 percent of the robots shipped, its lowest share of the market since 2010.<\/p>\n

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Read more<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese sales and shipments aren\u2019t just to large, multinational companies anymore<\/em>,\u201d AAA president Jeff Burnstein said. \u201cSmall and medium-sized companies are using robots to solve real-world challenges, which is helping them be more competitive on a global scale<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For these companies, the advantages are obvious. Plastics company boss Ken Hahn told Reuters<\/a> that he used to employ three forklift drivers to haul finished parts from the production area to quality inspectors. Now those three workers and their vehicles have been made redundant by a $40,000 robot.<\/p>\n

Online retail megacorporation Amazon employs thousands of robots in its warehouse facilities, and recently trialed an unmanned delivery vehicle<\/a> on the streets of Tacoma, Washington. Unlike their human colleagues, Amazon\u2019s robots never collapse\u00a0from\u00a0exhaustion<\/a>, don\u2019t have to relieve themselves into bottles to meet their production quotas, and don\u2019t agitate to unionize.<\/p>\n

A Gallup poll<\/a> taken last year found that 58 percent of Americans see artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation as a bigger threat to jobs than immigration and outsourcing over the next\u00a010 years. Artificial intelligence expert Kai Fu Lee told CBS News last month that automation will likely wipe out<\/a> 40 percent of the world\u2019s jobs by 2035, just one of a number of equally dire predictions. \u00a0<\/p>\n


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\n Also on rt.com<\/span>
\n Robot uprising? Amazon warehouse bot sends 24 human employees to hospital with bear mace<\/span>
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Aside from the economic threat, some conspiracy enthusiasts fear more imminent physical danger from our new machine overlords. Twitter erupted with talk of a \u201crobot uprising<\/em>\u201d when an Amazon warehouse robot \u2018accidentally<\/em>\u2019 punctured<\/a> a can of high-strength bear mace at a New Jersey facility last December, hospitalizing 24 employees and irritating another 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon’s robots pepper-sprayed Amazon’s human workers which is both horrifying and… right about on schedule for 2018<\/em>,\u201d one commenter mused.<\/p>\n

If you like this story, share it with a friend!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American companies installed a record number of robots in the workplace in 2018, according to a new report. Automation helps companies cut costs and stay competitive, but the bots face a growing backlash. In 2018, 35,880 robots were shipped, a seven-percent increase over 2017, states a report from the Association for Advancing Automation, a robotics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":397730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-397729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}