Surely you also have that well-known feeling from time to time that an intelligent robot will steal your job in the future. Although it sounded like a joke and a sci-fi scenario at first, It’s already happening in many fields. There’s no wonder why more and more people are taking the idea seriously.
Just in case you wanted another proof, we’re here to give it to you. Fixing railway power lines is one dangerous job, and there’s no wonder why humans are now employing robots to do it. It’s happening in Japan, where a robot from West Japan
Rail Company (aka JR West) is doing just that.
Controlling the robot is possible through Virtual Reality
The robot seems to be doing a pretty good job, but it’s worth mentioning that it still needs help from a human being. The robot is controlled by a person who’s using a VR setup.
The description from Reuters sounds reasonable enough:
Appearing like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, this giant humanoid robot can lift up special equipment and carry out maintenance work on out-of-reach railway contact lines in Japan.
Putting humans to manual labor isn’t exactly the right way to solve things considering that it costs a lot of money. Furthermore, it’s not too efficient, either, compared to how a mechanical machine could do the job. Of course, another problem appears: what will society do with those people who were used only to manual labor if robots will take their jobs?
The problem is indeed a lot more complicated than it sounds, but we know that in general, anything that eases a person’s work should be beneficial.
Perhaps we all have to admit that the future sounds both scary and exciting at the same time.