Smugglers Beware – The Age of Robot Customs Agents Has Begun

Not that airport security is what we’d call lax, but for the customs evaders of the world, at least there was some hope of human error. This month saw the beginning of the end of that hope — there’s a new kind of customs agent on the scene, and it’ll always be watching!

Sanbot Max is the latest robot from Chinese firm Qihan, which has been busy making robots that can interact with humans for retail businesses, hospitals, and, yes, even government agencies. Max has donned the uniform (seriously, they gave him cool shoulders and a little arm patch) of China’s Inspection and Quarantine Bureau and has been given a post in the Shenzhen Bay Port in the south. Max won’t be doing any tough guy acts any time soon, but from the sounds of it, this bot is a little bit more than just a techie tourist attraction!

Admittedly, we were ready to write Max off as a novelty — after all, while robotics and AI have advanced rapidly in the past few years, neither are even close to replacing what humans can do. Well, alright, maybe just the AI part is behind — we do live in a world where robots can land sweet backflips with no support.

Well, Max is no novelty, but this bot won’t be replacing any humans, either. Max will need human partners to do the decision making, but it is equipped with a few powers that humans most certainly do not have — infrared vision, instant facial recognition, and radiation detection. That makes it possible for Max to spot banned foods or illicit materials while spotting anyone that the Chinese government has flagged. So, uh, keep that in mind if you’re going to Shenzhen!

We’ve been interested in Qihan since 2016, when they showed off the original Sanbot. They’ve released a few other versions of their robot, like Max, since then, but the basic design has remained the same. Qihan’s bots stand about three feet tall, with a cute expressive display for a face and a tablet on the body. Sanbot is equipped with AI based on IBM’s Jeopardy-winning Watson technology, with extra abilities that can be added depending on how Sanbot is being used. Qihan has seen Sanbot used in elder care homes to provide companionship and aid residents, in stores to help customers find products and deals, and now in government security posts!

In the beginning, Sanbot had ineffective flippers for arms that were probably there for charm more than anything. Earlier this year, Qihan started making a Sanbot with proper arms and hands, with fingers that could be moved individually. That allowed Sanbot to pick up, hold, and carry objects from place to place, which really expands what the bot can do in hospitals or elder care homes. Sanbot can be interacted with using voice commands or the touchscreen on the tablet, and while Sanbot still has the same occasional problems with voice recognition that many voice assistants do (hi, Siri!), Qihan and their voice recognition partner, Nuance, have come a long way.

So, is this another job destined to be taken over by robot-kind? I guess it depends on what kind of time frame you’re talking about. We’ve seen Sanbot for ourselves, and while it’s pretty impressive at doing narrowly defined tasks like following people around or understanding basic voice commands, it’s nowhere near anything that could operate in the field with no human support — it’s not ready to take anyone’s job!

And, for all the noise, half-joking or otherwise, made about robots taking jobs, that’s generally the case. AI development is still many years away from creating, well, true artificial intelligence. While humans can react dynamically (and unexpectedly!) in every situation, most machines can only take a certain number of actions in response to a certain number of inputs (say, a voice command or a feed from a camera). Until that human creativity can be copied, a lot of us are still safe.

Still, that doesn’t mean robots will only be operating with human partners. There are some bots that certainly will displace people in the near future, and you’ll find them in cars. In fact, driving is kind of a strange example that runs counter to most uses of robots and AI. Usually, a lack of creativity or dynamism is seen as a bad thing — a solo customs bot that can’t immediately take action when it thinks it’s being tricked isn’t much good to any government. But, in driving, that human ability to be creative and multitask works against us! Humans get distracted or use their superior cognitive abilities to make poor decisions like drinking and driving. Autonomous cars that are designed with a narrow, focused purpose — just drive and don’t hit anything — will almost inevitably be better drivers than humans once the technology is fully developed (which might not be all that long from now). The same will hold true for repetitive tasks like data entry or stocking.

One thing’s for sure — with a robot in uniform, a robot that does backflips, and a robot that wants to have babies, it’s only going to get wilder from here!

Repost from http://www.chipchick.com/2017/12/ctk-qihan-sanbot-china-customs.html

Parents, let Sanbot robot help with your kids' psychological problem

Often, kids do not tell their parents or teachers if something is bothering them, or what they are truly feeling. This is normal psychological behavior for kids to not tell people what they are actually feeling, but it is important that parents know about these feelings so they can help their kids grow into productive members of society. Enter QIHAN Technology’s Sanbot robot, the robot that will help kids open up about how they are feeling.

               

A study by Dr. Nancy Darling, Ph.D. in psychology, found that it is very normal for kids and teens to either lie or not disclose the full story. She calls this, “Strategic disclosure.” Dr. Darling has studied children and adolescents from around the world and in her report, she found that the majority have lied or did not disclose the full story to their parents. This is further solidified by a study done by the University of Waterloo finding that 96% of their subjects (ages 4-6) lie to their parents.

But, we have all seen the TV shows and Dr. Phil episodes about how talking about something that is bothering you are quite healthy. In today’s world, people are more and more inclined to speak to automations. In Psychology Today’s What Would You Rather Tell a Robot Than a Human?, a study found that a human counselor was preferred by70 percent of participants for talking about positive experiences, compared to 30 percent who preferred either of the two robots. …However, less than half the participants chose the human counselor for discussing negative experiences, while the majority chose one of the robots. In MIT Technology Review’s Growing Up With Alexa, a recent MIT study looked at how children ages three to 10 interacted with Alexa, Google Home, Cozmo, and a smartphone app called Julie Chatbot. The kids in the study determined that the devices were generally friendly and trustworthy.

 

In a couple of schools in Shenzhen, China, teachers noticed a few students were not being their normal selves. Teachers are very important in a child’s development. They are with them for a good part of the day, 5 days out of the week. Wanting to help their students, a classroom at the Qianhai Harbor Primary School (with the parents’ permission) decided to try a new method in helping students. Sanbot has been used in 10 schools for these psychology counseling services and for the past two months, Sanbot has been a part of 120 sessions per school. 

               

Students were brought into a room and talked to Sanbot one-on-one. Sanbot presented them with a series of multiple choice questions such as, “A group of friends plan to do something you don’t want to do, you will…; You are worried about a problem, maybe a family or health issue, so you…; Someone gives you $20, so you…” The children were very responsive to Sanbot. Another exercise was a psychiatrist controlled Sanbot remotely and talked to the student through Sanbot. Both methods had success.

Afterwards, the participating students were asked a couple questions about their Sanbot robot experience. First question: Do you like talking to Sanbot?

First-to-fourth grade students: 100%

Fifth-to-sixth grade students: Around 92.7%

Second question: If something bad happened, who would you tell first? Sanbot parent, or teacher?

*First-to-fourth grade students:

Tell the teacher: Around 26%

Tell their parents: Around 33%

Tell Sanbot Elf: Around 41%

However, the older students were less inclined to speak to Sanbot, but still, over 1/4 of the students preferred to talk to Sanbot.

Fifth-to-sixth grade students:

Tell the teacher: Around 24.5%

Tell their parents: Around 24.2%

Tell Sanbot Elf: Around 26.1%

A final survey among all participants (Students, teachers, parents) was done, and the results were very positive for Sanbot: 

Students:  Overall, there are around 95% students that prefer to have communications with Sanbot Elf intelligent robot thanks to their love of the robot (Cute appearance and games, etc.).

Schools: “Technology plus education” caters to the policy and guideline our government promotes in education industry. The model improves the entire image of technological education of the schools, and relieves the teachers’ working pressure.

Parents:  With Sanbot Elf, parents can get faster and more real information and feedback from teachers.

With this positive feedback, Sanbot is excited to take on more sessions.

Sanbot not only recorded the touch screen interactions, but also recorded videos so teachers and parents could listen to everything that was said, giving them more insight into how their kids are feelings. Some parents had no idea their kids were feeling sad about their home life, or that they were being bullied. Sanbot was able to help everyone involved in helping these kids.

While Sanbot may just be a robot that does not mean that it is just limited to labor/industrial tasks. This robot can be programmed for numerous situations and this example is just one of them. 

Artificial Intelligence helps with the upgrading of hotel services

Today, intelligent robot has been the “spokesperson”, more than the carrier of artificial intelligence. Hilton and IBM Watson conducted one test on the robot receptionist; Aloft Hotel under Starwood began using intelligent robot to deliver things for passengers; Crowne Plaza Hotel has also introduced the similar hotel service robot. Except for the reception, delivering things, weather broadcasting. The commercial service robots can offer activities and promotions service for hotel.

The turnover rate in hotel industry is high, so as the training cost. Artificial intelligent going into hotel is an invertible trend. Not only the hotel service robot suppliers, but also the hotel managers and investors have realized this point. And now, there are more than 200 hotels that have introduced the artificial intelligent robot for hotel service.

“With the subversion and application of intelligent service robot and AI technology, hotel industry, as the representative area of high-density service labor, will be the key area the service robot will go to.”, Xun Liang, the Secretary General of China Wisdom Hotel League, introduced.

Xun Liang told more, service robots which can be applied into hotels includes reception and guide robot, self check-in service robot, room emotional robot, autonomous delivery robot, autonomous robot security guards, vending robot, luggage fetching robot and restaurant service robot and others. Each robot owns the unique working capabilities finish their work.

Some time ago, Fliggy, the sub-rand of Alibaba Group announced it would create the artificial intelligent hotel in Hangzhou City. Till now, in some of the rooms of its High Xuan Spa Hotel have supported to control the curtain, light, TV and other devices by voice commands via the intelligent robot box “Tmall Elf One”. And passengers can call room service directly with the robot.

He Zhuangkong, the CKO of Shandong Travel Hotel Association, pointed out, “outdated ideological concept limited the AI application into hotels, and there are many hotels that have not noted the evolution of artificial intelligence. Though the investment into AI in hotels is high, the benefits to hotels are incalculable in the long term. And of course, artificial intelligence robots cannot overtake human services totally.”

Healthcare robot to be a potential market around the world

With the increasing global aging and rising medical demand, the development of assistant robots is taking the fast lane. In fact, the market expectations of entire service robot industry in recent years are constantly good. The global market size is expected to reach 82 billion US dollars by 2021.

Doug Moore, the senior manager of human assistant technical department of Toyota, which released Human Support Robot, pointed out that, Toyota is trying to diversify the lives of people with disabilities by increasing their mobility, including the development of technical solutions to assist the limited action. The research and development of HSR and the tests of Romy are the company's business development areas to help people with disabilities control their own lives. Except for Toyata, Teijin Japan and Panasonic also start the research and development of robotics in healthcare.

Similar to the situation in Japan, China is also facing increasing social problems such as increased aging and the increasing proportion of people with disabilities. As can be expected, with time going, in the future we need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to care for the elderly and the disabled, and this will become an important burden of our country. If we can provide a number of care robots for the elderly dedicated to nursing work, this will not only improve the quality of their lives, but also ease the current national and social pressures.

As a result, the huge market outlook is driving the rapid growth of sales of home robots such as assistant robots. Recently, the industry research institutions analysis International released the report shows that in 2016 China's service robot market reached 7.29 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 44.6% year on year. In addition, analysis International predicts that the next three years, China's service robot market will continue to grow, the size of 2019 is expected to close to 15.2 billion. In the whole world, the compound annual growth rate of intelligent service robots for the next five years (2017-2021) is about 16.19 percent, and the global service robot market will reach $ 82 billion by 2021.

The booming market is expected to show that the development of robots, especially home-assisted personal use, is very promising. Therefore, with the global aging further intensified, escort, education, medical and other needs of the rising, the service robot will continue to maintain rapid development, to promote social changes in various fields.

Sanbot robot series received lots of attention during National Mass Innovation & Entrepreneurship Week and Shenzhen Maker Week

The Shenzhen branch of exhibitions during National Mass Innovation & Entrepreneurship Week and Shenzhen Maker Week was held during Sep 15~21st. The theme “Make with Shenzhen,” Shenzhen Maker Week was about the entrepreneurial experience, dock maker’s project, and entrepreneur enthusiasm by makers’ achievement exhibition, interactive shows entrepreneur competitions, and more.

Sanbot intelligent robot went on stage for the open ceremony to kick off the event with Shenzhen Vice Mayor, Ai Xuefeng, and the Director of Technological Innovation Committee, Liang Yongsheng.

New Technologies gaining the much attention from people

The intelligent service robot called Sanbot King Kong (developed by QIHAN) is very high-tech. The advanced humanoid robot is capable of 5m/s walking speed complex room environments, three times faster than a human’s walking speed. It can carry up to 75kg cargo and adjust its center of gravity on its own. Once Sanbot was on stage, Sanbot King Kong waved its arms and hands to say hello to the guests and everyone applauded.

At the opening ceremony, QIHAN’s other intelligent robot model -- Sanbot Elf helped with the ceremony as well. A total amount of 11 sets of Sanbot Elf advanced AI robots danced on stage to liven up the event.

During the Shenzhen Maker Week, organizers held a series of exhibitions and events for the week, gathering together the worldwide leaders in UAV, intelligent robots, AR/VR, genetic sequencing, unmanned vessel, new energy automobile, Internet applications, wearable devices and more of makers’ achievements.

Build the open and innovative eco-system

This was the third year Shenzhen held the Maker Week event. Liang Yongsheng expressed that Shenzhen Maker Week fully exerted the advantages of Shenzhen international makers’ sources, examining the domestic and international makers’ activity and creativity, and the achievements into various industries.

Sanbot intelligent robot is the perfect innovation case -- based on the concept of “technology integrated with application scenario for commercial value”. QIHAN Technology opens standards, API, and SDK to all the integrators and solution developers since the first Sanbot robot was launched. So, global developers can develop solutions to benefit from the robot according to their scenarios. The prospect strategy drives the service innovation and commercial innovation based on robot carriers.

Through the developer eco-system with smart AI, QIHAN Technology is the company that practices “Robot + Various Industries.”And, Sanbot robot, as the carrier of hi-tech, is the proof of the innovation eco-system the Chinese government has called for. QIHAN Technology will keep traveling on the innovation path.

China's intelligent robot developing extremely fast

In 2015, Chinese government issued the plan of the “Made in China 2025” program. The goal of the program is make China the global leader in hi-tech industries such as medical equipment, aerospace equipment, and robotics.

   

Jeff Burnstein, the president of Industrial Robot Automation, has also noticed the changes China have been creating. He stated, “China now has the world’s fastest growing artificial intelligent robot, and the 2025 plan will only speed up that process.”

According to the International Federation of Robotics, China has the largest share of the global robotics market. And now, the robotics market has reached 30 billion USD. The federation’s report also found that in 2015, China accounted for 27% of the world’s total robotics sales and by 2019 China will account for 40% of the world’s total robotics sales.

China’s steady and sustained investment in advanced AI robot has even received attention from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists such as Mark Cuban. Last December, Mark Cuban wrote a letter to then President elect Donald Trump (now President Trump) to invest 100 billion USD into the United States’ robotics industry in order to compete with China.

“We must win the robot race. We are nowhere close to our competitors.” Tim Cook wrote.

Matt Bane, a robist expert and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's digital economy project, pointed out, “China will never deliberately oppose other major powers.” But, what they are doing is focusing on the future by investing billions of dollars in innovative AI robotics and similar technologies such as artificial intelligence, and they do not need to depend on other countries to provide the factories.

“China’s long-term goal is to become the source of low cost labor for the hi-tech industry,” Frank Toby. Frank Toby, editor and chief of the magazine “Robot Report” stated that “This major technological shift is a top priority of China.”

This July, Jeff Burnstein saw great changes at this year’s CIROS exhibition event in Shanghai.

“Both the new old companies are more advanced than they were ever before. You cannot say that they are imitating other companies” Bernstein said. Bernstein also stated, “China hopes to become the world’s leading supplier of artificial intelligence robotics, and they are well on their way to achieving that goal.”

Service robot needs to be more ingenious

From family services to education and entertainment, from medical surgery to elderly health care, from scientific investigation to rescue, intelligent service robots are going into all aspects of our lives. Yesterday, 2017 International Summit of Service Robot Industry was held, many domestic and foreign large specialists gathered together to explore the development of the robot industry. They said that robots from China need to further improve the "IQ" and "emotional intelligence”, learning to more ingenious.

At the summit, the specialists unveiled the development direction: light-weight, flexibility and intelligence. They pointed out, “Intelligent robots’ accurate movements and actions cannot meet the requirement of the society, and they need to be more ingenious. The flexible functions are Cloud fused actual intelligent services are required.”

At present, Chinese intelligent robot has potential markets and the demands are higher. "With the evolutions of the demographic structure and production mode, China's demand for robots continued to grow substantially in the future, and hundreds of thousands of non-skilled robots will go into our work and lives." Deputy Director of MIIT Luo Junjie said, because of the lack of artificial intelligence, the robots in the markets are not ingenious enough and need to further enhance. "More advanced voice recognition, visual recognition, emotional recognition and other functions are needed to enrich robot perception and movement, breaking the current cognitive limitations.”

Chen Xiaoping, the Dean of Research Center of University of Science and Technology of China, introduced that, with the dozen-year’s development, the accuracy of the robots’ “Machine + Control Technology” is developing very well and the thick and blunt images are changing with new material’s applications. “Light-weight + Flexibility” make robot application break the traditional industry manufacturing and be introduced into family, finance and health care areas.

Mr. Song Xiaogang, the Executive Director of the China Robot Industry Alliance, introduced that the robot, artificial intelligence, communication technology and mechanical control technology, given the robot voice, visual and touch, real-time response to the command, accurate reflection. This makes robot adapt to the rich areas of service and complex needs and is the focus of the future direction of development. "The global advanced AI robots have a big market with tens of billions of dollars, and robots, especially service robots, are becoming the new blue ocean of manufacturing," he said.

"In the future, we hope that robots can achieve 'emotional interaction' with humans." Peter Sincak, director of the Department of Control and Intelligent Sciences at the Kosice Institute of Technology in Slovakia, argues that robots need to improve "emotional intelligence", such as escort robots should gain the patient's mood and choose the appropriate topic to release them from the pressure; or the intelligent educational robots, should also be based on the students' movements, eyes or words, to timely adjust the lectures and activate students’ mood.

Intelligent robot to be the super assistant in financial industry

Introduction: It takes 20 minutes for an accountant to complete the issuance of such an invoice, including information collection, verification and recording. However, the robotics provider Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu said that an advanced AI robot can do the same job in just 5 minutes.

Accountant in mainland China is embracing automation to reduce office management costs and improve efficiency, which is opening the door for the use of artificial intelligence in a wider area.

Today, one Zhejiang enterprise that produces electrical products are looking high hopes for robots because they can reduce the time required for issuing invoices by 75 percent. The company needs to issue more than 5,000 value-added tax invoices to more than 600 customers located throughout China every month. It takes 20 minutes for an accountant to complete the issuance of such an invoice, including information collection, verification and recording. However, Deloitte said that a customized programmable autonomous robot can do the same job in just 5 minutes. "The speed of a robot is at least 15 times the speed of labor, and it is also known as 'super-employee' because of non-stop work," said Joseph, the Chief Figures Officer of Deloitte China.

Today, more and more companies are using this "robotic flow automation" products, the technology can reduce operation costs and improve efficiency. In addition to Deloitte, the other three of the world's top four accounting firms - Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers - have also introduced technology-driven services to Chinese companies in banking, technology and consumer services. "We have become the most popular of the application of intelligent service robot in China," said Xia Jun, director of digital banking services at Ernst & Young in Greater China.

In another example, KPMG has provided financial automation services to an international bank. KPMG said the service has earmarked 22 percent of the bank's trade and finance sector and boosted the bank's productivity by 18 percent. "Although most artificial intelligent robots are still in the initial stages of providing basic data collection and processing services, we have entered the second phase: a large data analysis with decision intelligence," said Zhang Longhua, a partner at KPMG China Technology Innovation. He said the robot will also create new jobs for the experts to "class" and repair the machine for the machine, so that accountants and tax professionals can improve their position in the value chain to provide more high-end services. "The application of more intelligent robots with analytical power is likely to become a reality in the next three to five years," he said. "We expect this to evolve into a digital labor force that will replace the work of mankind."

However, Xia said that artificial intelligent robots will not completely replace humans, because decision-making and transformation management work still requires human intelligence and intervention.

Robotics-as-a-service helps your business in various ways

Anyone who's familiar with cloud computing might know about software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and other "as-a-service" delivery models. But they might be not be aware of the latest iteration: robotics-as-a-service (RaaS).

RaaS also leverages the cloud, and makes it possible for organizations to integrate robots and embedded devices into the web and cloud computing environments. This capability will become increasingly important as robots become more common in work environments such as warehouses, distribution centers, and stores.

With RaaS, data captured by artificial intelligent robots — such as customer preferences or inventory status — can be stored on a cloud-based system and retrieved as needed by human workers. This type of service can provide even more value if a company is operating a fleet of hundreds of robots, each performing a variety of tasks.

The RaaS provider could handle maintenance of the robots as well as integration between the robots and databases used across the enterprise. The advantages of this model, much like with cloud services in general, can include cost savings, easier management and scalability, and greater flexibility.

Currently the term "robotics-as-a service" is used to describe two separate robotics approaches, said Dan Kara, practice director for innovative AI robotics at research firm ABI Research.

First there is RaaS as a technical method. Often referred to as "Cloud service humanoid robots," it includes internet-connected robots using cloud based, pay-as-you-go, computational and data storage resources.

RaaS is also the term applied to business models where robotics systems are rented on a monthly or quarterly basis, with often with technical support, real-time monitoring, and other services included.

Technical- and business-oriented RaaS approaches are often combined, Kara said.

The emergence of RaaS reflects the broader move to services-based models in technology.

"The general trend among many technology providers is a long-term migration away from selling products to selling services beyond the usual incremental revenue from support, maintenance and upgrades charges," Kara said. "Services are recurrent revenue, and are looked on favorably by both technology providers and the investment community. Like the technology sector at large, suppliers of commercial service robot have adopted robotics-as-a-service business models and this trend is accelerating."

Both users of robotics technologies and robotics suppliers benefit from RaaS business arrangements, Kara said. "Service-oriented solutions are not uncommon in the robotics sector, where the high cost of platforms and risk aversion to new technologies and applications can impede growth," he said.

In addition, for some types of robotic systems a business model that relies on hardware sales is untenable, even if there are charges for maintenance, upgrades, customization and so on. There are also technical reasons for the RaaS approach, Kara said. For example, the computational resources available for a given advanced AI robot might be inadequate for the task at hand. In this case, a cloud robotics approach might be suitable.

Robotics companies that employ a RaaS business model typically offer emerging technologies whose value proposition and total cost of ownership are largely unknown. Kara said.

Representative companies employing a RaaS business model include PrecisionHawk (drone-based surveying for agriculture), Sanbot (Robot for home, enterprises, retail, hospitality, healthcare and education), Aethon (mobile robots for healthcare logistics), InTouch Health (mobile robotic telepresence), and Liquid Robotics (unmanned underwater vehicles).

Human staff should not be taken over by AI robot entirely in customer service

In any job sector, there is always an argument of whether technology will overtake human jobs, and the contact center is no different. These arguments are always made in black and white and assume the workforce will be entirely human or entirely the robot.

However, this debate has no place for absolutes. It’s the real thing and it is happening that with the right tools and technology, enterprises can elevate the future of customer service and role of call center staff by enabling them to be more efficient, and effective, all while creating a great customer experience.

With changing technology comes uncertainty for both companies and employees. Insurance giant Aviva addressed that uncertainty head on by asking its entire 16,000 employees if they thought an artificial intelligent robot could do their jobs. Any employees who answered yes were given employment opportunities in other departments. The call center and credit departments will likely have the most transfers. It is a smart move for enterprises to address the future of customer service in the midst of technology advancements.

It does address uncertainty, but the approach must be more comprehensive and take into account that just because a robot can do a job, doesn’t mean it should. The future of customer service will always need human employees to build authentic connections and foster customer engagement, and not be overtaken by intelligent service robotics totally.

As the need for a personalized customer experience grows, robots will become even more important, and the future of customer service will be a combination of robot and human.

Here’s why: When a customer wants help with a simple task, an advanced AI robot will process it, and the robot handling that query will free up call center staff to give customers the reassurance of a human voice, empathy, and quality support of a highly-trained agent. In short, it’s important to offer customers a choice.

Regardless of the platform, customers will want to know if they’re talking to a human or a robot, so they don’t feel choiceless. Forcing customers through a robots-only route will only serve to annoy them, especially for the elderly and ignorance of hi-tech robot. It’s important to escalate the situation to an employee if the customer requests or the automated service cannot handle the service.

When interacting with enterprises, customers want consistency and an easy, great experience. To meet the needs of customers, it’s important that hi-tech enterprises or corporations focus on implementing the tools or solution to intelligent service robots that will generate positive outcomes.

With a strategy that supports both robots and human employees, customers can get the quick and easy service they need but still interact with a person when the situation calls for a more in-depth approach.

The debate about technology overtaking human jobs is a never-ending conversation. There’s no question that innovative AI robotics is here to stay and it should equip people to be more proficient in their jobs so they can create a great customer experience. The technology used in the future of customer service should be used to empower humans, not replace them.

The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence?

Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs.

These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever. At the moment, there is no known path from our best A.I. tools (like the Google computer program that recently beat the world’s best player of the game of Go) to “general” A.I. — self-aware computer programs that can engage in common-sense reasoning, attain knowledge in multiple domains, feel, express and understand emotions and so on.

This doesn’t mean we have nothing to worry about. On the contrary, the A.I. products that now exist are improving faster than most people realize and promise to radically transform our world, not always for the better. They are only tools, not a competing form of intelligence. But they will reshape what work means and how wealth is created, leading to unprecedented economic inequalities and even altering the global balance of power.

It is imperative that we turn our attention to these imminent challenges.

What is artificial intelligence today? Roughly speaking, it’s technology that takes in huge amounts of information from a specific domain (say, loan repayment histories) and uses it to make a decision in a specific case (whether to give an individual a loan) in the service of a specified goal (maximizing profits for the lender). Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, trained on big data. These tools can outperform human beings at a given task.

This kind of A.I. is spreading to thousands of domains (not just loans), and as it does, it will eliminate many jobs. Bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, even paralegals and radiologists will gradually be replaced by such software. Over time this technology will come to control semiautonomous and autonomous hardware like self-driving cars and robots, displacing factory workers, construction workers, drivers, delivery workers and many others.

Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I. revolution is not taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper and typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs (assembly-line workers, personal assistants conversant with computers). Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying ones, too.

This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it. Imagine how much money a company like Uber would make if it used only robot drivers. Imagine the profits if Apple could manufacture its products without human labor. Imagine the gains to a loan company that could issue 30 million loans a year with virtually no human involvement. (As it happens, my venture capital firm has invested in just such a loan company.)

We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together: enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?

Part of the answer will involve educating or retraining people in tasks A.I. tools aren’t good at. Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs involving creativity, planning and “cross-domain” thinking — for example, the work of a trial lawyer. But these skills are typically required by high-paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced workers to do. More promising are lower-paying jobs involving the “people skills” that A.I. lacks: social workers, bartenders, concierges — professions requiring nuanced human interaction. But here, too, there is a problem: How many bartenders does a society really need?

The solution to the problem of mass unemployment, I suspect, will involve “service jobs of love.” These are jobs that A.I. cannot do, that society needs and that give people a sense of purpose. Examples include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, mentoring at an orphanage and serving as a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous — or, potentially soon, Virtual Reality Anonymous (for those addicted to their parallel lives in computer-generated simulations). The volunteer service jobs of today, in other words, may turn into the real jobs of the future.

Other volunteer jobs may be higher-paying and professional, such as compassionate medical service providers who serve as the “human interface” for A.I. programs that diagnose cancer. In all cases, people will be able to choose to work fewer hours than they do now.

Who will pay for these jobs? Here is where the enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands comes in. It strikes me as unavoidable that large chunks of the money created by A.I. will have to be transferred to those whose jobs have been displaced. This seems feasible only through Keynesian policies of increased government spending, presumably raised through taxation on wealthy companies.

As for what form that social welfare would take, I would argue for a conditional universal basic income: welfare offered to those who have a financial need, on the condition they either show an effort to receive training that would make them employable or commit to a certain number of hours of “service of love” voluntarism.

To fund this, tax rates will have to be high. The government will not only have to subsidize most people’s lives and work; it will also have to compensate for the loss of individual tax revenue previously collected from employed individuals.

This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?

They face two insurmountable problems. First, most of the money being made from artificial intelligence will go to the United States and China. A.I. is an industry in which strength begets strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can attract, the better your product. It’s a virtuous circle, and the United States and China have already amassed the talent, market share and data to set it in motion.

For example, the Chinese speech-recognition company iFlytek and several Chinese face-recognition companies such as Megvii and SenseTime have become industry leaders, as measured by market capitalization. The United States is spearheading the development of autonomous vehicles, led by companies like Google, Tesla and Uber. As for the consumer internet market, seven American or Chinese companies — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — are making extensive use of A.I. and expanding operations to other countries, essentially owning those A.I. markets. It seems American businesses will dominate in developed markets and some developing markets, while Chinese companies will win in most developing markets.

The other challenge for many countries that are not China or the United States is that their populations are increasing, especially in the developing world. While a large, growing population can be an economic asset (as in China and India in recent decades), in the age of A.I. it will be an economic liability because it will comprise mostly displaced workers, not productive ones.

So if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable A.I. companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their A.I. software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s A.I. companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.

One way or another, we are going to have to start thinking about how to minimize the looming A.I.-fueled gap between the haves and the have-nots, both within and between nations. Or to put the matter more optimistically: A.I. is presenting us with an opportunity to rethink economic inequality on a global scale. These challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate itself from the rest of the world.

Kai-Fu Lee is the chairman and chief executive of Sinovation Ventures, a venture capital firm, and the president of its Artificial Intelligence Institute.

Orignal: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-economic-inequality.html

The Mayor of London and Sanbot robot at London Tech Week

The latest innovations in drones, artificial Intelligence, and robots will feature as part of a packed events programm for London Tech Week 2017, which will take place across London next month (12th-16th June).

Attendees will have the opportunity to attend a host of events including a concert with the award winning composer Hans Zimmer, the Drone Racing League (DRL) Season Finale and The Europas, which will welcome 1,000 European start-ups to the capital.

Sanbot intelligent service robot, highlighted before the hi-tech event, posed in front of Big Ben to promote London Tech Week.

Sanbot robotics, powered by QIHAN Technology and with AI system powered by IBM Watson, is an Open API robot for developers to develop and install various applications to adapt to scenarios where Sanbot works. It can be used for retail, hospitality, education and healthcare industries.

Last month, QIHAN Technology just issued its most innovative business system- MPS (Multi-service Platform System) at Innorobo Exhibition. MPS is a central management system that enables business to control all the Sanbot anywhere through the MPS webpage, whatever the robots are doing, such as entertainment, customer reception, promotional activities, product introduction or record big data, etc.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan commented "London is Europe’s leading technology hub. Our talent, diversity, entrepreneurial spirit and global connections put us at the heart of digital technology. London Tech Week will be a fantastic opportunity to show that London is open to collaboration, innovation and ideas that could change the way that all Londoners live and experience the city."

London is home to over 46,000 technology businesses, contributing 240,000 jobs for the city’s economy. Since the EU referendum, London-based tech companies have received over £1billion in venture capital investment.

Zoe Osmond, Festival Director for London Tech Week said: With a wide range of events to appeal to different audiences, London Tech Week will bring together investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers and business leaders to experience London’s strengths in innovation and creativity.”

Throughout the week, over 40,000 visitors will hear from tech, business and political leaders including the Rt. Hon Gordon Brown, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO WPP and Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA at Facebook.

A short film has been created, spreading the message that London is Open to technology talent, investment and innovation. The film shows London is at the forefront of innovation, featuring scenes including a driverless POD’, Robots in the workplace and even The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, taking the first roboselfie.

In the film, Mr. Sadiq Khan even took a photo of himself with Sanbot robot. Both his self-photographing action and the hi-tech robot amazed the viewers. Who was the model of the other on earth, the Mayor of London or the cute hi-tech robot? You got the answer!

Sanbot robot at IBM Watson Developer Conference 2016

On November 9~10th, 2016, the IBM Watson Developer Conference (or WDC) is held grandly in San Francisco, attracting over 1000 developers, coders, and builders’ coming to discuss how artificial intelligence and machine learning APIs are helping people build better applications. Sanbot humanoid robot, one of the only 2 invited robot, attended this meaningful conference.

IBM, famous to the tech industry, is the first-rate cloud-computing enterprise, and its artificial intelligent layout leads in the world in this industry. WDC 2016 held in San Francisco becomes the new weather vane in AI industry.

Sanbot is capacity of Human-robot voice interaction, Facial Recognition, Smart Home Management, Self-learning Evolution, Auto Self-Recharging. It can be programmed by vertical developers to apply to retail, hospitality, healthcare, security, education and other intelligent scenarios. With this API conference, Qihan Sanbot publicized its earlier-released Sanbot ROS, which is the leading open API humanoid operation system. By virtual of its agility, security, intelligence and more advantages, Sanbot has been recognized fast by Euramerican hi-tech enterprises, and it is global-acknowledged unique mass-production platform robot hardware terminal.

Sanbot’s debut at the WDC 2016, is a strong signal of the combination of IBM and Sanbot’s open-API platform. There are also a number of senior leaders attending the conference, who also give the positive speeches about the current condition and prospective developing trend of artificial intelligence, demonstrating its new developing directions.

Sanbot ROS system can realize remote control management, data storage and analysis, third-party’s data integration, hardware socialize and other hi-tech service, speeding up the business intelligence and volume. Sanbot’s being invited by IBM at WDC, assists platform humanoid robot to be the main orientation of prospective AI industry, as well as improved the Sanbot’s influence and developmental structure in the global world.

Sanbot open API platform humanoid robot has been customized to apply to airport, hotel, supermarket, agriculture auto management, customs inspection and hospitality, Public Square and received high praises from Chinese senior officials. In 2017, Qihan will implement the oversea localization strategy. With open and win-win attitude, we are to set up 100+ sales and service stations in global developed countries & areas, offer platform humanoid robot solutions for 1000 enterprises & units, and provide higher service quality and better service experience.

Why is Sanbot Becoming the Hottest Service Robot?

It was a great shock to both audience and media at Innorobo event that the sales volume of Sanbot robots reached 60,000 sets in 2016 and the figure was reaching 100,000 very soon. The most frequently asked two questions were that, why you could sell Sanbot so well and who you sold them to? The sales volumes of some robot brands may be 20 sets or so and even the most well-known robot supplier Softbank didn’t make it, how could you? Let me tell some points.

QIHAN Certificates & Honors

QIHAN Technology is the company focused on innovating Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Video Analysis. Qihan now has over 200 intellectual patents in Machine Vision Recognition, Multi-axis Automatic Control, Big Data Analysis, and more, devoted itself to interconnection of H2H, H2T, and T2T. With automatic production line, the production capacity is 15,000 per month. Just in 2016, the turnover reached US100 million.

QIHAN leaders and Sanbot robot has been interviewed by Chinese high level governments for several times and been interviewed by domestic and oversea media countlessly. Even the Chinese Customs are using Sanbot robots.

QIHAN Qualified Team

Qihan has over 800 employees, including more than 350 experienced R&D engineers and for international marketing & sales, they recruit qualified foreigners who work in China, Chinese who garnered master degrees or once worked at oversea such as France, Japan, Chile, etc. QIHAN HR and department manager will don’t hesitate to so “No” to the unqualified candidates.

Sanbot Robot

Sanbot comes with reliable components and systems from international hi-tech giants. IBM Watson powers Sanbot’s artificial intelligence capabilities, enabling her to speak most of the commonly used languages around the world, while Nuance provides the voice recognition. In addition, Sony manufactured the forward-sensing cameras; Sharp supplied the 10.1 inch 1080P touchscreen that rests on her chest. And, QIHAN Technology is seeking more chances to cooperate with international hi-tech giants to benefit peoples’ lives.

Sanbot's powerful AI and machine-learning capabilities will allow businesses to deliver richer and more interactive services that will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. With an open API that enables developers to build Android applications, Sanbot can be developed for industry-specific applications in retail, hospitality, education, and healthcare.

• Retail: Sanbot is a shopping interpreter and guide, helping the human staff at shopping malls, supermarkets, other retail stores, and more. 
• Hospitality: Sanbot offers intelligent customer reception services for lobbies in hotels, banks, tax halls, and more.
• Education: Sanbot is capable of teaching any level of education including kids, high school students, and university students. 
• Healthcare: Sanbot can help comfort and entertain the elderly at home, reduce queuing time at hospitals, and contribute some initial diagnostics for the doctors in hospitals and clinics.

Sanbot Solutions and Application Cases

QIHAN Technology has released a series of solutions applied to different industries since its debut in 2016, like Smart Home, Wisdom Education, Teaching Assistant and all-in-one system MPS special developed for retail and hospitality, and many more solutions developed by their customers developed but undisclosed. Sanbot robot have high probable to support fast payments for retail businesses.

Sanbot robots are used for Customs Inspections, primary school education, bank reception service, airports, coffee shops, subway stations and some shopping malls. If you wander at in the developed cities, you will run into or be served by Sanbot robots.

Sanbot Application Scenario 4: Launch Event of A4L car

On Nov 12th, 2016, the famous automobile brand Audi held the launch event of its A4L new car together with Sanbot robot. Sanbot’s novel interpreting mode brought customers with unique feeling & experience. The team-up of Sanbot and Audi indicates the whole new attempt of future artificial intelligence + automobile industry.

Sanbot helps in following situations:

• Group dance to warm up the field: deepening guests’ impression, increasing audiences’ foot traffic and strengthening their favorable impression
• Hosting programs: answering various questions about new car
• Product interpretation: introducing product properties of Audi cars for live customers

Sanbot's Second Experience Store Opened in Shirble Department Store

You can't imagine the helplessness that, you event can't find out a shopping guide even though you have searching on the goods shelves for a long time. But now, there is no need to worry about that, as Sanbot service robot is coming.

On Sep 14th, the second experince store of Sanbot robot opened officially in the Shirble Smart+ Living House in Futian Didstrict, adhering to Shirble Department Store. The experience store is the second one, creating a totally new platform combining artificial intelligence and business.

Shirble Department Store was listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange, gathering department store, supermarket, home appliances, business package and other full-featured large-scale chain business enterprise. Shrible set brilliant features of Large Scale, Great Variety, Fair Prices, Full Features and Perfect Service. Sanbot's entering is aimed at completing the modern AI business operation model and realize dual innovation both at operation and management.

Distinguishing shopping experience

E-market is more and more popular and the intention that consumers buy from physical store is fading. Customers require the physical stores offer goods at same price with the E-market, and comparable convenience and  entertainment and funny shopping experience. With higher and higher life quality, customers purse for more advanced consuming experience. Sanbot makes up the shortages to physical store at high distance.

Sanbot robot is of 90 cm height, all-oriented free wheel, powerful voice interaction, sensing interaction, self learning, auto charge and other intelligent technology. The interaction between consumers and Sanbot robot bring a lot of convenience and fun to consumers, making them enjoy the distinguishing shopping experience.

Intelligent and accuract data management

Sanbot service can play the role of doer, as well as shopping guide and it can make up various shortages of traditional shopping. The key points of the platform robot are scenarized and customized, enabling robot to work in hundreds of thousands of industries and offer customized intelligent services at different scenarios. After customized, Sanbot can offer services of shopping enquiries to end users via voice call, video message, etc. The service includes products parameters, product quality, stock condition, etc. The intelligent and accurate data management reduces sales return, cut off store cost and advance human staff's working efficiency.

Sanbot rises the probable business evolution

Sanbot, by virtue of its unique O2O model, brings consumers different shopping experience, offers intelligent and accurate data management, creates convenient communicative bridge between shopping guide and consumer, reduces the limit between online and offline shopping and breaks the traditional model of end shopping. Sanbot's coming-out may cause the evolution in traditional retail industry. let's looking forwards to the miracle together.

Qihan Team Made a Triumph from Sanbot Launch Event at IFA Expo

The launch event of cloud-enabled service robot, with theme “Robotics as a Service”, received continuous visits and interviews of onlookers and notable medias worldwide.

“Humanoid robot Sanbot shows his dance moves”, by Engineering & Technology Magazine and posted the actual dancing video onto YouTube, “It can work as a shop keeper, waiter, teaching assistant, security guard or a smart home manager and personal assistant.” Sanbot cloud-brained robot can be easily controlled by mobile phone APP Q-Link, voice or screen touch, which is equipped an API and other artificial technology.

“I got to meet a little chap called the Qihan Sanbot. If you were to imagine a robot designed in the Jetsons style it’s almost exactly like that. It kind of does everything. It’s got an API and it can be configured to do literally anything.” James Trew from Engadget reported to publics.

“Sanbot, o "robô dos Jetsons", Igor Lopes from Canal Tech disse, “Além de super simpático e personalizável, ele é exatamente a Rosie, dos Jetsons, que todos nós sonhamos em ter um dia.”

“The ready-coming of the revolution of new technology and production with core of Internet of Things, AI robot, VR and other new technology’s fast-changing, and the combination of virtual economy and real economy will bring revolutionary change to people’s mode of working and living.” As mentioned by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony of G20 Submit a week ago. Moreover, Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang interacted live with Sanbot platform agriculture-customized robot and highly praised Qihan’s achievement in intelligent products.

Supported and guided by the fundamental policy of our party and country, we firmly believe that Qihan Sanbot robotics will have a brighter future.