Dr. Craig Schlenoff Of The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society On The Future Of Robotics Over the Next Few Years
An Interview With David Leichner
Intelligence — Robotics is not rocket science, but it is close. It pulls in many disciplines, including engineering, computer science, mechanics, mathematics, etc. You do not have to be an expert in all of these, but the more you know, the more knowledge you have to pull from.
With the shortage of labor, companies are now looking at how robots can replace some of the lost labor force. See here for example. The truth is that this is not really a novel idea, as companies like Amazon have been using robots for a while now. What can we expect to see in the robotics industry over the next few years? How will robots be used? What kinds of robots are being produced? To what extent can robots help address the shortage of labor? Which jobs can robots replace, and which jobs need humans? In our series called “The Future Of Robotics Over The Next Few Years” we are talking to leaders of Robotics companies, AI companies, and Hi-Tech Manufacturing companies who can address these questions and share insights from their experience. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Craig Schlenoff.
Dr. Craig Schlenoff is currently the Associate Vice President for Standardization in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and leads the Manufacturing Robotics Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He has served as the Program Manager for the Process Engineering Program at NIST and the Director of Ontologies at VerticalNet. He also teaches two courses at the University of Maryland, College Park: “Calculus” and “Building a Manufacturing Robot Software System.” He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, his master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his PhD from the University of Burgundy (France).
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I left my government job for two years in 2000 to dip my toes into private industry, working for a small dot-com company. In those two years, I feel like I got more of an experience than some people get in their lifetime. During 2000–2001, when the economy was good, we were hiring 50–100 people every two weeks and the company was thriving. Then 9–11 hit and shortly after that, we were laying off 50–100 people every week and trying to find a niche to keep the company sustainable. I know that companies go through good times and bad, but not usually this extreme in just two years.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Put yourself in a position to take advantage of opportunities.” There is a lot to this quote. First, you need to position yourself in such a way to be the person that people think of when an opportunity arises, even though you often do not know what opportunity will arise. Then you wait and see what comes up. Sometimes the opportunity never arises, and you need to make the opportunity for yourself (e.g., pitching a new idea, going to another job, etc.). But if a good opportunity does arise, you do not want to kick yourself for not being prepared for it.
Ok wonderful. Let us now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
I work in the world of manufacturing robotics. For the most part, robots do repeatable jobs, without really needing to “think.” They just perform the same operation over and over again, making sure that all of the parts and objects are where they are supposed to be before and after they perform their job. The project that I am working on is trying to make the robot more aware of the environment, easier to program, and to be able to adapt when failures happen. While the robot will likely never be as smart or agile as a human, it will be able to be more productive, helping to relieve humans of some of the more mundane tasks.
How do you think this might change the world?
More agile robots will let humans focus more on tasks that take better advantage of a human’s capabilities, i.e., that take more thought and planning. It will also help to remove humans from dangerous situations and repetitive motion injuries by having more capable robots perform tasks that are not as appealing or safe for humans.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Any new technology has advantages and drawbacks. Years ago, when the assembly line was developed, workers only had to focus on one task. They got very good at that task but lacked the overall knowledge of how the entire product was developed. When cars were created, people were able to get to their destination quicker, but the risk of serious injuries along the way increased. The same is with robotics. Robots will complement the work by performing mundane and repetitive tasks more efficiently. Products will be able to be made quicker and better, which will help to drive down cost and improve innovation.
What are the three things that most excite you about the robotics industry? Why?
Robot’s ability to work more safely with humans — Taking the best aspects of both humans and robots to perform a task will open up all types of new production opportunities
· The use of Explainable AI — Just putting AI into a robot is not enough. The user needs to know why the robot made the decisions that it did. Explainable AI is still a nascent field, but when it advances, I think it will open all types of possibilities.
· Robots that can understand the environment and make intelligent decisions — Once a robot can have a basic understanding of what is around it, what it is able to do, and what it is trying to accomplish, the robot can make decisions that will help ensure the outcome is as expected, even in the presence of uncertainty.
What are the three things that concern you about the robotics industry? Why?
The same three as above.
· If a robot cannot work safely around a human, risk of injury increases
· If a robot cannot explain its actions, there is no way to ensure that if it does something wrong it will not do it again.
· If a robot cannot understand enough to make intelligent decisions, it could do something very bad that could disrupt production or even worse, hurt a person.
As you know, there is an ongoing debate between prominent scientists, (personified as a debate between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,) about whether advanced AI has the potential to pose a danger to humanity in the future. What is your position about this?
As mentioned above, any new technology has benefits and drawbacks. It just depends how you manage it. Careful oversight is important for AI, or any new technology. However, we cannot be afraid of anything new, or we will never be able to move forward. AI has the promise of helping to transform the world in a very positive way, if handled carefully.
My expertise is in product security, so I am particularly interested in this question. In today’s environment, hackers break into the software running the robotics, for ransomware, to damage brands or for other malicious purposes. Based on your experience, what should manufacturing companies do to uncover vulnerabilities in the development process to safeguard their robotics?
No doubt that cybersecurity is very important, and my organization has an entire department that is researching this issue in a general sense, but this is outside of my scope of expertise.
Given the cost and resources that it takes to develop robotics, how do you safeguard your intellectual property during development and also once the robot is deployed in industry?
Working for a Federal Government agency, everything that we do is in the public domain. However, we work with many companies in which intellectual property is very important. In my opinion, there are parts of the robotic system that are beneficial to make widely available and some that are important to protect. The parts that are important to make public include programming interfaces and knowledge representation specifications. This will ensure that the robot can “play nicely” with other robots from other companies to allow the end user to be able to make the most productive use of the technology. The “secret sauce,” like the perception algorithms, planning approaches, etc. is what should be protected to keep a company’s competitive advantage.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Robotics Industry?
· Curiosity — It is important to be curious about how things work, why they work the way that they do, and how they can work better.
· Drive — A lot of robotics involves research. You need to have questions you want to answer and the drive to get them answered. Many of the approaches you take may not work, and that is OK, as you will likely learn something along the way.
· Intelligence — Robotics is not rocket science, but it is close. It pulls in many disciplines, including engineering, computer science, mechanics, mathematics, etc. You do not have to be an expert in all of these, but the more you know, the more knowledge you have to pull from.
· Perseverance — Similar to drive, many of the approaches you will take to solve a problem will fail. You cannot give up. You need to think outside the box and try new things until you figure out how to solve the problem.
· Like to play with toys — Robots are, at their essence, just big toys. They are just much more complicated and powerful. The same desire to play with toys when we were young is the skill set that is needed to be successful in the field.
As you know, there are not that many women in this industry. Can you advise what is needed to engage more women in the robotics industry?
This can be broken into two questions: 1) How do we get more women interested in the field? and 2) How does one get them to work for their company? Women often bring a very different perspective to robotics that can be very valuable to address challenges in different ways. I know there is a large push by many universities to bring in more women into the STEM field. Have professionals in the field give talks at these universities, and even at the high school level, to help pique their interest and show them the value they could provide would be useful. For recruiting them to your company, there are many conferences, such as Grace Hopper, which are targeting women in related fields. We have found and hired many excellent staff members from these types of conferences.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I am not sure that this is a movement, but I wish people would take more time to listen and understand other’s viewpoints before jumping to conclusions. Especially in today’s world, people are very polarized and opinionated. I have found that taking the time to listen to people with different opinions, even if I do not agree with them, at least opens my eyes as to why they feel the way that they do. This additional insight sometimes helps in my future endeavors, as it opens my mind to other possibilities and the rationale behind them.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
IEEE SA Robotics Standards and Projects: https://beyondstandards.ieee.org/advancing-autonomous-robot-development-and-adoption-through-standards/
The NIST Robotics Program: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/measurement-science-manufacturing-robotics
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Standards Efforts: https://www.ieee-ras.org/industry-government/standards
My LinkedIn Page — https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-schlenoff-b7758011/
Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is the Chairman of the Friends of Israel and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
