# The Industries of the Future - Type: #book - ASIN: B00UDCNJYO - Authors: [[Alec Ross]] - Highlights - The big five’s comparative advantage might even accelerate in the future, for these are the same countries that are most likely to incorporate the next generation of robotics into society, work, and home. They will own the name brands in consumer robots, and they’ll power the software and networks that enable the robotics ecosystem. When I think about this symbiosis, I think about the Internet in the 1990s. It was not just the consumer-facing Internet companies that were born and based in Silicon Valley; it was also the network equipment makers like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. Today Cisco and Juniper have a combined 85,000 employees and $154 billion in market value. The same types of back-end systems will exist in the robotics industry. And the big five countries will benefit from being home to the high-paying jobs and wealth accumulation that go with being out ahead of the 191 other countries around the world. They will produce the Ciscos and Junipers of robotics. Interestingly, less developed countries might be able to leapfrog technologies as they enter the robot landscape. Countries in Africa and Central Asia have been able to go straight to cell phones without building landline telephones, and in the same way they might be able to jump ahead in robotics without having to establish an advanced industrial base. - In South Korea, teaching robots are seen in a positive light; in Europe, they are viewed negatively. As with eldercare, in Europe robots are seen as machines, whereas in Asia they are viewed as potential companions. In the United States, the question is largely avoided because of an immigration system that facilitates the entry of new, low-cost labor that often ends up in fields that might otherwise turn to service robots. In the other parts of the world, attitudes often split the difference. A recent study in the Middle East showed that people would be open to a humanoid household-cleaning robot but not to robots that perform more intimate and influential roles such as teaching. The combination of cultural, demographic, and technological factors means that we will get our first glimpse of a world full of robots in East Asia. - The big five’s comparative advantage might even accelerate in the future, for these are the same countries that are most likely to incorporate the next generation of robotics into society, work, and home. They will own the name brands in consumer robots, and they’ll power the software and networks that enable the robotics ecosystem. When I think about this symbiosis, I think about the Internet in the 1990s. It was not just the consumer-facing Internet companies that were born and based in Silicon Valley; it was also the network equipment makers like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. Today Cisco and Juniper have a combined 85,000 employees and $154 billion in market value. The same types of back-end systems will exist in the robotics industry. And the big five countries will benefit from being home to the high-paying jobs and wealth accumulation that go with being out ahead of the 191 other countries around the world. They will produce the Ciscos and Junipers of robotics. Interestingly, less developed countries might be able to leapfrog technologies as they enter the robot landscape. Countries in Africa and Central Asia have been able to go straight to cell phones without building landline telephones, and in the same way they might be able to jump ahead in robotics without having to establish an advanced industrial base. - In South Korea, teaching robots are seen in a positive light; in Europe, they are viewed negatively. As with eldercare, in Europe robots are seen as machines, whereas in Asia they are viewed as potential companions. In the United States, the question is largely avoided because of an immigration system that facilitates the entry of new, low-cost labor that often ends up in fields that might otherwise turn to service robots. In the other parts of the world, attitudes often split the difference. A recent study in the Middle East showed that people would be open to a humanoid household-cleaning robot but not to robots that perform more intimate and influential roles such as teaching. The combination of cultural, demographic, and technological factors means that we will get our first glimpse of a world full of robots in East Asia. - Notes -