NIOSH: How to protect your workers from robotic coworkers
Early in the science fiction thriller Ex Machina, Nathan Bateman, the brilliant and unnerving CEO of a successful software company, says to his star programmer, “Over the next few days, you're going to be the human component in a Turing test.” Despite the ominous sound of Bateman’s statement, intensified by his underground laboratory’s location on a remote mountain, the Turing test is relatively simple. Developed in 1950 by artificial-intelligence pioneer Alan Turing, the test measures a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior similar to that of humans. It involves two people and one machine, with one person observing and evaluating the machine’s interactions with the other person.
Of course, the movie is pure fantasy, but the entry of robots into the modern workplace is real. At the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), where protecting workers from workplace hazards is paramount, researchers are taking a proactive approach to prevent injuries among workers who share the workplace with robots. In a recent paper published in the peer reviewed Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, researchers identified three categories of robots in the workplace—industrial; professional and personal service; and collaborative—and made four recommendations that occupational safety and health professionals can take to protect workers: