North South University

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

EEE425.4

Engineering Economics and Management

Report

Knowledge and Skills in Robot Era—are we misinterpreting or misleading?

Faculty Advisor:
M. Rokonuzzaman
Assistant Professor
ECE Department

Submitted by: Group 5

Md. Rashedul Islam(1511108042)

Submission:
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................3
Chapter 2: Literature Review.......................................................................................................................4
2.1 What is Robot?..................................................................................................................................4
2.2 Disadvantages of Robot.....................................................................................................................4
2.3 What can robot do that human can’t..................................................................................................5
2.4 How do they enter at workplace?.......................................................................................................6
2.5 Exercise skills and self development...............................................................................................6
2.6 Robots and Exercising Skills and Self-development..........................................................................7
Chapter 3: Proposed Solution......................................................................................................................9
3.1 Critical Thinking.................................................................................................................................9
3.2 Communication..............................................................................................................................10
3.3 Team work......................................................................................................................................10
Chapter 4: Summary..................................................................................................................................11
Chapter 5: References...............................................................................................................................12

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Chapter 1: ABSTRACT

There is universal recognition for the need for innovation to transform economies.
With, the advent to industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution characterized by
cyber-physical systems, there is a focus on the innovative application of advanced
robotics and artificial intelligence to bring about digital transformation in
businesses. However, reaping the benefits of industry 4.0 is not just a technological
challenge but also a human issue, requiring attention being placed on upskilling
and also the human dimensions of major change. Consequently, human factors are
critical elements of industry 4.0 skills needed for the future, to not only ensure that
workers can effectively and confidently use the new technologies but also that they
survive and thrive in a quickly changing workplace. While robotics such as
collaborative robots can assist workers and improve their safety and productivity,
if the skill transition is not effectively managed, many fear that robots will take
away their jobs.

Fear is growing that robots and artificial intelligence will replace many
occupations. To remain relevant in this changing career landscape, the worker of
the future is expected to be innovative, able to spot opportunities transform
industries and provide creative solutions to meet global challenges. To develop
such capabilities, work integrated learning (WIL) has emerged as an important
approach. In this paper, we therefore address the impact of robotization on
meaningful work. We do so by identifying five key aspects of meaningful work:
pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development,
self-esteem and recognition, and autonomy. For each aspect, we analyze how the
introduction of robots into the workplace may diminish or enhance the
meaningfulness of work. We also identify a few ethical issues that emerge from
our analysis. We conclude that robotization of the workplace can have both
significant negative and positive effects on meaningful work. Our findings about
ways in which robotization of the workplace can be a threat or opportunity for
meaningful work can serve as the basis for ethical arguments for how to—and how
not to—implement robots into workplaces.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 What is Robot?

Robot, any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it

may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a
humanlike manner. By extension, robotics is the engineering discipline dealing
with the design, construction, and operation of robots.

The word robotics first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction

story Runaround (1942). Along with Asimov’s later robot stories, it set a new
standard of plausibility about the likely difficulty of developing intelligent robots
and the technical and social problems that might result. Runaround also contained
Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics: [4]

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human
being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such
orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not
conflict with the First or Second Law.

2.2 Disadvantages of Robot

Robots have a nasty habit of taking peoples’ jobs. I mean, in a capitalist system
business owners have to do what it takes to maximize profits. And the brutal
efficiency of robots makes them perfect for the task. Humans just can’t compete
with a robot that can work 24/7 without making any mistakes. That fact can force
people out of jobs they’ve done their entire lives. Robots need oodles of electricity
to run. That makes them expensive to run (more on this later) and potentially
damaging to the environment. Unless we shift over to greener sources of energy,
the growing demand for robots in society could lead to additional issues with
global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.[5]

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Robots can’t think for themselves (yet).They rely on clever humans to program
them for specific tasks. And, though artificial intelligence and machine learning are
coming on fast, this is a limiting factor in what Robots can do. In a similar way,
robots are only suited, as of now, for specific roles and responsibilities. They come
into their own in industry, research, medical practices, and the military. Outside of
those domains, though, they have minimal practical usage. Human interaction will
suffer as robots become an increasing part of life.Already, the rise of mobile
phones has started this slippery slope. Just look around you in any public space and
you see a mass of people staring at their screens.

2.3 What can robot do that human can’t

Robots are capable of a variety of tasks humans cannot perform either due to
danger or a certain level of mundane repetition. Factories and the home have
implemented robotics for further efficiency and speed. The military and science
have utilized robots for deadly situations or reconnaissance in severe conditions,
while the medical community uses robots to perform delicate operations difficult
for a human hand. Robots have joined the workplace and society as a whole in a
capacity of vast importance to humans.[6]

Robots are able to perform a variety of tasks that humans otherwise could not
perform. Since the first robot, Unimate, was installed into a New Jersey General
Motors factory in 1961, increased automation on the assembly line floor has
boosted production levels to those that would be impossible with humans doing all
the tasks. Today, factories of all kinds use robots to perform tasks such as welding,
assembly, sealing and operating dangerous tools. The other advantage to robots is
the fact that, as mechanical apparatuses, they never tire; so they can perform their
jobs nonstop, turning manufacturing and industry into 24-hour facilities.

Robots perform jobs that humans find dull, dangerous or difficult. Either labor
intensive or mundane, robots can be adapted to a variety of tasks. Industry,
farming, medicine, the military, and space have all seen the expansion of robotics
in their practice. The home has also become a hotbed for technology, as many
appliances have now become "smart" devices over the years. The impact on

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humans is varied, but the utilization of robots will continue throughout this century
and beyond.

2.4 How do they enter at workplace?

First, we can distinguish preprogrammed robots, such as the robots employed in
the assembly halls of car manufacturers designed to perform well-described tasks
in well-defined and controlled environments. Second, there are tele-operated robots
that are under continuous control of human operators at a distance. Paradigmatic
examples are drones, robotic submarines, and surgery robots. Third, autonomous
robots are able to sense their environment and act with purpose, such as delivery
robots in hospitals that distribute and register patient’s medicines. A further
category of robots is “augmenting” robots, which are connected or integrated with
the human body. Examples are exoskeletons by means of which (partly) paralyzed
persons can walk, or robotic legs or arms. Such robotic skeletons can also be used
to enable workers e.g., soldiers to use heavy gear.[7]

Each of these types of robots has already entered the workplace. According to a
report by the International Federation of Robotics, the worldwide sales volume of
robots in the workplace has risen sharply over the past five years.  Within this
trend towards higher levels of robotization in the workplace, Decker et al. notice
the following shift. Whereas robotization started mainly with industrial robots that
substituted humans by performing routine manual tasks (e.g., the above-mentioned
robots in the car industry), nowadays more and more robots collaborate with
humans, also performing nonroutine and cognitive tasks. Consequently, their
potential area of application is broadening, and increasingly workers will have to
cooperate with robots.
The reasons why companies and organizations are introducing robots into the
workplace are straightforward. They include projected cost savings, increased
efficiency, improved outcomes, dealing with insufficient numbers of workers in
certain domains, the need to stay innovative, the need to remain an attractive
employer, and so on. Given the clear trend towards more robotization, there is
every reason to investigate how the collaboration with robots can result in
meaningful work.

2.5 Exercise skills and self development

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The idea that the development of skills and talents makes our lives better goes back
a long time, with this being one key component of Aristotle’s influential theory of
human flourishing. So it is no surprise that when contemporary philosophers
formulate theories of meaningfulness—and of meaningful work in particular—they
tend to include the development and exercise of skills as one of the key
components of meaningfulness This idea also finds support in the psychological
literature. Psychologists posit a general human need for competence or efficacy, by
which they mean the need to perceive of ourselves as being able to act and to
realize certain things. Developing, exercising, and acquiring skills, especially more
complex ones, enable people to feel competent and self. This is typically
experienced as meaningful. In this way, humans can flourish and realize their
potential.

It is not surprising, then, that exercising and acquiring (complex) skills should be
widely seen as a key element of meaningful work. After all, work is a context in
which many people have opportunities for developing and excelling at new skills.
Workers often stay in the same occupation for years, enabling them to build
knowledge, social skills, technical skills, and so on. Developing one’s skills is
often experienced as a challenge that gives focus to doing the job. Via the process
of acquiring skills, work can be a powerful source of meaningfulness. Relatedly, in
organizations that create an innovative environment aimed at personal growth,
workers typically experience more meaning in their work. Such personal growth or
development of oneself enhances the meaningfulness of work.

2.6 Robots and Exercising Skills and Self-development

A Threat?

Obviously, if robots take over one or more complex tasks from human workers,
several human skills may become obsolete. The development and exercise of these
skills then will no longer be a source of meaningfulness for human workers, and
their job will be less conducive to self-realization. For example, if machine
learning techniques become systematically better than human radiologists on
nearly all dimensions of interpreting medical images, the need to extensively train
human radiologists might seem to disappear. Or if “autoland” systems in airplanes
are very safe and generally perform very well, pilots may find it hard to force
themselves to reach and maintain levels of landing skills comparable with earlier
times in aviation. The dangers of deskilling due to reliance on automation
technology are real and established by research, and apply to robotization as well.

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Together with such a diminished need to exercise one’s skills, one’s work-related
growth and self-development more generally will probably suffer as a
consequence.

An Opputunity?

However, robots might equally well have the opposite impact by enhancing the
need for workers to maintain their skills, and, moreover, by requiring them to
acquire new and additional complex skills. To return to our example from above,
in order to be able to oversee the performance of machine learning techniques, the
radiologists must still master the relevant interpretative skills herself, just as Nissa
Scott needed to learn new skills in order to work together with the warehouse
robots in her job. As long as the radiologists on occasion are able to spot an error
of the robot technology, this might be highly satisfying and sufficiently motivating
to engage in the long training program. Furthermore, we might interpret the ability
to spot robotic performance errors as a new and probably highly complex skill.
Finally, since the conclusions taken from medical imaging need to be explained to
the patients, it seems that radiologists cannot do without their own understanding
of these images.

With respect to aviation, David Mindell has done extensive ethnographic study of
the occupation of pilots. Surprisingly, the high-performance level of autoland
systems for some pilots functions as a model and target, motivating them to raise
their own skill level. Also, pilots need always be able to take over in case of
automation malfunction or other problems. So here again we see that the human
has to maintain all the traditional skills and to acquire new complex skills for
overseeing and handling robotic technology. To conclude, the introduction of
robots in the workplace impacts the human development of skills in multiple ways
and the overall impact needs to be assessed on a case-to case basis.

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Chapter 3: Proposed Solution

Problem solving is deemed central to skills for the future of work. It can be defined
as “an ability to analyse and transform information as a basis for making decisions
and progress towards the solution of practical problems”. Understanding and
defining the business problem to be solved has been at the heart of successful
collaboration between university and business. Additionally, in a technical sense,
problem solving is central to engineering practice and education and is embedded
in foundation courses such as Engineering Design. Similarly, within Design
education, problem solving is the basis of design thinking, a core element of that
discipline. To elevate this learning and outcomes for end users, industry-based
learning through WIL can be a powerful tool for innovation.
In this vein, problem solving is deemed a critical area of need for their future
increasingly characterized by innovation For the next generation, problem solving
has been deemed an essential knowledge area in developing the future worker who
needs to be innovative and develop solutions for ‘global technological, economic
and societal challenges of the 21st century analyse the impact of creative problem
solving on innovation and found that factual information has a direct impact on
innovation while range information had an indirect impact. However, it was a
cross-sectional study and further longitudinal research would assist in exploring
the impact of problem solving on the development of innovation. Therefore, we
hypothesize the following:

3.1 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking refers to logical, analytical, conceptual and reflective reasoning

(Hager & Holland, 2006). Within the innovation context, many new startups fail
due to the inherent risks involved and critical thinking is deemed essential in
entrepreneurship education. As such, the application of critical thinking to de-risk
initiatives and weigh up various courses of action is vital for successful innovation.
Venture capitalists and other investors typically require this critical thinking to
ensure a return on their investments by critiquing the market and business
opportunity, identification of prospective consumers, partners and financial
scenarios to foster successful innovation.
Despite the importance of this skill, Phillips and Bond (2004) argue that there is a
worldwide skill deficiency in critical thinking despite being the most important aim
of higher education. Graduate Careers Australia surveyed 271 Australian
employers and revealed that critical thinking is the 2nd top selection criteria used

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in the graduate recruitment process, while DETYA (2000) ranked it the 3rd out of
25 skills and competencies required by employers.

3.2 Communication

Communication has emerged as an important factor influencing

innovation. Montag-Smit and Maertz (2017) found that providing appropriate
information during idea generation can improve innovation outcomes.
Communication has a strong theoretical background in innovation network
literature, where dimensions of transparency, credibility and codification or
understanding are all necessary in bringing about successful innovation.
Communication refers to “the ability to use language, symbols and text
interactively”. It includes verbal and written communication as well as meeting
participation. Communication has been recognized as a critical factor for student
success applied a communication skills assessment tool. However, data collection
focused on female doctoral Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM) students rather than undergraduate students. Further research is needed to
quantitatively evaluate the impact of communication on innovation.

3.3 Team work

There is a large body of literature on innovation networks that feature the

important role of relationships and interaction for successful innovation. Similarly,
within the educational setting, teamwork or interpersonal connections is needed for
innovation.
Teamwork is defined as “the ability to work constructively with others on a task”
(Knight & Yorke, 2004, p. 8). Yang and Han (2019) found that the amount of
interaction has a positive impact on the number of ideas implemented. A study
undertaken by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA),
now ‘VentureWell’, in the United States, examined the impact of teamwork in
entrepreneurial settings involving engineering students and found that teamwork
training needs to be improved.

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Chapter 4: Summary

 This paper provides a general framework for how one can discuss the impact of
robotization on meaningful work. In order for this to be investigated more
thoroughly, we need to look at the particulars of different types of work and think
about what robots in different kinds of workplaces might do with respect to the
five aspects of meaningful work discussed above (as well as any additional aspects
of work that bear on its meaningfulness). The aim here has not been to give the
final word, but to help moving the debate on work and robotization beyond the
question of the future availability of jobs. Scholars from various disciplines need to
investigate how we can safeguard the meaningfulness of work in an era of
robotization that will affect all workplaces.

Specifically, we recommend empirical case studies of workplaces where robots are

about to be introduced, and of workplaces that already have become robotized,
both workplaces being in the same domain. This will help researchers and policy
makers to gain more detailed insights into the impact of robotization on the
meaningfulness of work. In addition, we propose more economically and
empirically oriented research that aims to assess what the likely overall effect of
robotization will be on the availability of meaningful work, in contrast to just the
number of jobs as such. Finally, we recommend more philosophical debate
about the question as to what moral obligations the state and business owners have
to make sure that robotization does not lead to a loss but rather an increase of
meaningful work.

Often we think that labor-intensive tasks requiring low skill are highly amenable to
automation. It appears that there has been a mistake in interpreting what it takes to
make automation or robotics to qualify to execute tasks. Due to such
misinterpretation, have we come up with a job loss prediction figure which is
highly inaccurate? Furthermore, our understating about education and training
requirements for making human workers eligible in the robot era appears to be
grossly inaccurate. As opposed to wide speculation of increasing knowledge and
skill, human workers will mostly require innate abilities to perform the tasks that
robots or automation are going fail to take over. 

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Chapter 5: References

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-019-00377-4
2. file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/AI-and-Robotics-IBA-GEI-April-2017.pdf
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320303118
4. https://www.britannica.com/technology/robot-technology
5. https://www.wisehealthynwealthy.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-
of-robots
6. https://www.techwalla.com/articles/what-kind-of-jobs-do-robots-do
7. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-019-00377-4

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