The Junction Box: What is a robot, really?
13 December 2019
In a guest column, exclusive to Connectivity, Richard Stone, Managing Director of Stone Junction – the first ever PR agency for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – asks why we still don’t have a clear definition of a robot as we start 2020.
A long time ago, I asked one of the first questions of my career in technical PR. At this point, I was still certain that everybody else already knew the answer to everything I was going to ask. I was convinced that I would be ridiculed and chased from the building by laughing journalists if I enquired about, quite literally, anything.
My question was, “What is the actual definition of a robot?”
The answer was that there was no clear and universal definition. And there still isn’t.
However, it’s pretty much universally agreed that a robot must be a physical device. “I would say that a robot is a physically embodied, artificially intelligent agent that can take actions that have effects on the physical world,” explains Anca Dragan of UC Berkeley, in this article in Wired.
And that’s absolutely right, without question – it’s universally agreed upon. Unless you work in robot process automation for instance, then it’s universally agreed that robots can also be entirely software based, as this piece in the FT explains.
Most engineers would argue that any kind of automation must have sensors, control/data interpretation and actuation. So, it follows that a robot should have all those things. That said, my heating timer has all those things and it’s not really got the same status as C3-PO – I know for a fact it isn’t fluent in over six million forms of communication, for instance.
Poor quality satire
Okay, okay. By this point you’ve probably grown tired of my poor-quality satire about the automation industry’s inability to define something that we spend such a lot of time thinking about, writing about, buying and selling.
My point is that it didn’t take long for my unsophisticated mind, early in my career, to spot that there was a clear gap in the market for an official definition of robot. Given that there still is a space, that tells me that there is a PR opportunity here for someone to provide that definition. You want to position your robot offering? Here’s your chance.
And robot isn’t the only term that’s begging for some definition. It strikes me that there is space for someone to name and define all the equipment that can be used to interface between modern digital manufacturing solutions and older equipment for instance. Devices like WEG’s WMS Motor Scan, the B+R Orange box or ABB’s Ability smart sensor range.
The power of a name
The value you derive from naming something is twofold. The first is the opportunity to lead on the concept; SIEMEN’s readiness to be involved in the definition of digital manufacturing in each of its key regions is a good example of this. Made Smarter in the UK or, perhaps Industry’s greatest ever marketing tactic, Industry 4.0 are both great examples.
Alternatively, the value could be derived from the creation of a new sector, which you can literally lead – as well as positioning yourself as a thought leader against. In doing so, you create a new market space, making the competition irrelevant. If mobiles were still marketed as wireless telephones, I’m reasonably certain we would sell substantially fewer of them.
Just as we didn’t call cars ‘horseless carriages’ for long, there’s no reason that your new product needs to be classified in the same way as the method of achieving the same objective that it’s replacing. There is power in a name.
The development of digital versions of traditional products is a brilliant opportunity to put this kind of tactic into effect. Yes, it’s just marketing speak, exactly as Industry 4.0 is just marketing speak, but marketing is all about the five Ps and the first of those Ps is product. The world’s greatest innovators, from Steve Jobs to Henry Ford, have always understood the power of a name and the value of a definition.
So, if you want to be involved in providing the official definition of a robot, get in touch. If there’s one thing we know at Stone Junction, it’s how to do excellent marketing speak.
Richard Stone is the founder of Stone Junction, a specialist technical PR agency delivering international and digital PR and marketing services for scientific, engineering and technology companies. He loves robots, even if he doesn’t know what they are, so send him an email on richards@stonejunction.co.uk and he will make sure you get an automated reply, using an email signature produced exclusively for you by the AI in our CRM.
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