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470 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 9 (1983)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0470 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Kindergarten, Crestwood School, Madison, Wisconsin: Andrew ... Tara . .. and Tim ... knelt before a corner table, concentrating on the game board before them. Tim reached out and spun an arrow in the center of the board. It whirled, then pointed at one of several robot parts illustrated. I got a leg with roller skates, he exclaimed, eagerly adding the part to his own composite picture of a robot. What is a robot? I don't know; we haven't learned that yet, said Andrew. I think it's full of mechanical parts, offered Tara.' We are all still learning what a robot really is. This volume is an attempt to place the robot in both technological and social contexts. Today the primary application of robots is in manufacturing, and so the volume emphasizes the connection between robotics and the workplace. In one of its projected developments, the factory itself becomes a practically autonomous machine-a robot-requiring a minimum of human attendance and producing a constant stream of goods. Is this factory of the future not in some ways a realization of the story of the mill that grinds salt? Will our enthusiasm for the creation of the ultimate machine be as disastrous as the fable implies? In the folk tale the machine goes out of control. There are many warnings, some apparent in this volume, that the applications of the robot and its nonmobile counterpart, the computer, already pose problems for which we have only partial answers. The drive to complete automation is most evident in the context of the factory and the office. There, at worst, humans are gradually replaced by smart machines, the pace of work is set by the machines, and even formerly skilled jobs will be filled by machines. The implications of such developments are not lost on workers in those industries, such as communications, where the pace of automation preceded current developments in robotics. Our volume is selective and problem setting. Limited by space, we cannot examine robotics in military applications, in the home, or in agriculture. While each article deals with what exists, all probe the major questions that foreseeable robotics applications will bring into the public policy arena. Where technology is limited today, research under way suggests improvements within a two to five-year span. Where only a few completely automated factories are operative today, the model and experience gained from operation is built into the goals of the advocates of the high-technology society. To attain the full information society in which some estimate that the working population will be 90 percent in nonmanufacturing industries, roboticization must be part of the scenario of development. As an evolving system the robotic-information society depends on how rapidly the capabilities of the technology evolve. Our first section, concentrating on the technological aspects of robotics, emphasizes how far we have yet to go in making the completely automated factory the norm in a new system of production. However, if a new system is implicit in robotics, old systems, like old people, cannot simply be brushed aside. Many social problems of robotics will stem from the need to introduce robotics into existing systems. Though completely new factories, designed as robotic environments from the beginning, may be built, older plants must be remodeled or become hybrid human-robotic units, mixing old and new machines, old and new workers. In the excitement generated by technical change in the factory, it is easy to overlook the ramifications of the change in workplace, work habits, and expectations of management. Half of this volume is devoted to setting out some dimensions of the problems to be faced in employment-related education, factory and community connections, public policy, and the valuation of human abilities. I.Wisconsin State Journal, 4 Apr. 1983, sec. 4, p. 1. 9

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