Yogyakarta, December 7th 2020—Center for Digital Society or CfDS FISIPOL UGM did their 41st digital Discussion to see the development of robotics so far. That was what Devia Putri Maharani, CfDS’s Event Assistant, said as a moderator in a discussion titled “Robots Among Us: Job-stealing Enemies or Productivity Enhancers?”.
“The development of robotics in Indonesia is quite rapid in recent years. Indonesia’s robotics technology is also incorporated in farming and fishing sectors. The bottom line is, Indonesia’s robotics has been developing recently,” the speaker said —Dr. Ahmad Ataka Awwalur Rizqi, Co-Founder Jago Robotika, PhD Robotics King’s College London Alumni— when responding to the opening question from Devia. Ataka also gave several examples of product videos and robotic innovation that are developed and used in Indonesia.
Furthermore, Ataka said that robotic development coupled with machine learning or IoT in the 4.0 industry have given the same impact both in Indonesia and globally. This development caused the robotic capability that was once limited to branch to different aspects of life. What makes it different is the application sector where these robots will be used, called Ataka. “For example, Indonesia as an agrarian country of course has a big potential to optimize robots to help our agrarian productivity. For example, robots can be trained to identify pests. Or differentiate between ripe or unripe fruits. Therefore our agriculture and farming industry can be affected.”
According to the data, Ataka said that robots already have and will increase productivity as well as steal human’s jobs. Ataka gave several important points regarding that phenomenon. Ataka also said several points about things that need to be paid attention to in order to face that phenomenon, especially the phenomenon of jobs stolen by robots.
“Generally, like any other technology, the existence of robots also triggers loss of jobs in several sectors. On the other hand, the existence of robots also opens new jobs. Our homework of course is how to navigate the loss of jobs because of the robot technology with new jobs that can reduce unemployment,” Ataka said, responding to the attendants’ question about unemployment because of the robots’ technology.
After explaining the urgency and benefit of being technology savvy when it comes to robotics, as well as tips for beginners who want to try to make robots, Ataka then answers some questions from the attendants in the second session. “My closing message is: a robot is only as good as the one who creates it. Whether robots can help humans with their jobs or robots are these enemy that steal man’s job depends on how we manage the robot,” Ataka wrote in her closing statement. The discussion is then ended by Devia as a moderator at 21:22pm.