Technology

The rise of the robots

Humanoid robots are the stuff of science fiction and publicity demonstrations. But in the real world, robots of a different sort are multiplying at a furious pace.

23 June 2021

Robots have been around for a long time and are widespread in manufacturing plants, where they weld and cut and pack, among many other tasks. But machines that carry out pre-programmed instructions – which is what industrial robots are – or that can be manipulated remotely by a human operator, are now invading other areas of life, from healthcare to the home.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to give us robots that are pretty close to those of science fiction – at least in terms of their ability to act with a degree of autonomy, but this is still in its infancy. Also beginning to make its appearance is a sort of invisible robot, known as robotic process automation, which is a software robot that operates, largely automatically, on other software.

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