Title: As “robots are moving out of the cages” – toward a geography of robotization
Abstract:There is currently a great deal of confusion about the impact of robotisation, mainly due to the lack of clarity in research on timeframes and technologies. To overcome this, we distinguish between tw...There is currently a great deal of confusion about the impact of robotisation, mainly due to the lack of clarity in research on timeframes and technologies. To overcome this, we distinguish between two basic narratives. The first - 'robots in the cages' - is an old story of automation which means that the industrial robots are pre-programmed high-precision machines that are used on a large scale but only in few industries. In contrast, the emerging story - 'robots are moving out of the cages' - is about the more flexible and autonomous robots at present used on a small scale in the service sector, albeit the application areas are expanding rapidly.The objectives of this paper are first to analyse these two stories in terms of their technological, industrial and organisational characteristics, second, to examine the geographical pattern of global competition for robotisation in these narratives, and third, to discuss briefly the policy challenges involved. For the analysis, we use information from the International Federation of Robotics, the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) and the Dealroom.co start-up database.Read More