BFF-11,12 Robot wars: China shows off automated doctors, teachers and combat stars

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Robot wars: China shows off automated doctors, teachers and combat stars

BEIJING, Aug 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Robots that can diagnose diseases, play
badminton and wow audiences with their musical skills are among the machines
China hopes could revolutionise its economy, with visitors to a Beijing
exhibition offered a glimpse of an automated future.

The popular stars of this year’s World Robot Conference, which ends
Sunday, were undoubtedly the small, amateur-made “battle bots” which smashed,
hammered and sawed their way through their opponents to a cacophony of cheers
and shouts from a rapt audience.

“With this robot, I can fully express myself. I love the sparks,” said
Huang Hongsong, one of around a dozen Chinese youths whose creations went
head-to-head.

But while the battle bots are designed largely to entertain onlookers,
China is deadly serious about riding the robotic wave with an eye on its
economy.

Cheap manufacturing propelled the populous giant to become the world’s
second largest economy in just a few decades.

But the country’s population is ageing, leaving it facing a double whammy
of a worker shortage and increased labour costs as it gets wealthier.

Automated machines offer a possible way out with President Xi Jinping in
2014 calling for a “robot revolution”.

Under the ruling Communist Party’s road map for its industrial future —
dubbed “Made in China 2025” — state subsidies are pouring into the sector.

And at the robot show, a vast array of machines demonstrated how
technology may eventually replace human workers.

In one corner, a mechanical arm — designed to teach children — painted
an elegant Chinese character while a robotic fish explored its tank and a bat
flapped its mechanical wings overhead.

– Delicate balance –

MORE/FI/ 0922 hrs

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By 2020, China is aiming for half of the industrial robots sold in the
country to be made by Chinese companies, up from 27 percent currently — with
a target of 70 percent by 2025.

“Robots are the jewel in the crown for the manufacturing industry… a new
frontier for our industrial revolution,” said Xin Guobin, China’s vice
minister of industry, as he opened the conference.

But it is a delicate balancing act for Chinese policy-makers due to the
potential for human job losses — a 2016 World Bank report said automation
could threaten up to 77 percent of jobs in China’s current labour market.

Nonetheless a great robotic leap forward has already been made.

China is now the world’s number one market for industrial robots with some
141,000 units sold last year, accounting for a third of global demand,
according to the International Federation of Robotics, which says demand
could rise an additional 20 percent per year until 2020.

“China has huge opportunities to increase the level of its industrial
automation (and) industrial robotisation,” said Karel Eloot, an expert at
consultancy firm McKinsey.

He notes that China still has huge room for growth given that competitors
like Japan and Germany have four times the level of robotisation in their
factories compared to the Asian giant.

Qu Daokui, president of local firm Siasun, which was showing off a snake-
like robot that can operate in narrow passages, said China needs to increase
the quality and sophistication of its robots, particularly in the field of
AI.

“We used to focus on the accuracy, reliability and speed of robots — now
it’s their flexibility, intelligence and adaptability that makes the
difference,” he said, adding robots needed to interact and adapt to their
environments and “make independent decisions”.

– Doctor Bot –

Outside China’s factories, robots are becoming a more visible presence,
deployed in restaurants and banks and even delivering parcels.

China’s iFlytek, a specialist in speech recognition systems, presented a
new “medical assistant” robot at the Beijing show which it said was able to
help identify up to 150 diseases and ailments — even passing a national
medical qualification exam with a high score.

The robot, which operated in conjunction with a doctor, asks patients a
series of diagnostic questions and can also analyse X-rays.

“It’s already being used in hospitals since March and has made some 4,000
diagnoses,” company president Liu Qingfeng said, adding such a device could
be particularly useful for clinics in more remote parts of China.

Chindex, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Fosun, also distributes the “Da
Vinci System” in China, an American built robot with arms and high-tech
cameras to aid surgeons in the operating theatre.

“It transcends the limits of the (human) eye,” chief operating officer Liu
Yu enthused.

But like the diagnostic robot, it still needs a helping human hand.

“It only helps the doctor, it cannot replace them. It would not be
ethical, the human body is still too complicated,” he said.

BSS/AFP/FI/ 0924 hrs