Ken Goldberg & Robots Featured in NBC Bay Area News
BCNM faculty Ken Goldberg and the robotics development team at UC Berkeley were highlighted in NBC Bay Area's "Robots at UC Berkeley Take a Step Forward," which described the current research being undertaken here at Cal.
Goldberg offers his insights in the article:
The robots under development at Cal aren’t the kind that terrorize planets or crush enemies with lasers, but rather they take on practical tasks they may eventually assume from their human counterparts — things like cleaning the garage or sorting packages in a warehouse.
"We look at applications ranging from warehouse automation, which is a big focus right now, to home robots and surgical robots," Goldberg said.
Of course with each robotic technological victory, comes a new, and well-founded fear of robots putting the humans out of work. Students in Cal’s program recently presented a warehouse sorting machine to the honchos at Amazon. In what resembled a pair of arms coming out of a wall, the robot was able to dig into a box of various items and sort everything into separate receptacles based on appearance.
Yet Goldberg said any jobs that require a fine touch — from plumbers to mechanics to health care workers — are probably robot-proof, at least for now.
Watch and read the rest of the NBC Bay Area feature here.