AI Talkshow OnAir: ASML, TNO and Loop Robots on societal impact and real world AI implementation

Originally published: AI.nl

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics are playing key roles in the evolution of the manufacturing industry. They are bringing advancement in manufacturing by minimising human workforce, improving efficiency, and even simplifying the whole manufacturing process. This has led to fulfilling increased consumer demand, reduced labour cost, faster decision making, and customised product development.

This article is a recap of the Talkshow OnAir about the implementations of artificial intelligence within organisations. You can watch the whole episode at On-Air.ai.

Today, AI and robotics play a key role in the manufacturing industry by aiding with detection and solving a fault line, automatic control of a system, and demand-based production. While some of the leading companies have adopted AI and robotics in their manufacturing, there are a number of companies that are still playing catch up to their established peers.

In the episode 4 of OnAir, Remy Gieling, founder of ai.nl speaks with Arnaud Hubaux, Product Cluster Manager at ASML and Joris Sijs, Senior Scientist at TNO, who joined the stage with Spot, an agile mobile robot developed by Boston Dynamics. Gieling asks Hubaux and Sijs about their interest in AI, impact of AI in the society, and offers helpful tips for those looking to implement AI in the field of manufacturing, industries and robotics.

‍(...)

Autonomous machines for hospitals

The OnAir episode also saw CEO and founder of Loop Robots Per Slycke join Gieling in the studio. Lopp Robots is building autonomous disinfection robots for use in hospitals with the goal of reducing the number of infections or transmission. With 5 million deaths so far from COVID-19 pandemic, Loop Robots is building robots that will lower transmission of infectious microbes from touch surfaces.

Slycke says vulnerable people are most likely to contract infections from various touch surfaces, which accounts for up to 40 per cent of infections in hospitals. He adds that humans are really good at cleaning surfaces with visible stains but pathogens are not visible to the human eye. As a result, he says cleaning staff are asked to do work that they cannot see and their managers cannot measure in terms of results.

Loop Robots says that this disinfection activity is something that can be considered repetitive in nature, and requires humans to handle harmful chemicals, disinfectants, which is not healthy for humans. He thus proposes robots as an alternative to carry out this repetitive task without any harm and also leave a digital audit trail.

For its robots, Loop Robots uses existing lamps from Signify but the robot is capable of scanning the room in 3D and determining its own path to optimise and deliver the right amount of light needed for all the different surfaces. Slycke says the biggest challenge for Loop Robots is implementing these robots with the cleaning personnel in hospitals and not technology related.

Hubaux sees these kinds of robots being used in offices and supermarkets, but Slycke does not see a need for such robots in commercial places. He says that these pathogens only infect vulnerable people who could be visiting hospitals or being treated there. However, healthy individuals in office settings or in supermarkets may have immunity against such pathogens. “We as humans need to reduce the amount of chemicals and the medication that we use in an unnecessary way,” Slycke explains.

Future of AI

Joris Sijs believes that the future of AI is one that combines the data driven AI with the knowledge driven AI. He says that by reviving the old fashioned knowledge driven AI, the systems will have much less uncertainties that are common with today’s AI systems that are data driven.

Arnaud Hubaux, on the other hand, sees the future where AI will be much more regulated to focus on the ethical aspect of the technology. Slycke sees a need to get off the hype train and focus on the basics since AI is a very powerful technology and he feels that “emphasis should be on doing useful labour.”