AI-driven robots will transform manual work, says Vallance

Advances in AI and robotics will transform human jobs, starting with roles in warehouses and factories, the science minister has said as the government announced plans to reduce red tape for robot and defence tech companies.

- Dan Milmo Priya Bharadia

Patrick Vallance, the science minister, hailed advances in AI and robotics during a visit to the UK-based company Humanoid

(MARTIN GODWIN)

Patrick Vallance said technological progress was creating a “whole new area” for robots to work in. “What’s really changing now is the combination of AI and robotics. It is opening up a whole new area, particularly in the sorts of things like humanoid robotics. And that will increase productivity, it will change the human job,” Lord Vallance told the Guardian.

Vallance spoke as a government unit helping to deploy new technologies in Britain announced robots and defence as new sectors receiving its support. He said factories and warehouses, already at the forefront of robot deployment, would undergo further change as a result of a new generation of humanoid robots.

“Activities that require movement around warehouses and factories, or those sorts of things that can be made robotic, will be made robotic. I think they will be made robotic in many cases and therefore will change the nature of those jobs. That’s going to be the first wave,” he said.

The minister spoke as London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, said AI could cause mass unemployment. Asked to comment on Khan’s speech, Vallance said robots would carry out repetitive tasks. “You do away with some of the things which are [the] less interesting, repetitive things that can be done in another way.”