[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE DISRUPTER SERIES: ADVANCED ROBOTICS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, MANUFACTURING, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-169
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
_________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman Emeritus Ranking Member
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania ANNA G. ESHOO, California
GREG WALDEN, Oregon ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania GENE GREEN, Texas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee LOIS CAPPS, California
Vice Chairman MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington DORIS O. MATSUI, California
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi KATHY CASTOR, Florida
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky JERRY McNERNEY, California
PETE OLSON, Texas PETER WELCH, Vermont
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas PAUL TONKO, New York
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILLY LONG, Missouri JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina Massachusetts
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana TONY CARDENAS, California
BILL FLORES, Texas
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
Chairman
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky Massachusetts
PETE OLSON, Texas TONY CARDENAS, California
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida PETER WELCH, Vermont
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma officio)
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, opening statement.............................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, opening statement........................... 3
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Witnesses
Dean Kamen, Founder, DEKA Research............................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Sridhar Kota, Ph.D., Herrick Professor of Engineering, University
of Michigan.................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Meg Leta Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Communication,
Culture, and Technology, Georgetown University................. 15
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Jeff Burnstein, President, Robotics Industries Association....... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
THE DISRUPTER SERIES: ADVANCED ROBOTICS
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:40 a.m., in
Room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael C.
Burgess (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Burgess, Lance, Blackburn,
Harper, Guthrie, Olson, Bilirakis, Brooks, Upton (ex officio),
Schakowsky, and Kennedy.
Staff present: Gary Andres, Staff Director; James Decker,
Policy Coordinator, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Graham
Dufault, Counsel, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Blair
Ellis, Digital Coordinator/Press Secretary; Melissa Froelich,
Counsel, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Giulia
Giannangeli, Legislative Clerk, Commerce, Manufacturing, and
Trade, Environment and the Economy; Paul Nagle, Chief Counsel,
Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Mark Ratner, Policy Advisor
to the Chairman; Olivia Trusty, Professional Staff Member,
Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Michelle Ash, Democratic
Chief Counsel, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Lisa
Goldman, Democratic Counsel, Commerce, Manufacturing, and
Trade; Caroline Paris-Behr, Democratic Policy Analyst; Matt
Schumacher, Democratic Press Assistant.
Mr. Burgess. Very well. The Subcommittee on Commerce,
Manufacturing, and Trade will now come to order. The Chair
recognizes himself for 5 minutes for the purpose of an opening
statement, and good morning and welcome to our witnesses.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Welcome to our hearing on advanced robotics, technology
that has made its way into the United States in a variety of
sectors.
This is the latest installment in our Disrupter Series
covering technologies that are redefining our lives and
improving our economic condition. It is 2016, and so many
people my age will, of course, remember the cartoon ``The
Jetsons'' and coming home to Rosie the Robot, who always had
George Jetson's stuff all aligned for him, and many of us ask
ourselves, "Where is Rosie the Robot today?"
Well, maybe today we are going to learn if we are not
perhaps a little bit closer. But we are living in a world where
you can actually use your iPhone to ask Siri, Alexa, or Cortana
any question and get a real-time, accurate, and perhaps
whimsical response.
Already advanced robotics are integrated into our economy
with increasingly complex application, from manufacturing
floors to surgical suites to fashion shows, as we learned from
the lead on Drudge this morning.
Smart prosthetics are changing the lives of amputees and
the elderly. Even some technologies that we have explored in
previous Disrupter Series hearings leverage advanced robotic
technology including the Internet of things and drones.
I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses about
the real-world advanced robotics applications that students,
academics, and industry professionals are all working toward.
Each of our witnesses today can give us a different view on
the emerging trends and challenges presented by advanced
robotics and technology.
The future workforce trends are particularly interesting.
If it is true that more jobs will include some automation
component in the coming decades, understanding how our students
and professionals of all ages are able to acquire the skills
necessary to adapt to this changing landscape is important to
us as policy makers.
As with any new technology, it is critical to examine the
benefits of the technology in weighing important consumer
protection questions. Throughout our history, Americans have
adopted and adjusted to economic shifts presented by new
technology.
In our examination of these issues, it will be important to
understand how consumers and businesses will be using the
technologies and how they will be protected while preserving
the flexibility and ingenuity of innovators that are driving
this market forward.
Again, I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to
inform us about the exciting applications and the future
potential benefits of advanced robotics.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burgess follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Michael C. Burgess
Good morning and welcome to our hearing examining advanced
robotics--technology that has made its way into the U.S.
economy in a variety of sectors. Advanced robotics' are
integrated into our economy with increasingly complex
applications, from manufacturing floors to surgical suites.
This is the latest installment of our subcommittees'
Disrupter Series covering a variety of innovative technologies
that are redefining our lives and improving our economic
condition.
It is 2016, and we are not yet living in a Jetsons' world
where Rosie the Robot greets you when you get home. However, we
are living in a world where you can ask Siri, Alexa, or Cortana
any question and get a real-time, accurate, perhaps whimsical,
response.
Smart prosthetics are changing the lives of amputees and
the elderly. Even some technologies that we have explored in
previous Disrupter Series hearings leverage advanced robotic
technology including the Internet of Things and drones.
I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses about
the real world advanced robotics applications that students,
academics, and industry professionals are working toward. Each
of the witnesses here today can give us a different view of the
emerging trends and challenges presented by advanced robotics
technology.
The future workforce trends are particularly interesting.
If it is true that more jobs will include some automation
component in the coming decades, understanding how are students
and professionals of all ages able to acquire the skills
necessary to adapt to this changing landscape is important.
As with any new technology, it is critical to examine the
benefits of the technology and weigh important consumer
protection questions. Throughout our history, Americans have
adopted and adjusted to economic shifts presented by new
technology.
In our examination of these issues, it will be important to
understand how consumers and businesses using these
technologies will be protected while preserving the flexibility
and ingenuity of innovators that are driving this market
forward.
I thank the witnesses for taking the time to inform us
about the applications and future potential of advanced
robotics. I look forward to a thoughtful and engaging
discussion.
Mr. Burgess. So we look forward to a thoughtful and engaged
discussion, and I would like to yield the rest of the time to
the gentlelady from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn, vice chairman of
the full committee.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do want to welcome our witnesses. I had the opportunity
to meet Mr. Kamen a few months ago and talk with him about what
he is doing in the field of robotics and the importance of that
specifically to my district in Tennessee.
Brentwood Academy, which is in my district, the Iron Eagles
are the international champions. They're putting an emphasis on
robotics, and not only is it BA, but Vanderbilt University is
developing some robotic devices for utilization of children
with autism.
We are seeing other schools in the area begin to integrate
robotics and the utilization of robotics, the development of
this technology into core curriculums in science and math--the
STEM activities.
It is a wonderfully exciting avenue for our students. I
think it's so appropriate that we have this hearing that we
look at this as a part of the Disrupter Series and not be
fearful of it but engage what it is going to bring to
productivity in the manufacturing marketplace, to our
communities, to everyday tasks.
I talked with a couple of my fast-food franchise owners
about the utilization of robotics in mechanization in the fast-
food industry. Fascinating, the opportunities that it opens.
It does mean that we have to put an emphasis on the
education so that we have a workforce that is excited about
working in this area.
And Mr. Chairman, I will yield the time back to you or to
whomever would like it.
Mr. Burgess. The Chair thanks the gentlelady. The
gentlelady yields back, and the Chair recognizes the
subcommittee ranking member, Ms. Schakowsky, for 5 minutes for
an opening statement, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today we are continuing our Disrupter Series with a hearing
on advanced robotics. Robots are becoming increasingly
sophisticated and at the same time robot technology is becoming
cheap enough that people can actually bring robots into our
homes, whether we are talking toys--that's been for a long
time--but vacuum cleaners or other consumer products.
The potential for robotics is really great, and I'm
interested in how we can help develop that potential. In June,
I met with four girls from Mount Prospect, Illinois, who were
part of a robotics team through Girl Scouts. They were in DC
for the Global Innovation Challenge sponsored by the U.S.
Patent Office.
If we want to continue in advanced technology then we
certainly need to provide young girls and boys opportunities in
science and technology.
FIRST Robotics has been a leader in encouraging students to
pursue robotics, and I look forward to hearing more about that
organization's work and from Mr. Kamen.
Some of the most innovative work in robotics comes out of
our major research universities. For instance, Northwestern,
which is in my hometown of Evanston, Illinois, has been
collaborating with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to
research bio-inspired robotics.
They look at how fish swim and how the human hand moves and
how animals use their whiskers and then use it to build
robotics that can really improve the lives of persons with
disabilities.
This research has tremendous promise, particularly for
improving health care. Robotics also has significant
implications for Federal policy. We need to invest in research
and education that continues the technological progress that we
see.
And as Mr. Burnstein and Dr. Kota note in their written
testimony, robotics has changed the nature of American
manufacturing.
We need to make sure that today's workers are prepared for
this transition and that we are training today's workers for
tomorrow's manufacturing jobs--or, really, today's
manufacturing jobs.
As robotics become more commonplace in daily life we have
to consider the implication for consumer safety and privacy.
Robots often collect and respond to information in their
surroundings. How is that information used and how is it
stored, who has access to that information, what does the
consumer need to know, and when does the consumer provide
consent?
These are questions that designers and consumer watchdogs
must grapple with, and the answer may not be the same for all
technologies. Robotics also raises questions of ethics and
responsibility.
Let's say an accident occurs. This is a very real concern
when we are talking about self-driving cars, for example. When
does the fault rest with the manufacturer, when does it reside
with the user?
Dr. Jones mentions several of these issues in her written
testimony, and I look forward to hearing more from her on ways
our Government can respond to this technological innovation.
Dr. Jones defines robots as technologies that sense, think, and
act.
Congress is not robotic, but I hope we will do the same
thing in our subcommittee: Take the information, process that
information, and then take action based on what we've learned.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and to working
with my colleagues to ensure that Federal policy keeps pace
with technological change. And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
yes, I will yield to my colleague, Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy. I thank my colleague, Ms. Schakowsky.
I want to thank the chairman for calling this hearing and
for continuing this series. Really interested in that prospect
of and the testimony from our experts today.
Clearly, the opportunities for innovation around advanced
robotics are almost limitless, and so I think, from my
perspective, anyway, trying to understand how Congress can
continue to support that innovation and support that progress
is critical.
It does potentially bring up some interesting ethical
questions and profound questions about the economic impact and
questions about data and privacy and, potentially, jobs and the
economy as well.
And Dr. Jones, you touched on that in your written
testimony. So I'd like to start to explore just the broad base
of those concepts and any guidance that you all might be
willing to lend to us as innovations in this field continue to
unfold at a pace that actually far exceeds, I think, that of
experts even a couple months or years ago.
We are making tremendous progress in fields of advanced
robotics, artificial intelligence, and others and what does
that really mean, given the fact that we are moving more
quickly than people even expected?
So with that, I yield back and I thank the chairman.
Mr. Burgess. Chair thanks the gentleman. Gentleman yields
back.
Chair recognizes the chairman of the full committee, Mr.
Upton, 5 minutes for an opening statement, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So today our Disrupter Series turns to advanced robotics,
for what I know will be an interesting and thoughtful
discussion. I'm particularly excited to welcome my good friend,
Dean Kamen, back to the committee. He has appeared a good
number of times, adding his valuable insight to our 21st
Century Cures effort, and, for those who don't know, he's often
referred to as the Dean of Invention and has been at the
forefront of disruptive technologies his entire career.
His decades of leadership and imagination have undoubtedly
changed the face of advanced robotics from the invention of the
Segway and iBOT electric chair to the drug infusion pump and so
many others. His inventions and entrepreneurial spirit have led
to the growth of the FIRST competition. FIRST, of course,
stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology. His passion for innovation inspires kids from
kindergarten to high school and encourages them to get involved
in engineering and other STEM fields.
The program has grown from 20 teams to over 45,000 teams
nationwide since it was founded in '89. I've got a great
relationship with FIRST Robotics--very proud supporter.
My home State of Michigan is becoming Robot Central, with
by far the highest number of FIRST teams per capita in the
country.
To describe what this competition is like, FIRST teams
receive a box with 120 pounds of components. They've got six
weeks to design and build a functioning robot, and what they
come up with in those six weeks is nothing short of amazing.
I've been to a number of competitions across the State, and
I was impressed with what the kids are coming up with. It's
inspiring. I want to stay there all day.
From the St. Joe Average Joes--this team--to the 2767
Stryke Force team in Kalamazoo, innovative STEM programs like
FIRST allows for kids in our communities to dream big and
inspire to become inventors, engineers, small business owners,
community leaders. It's also refreshing to see kids excited by
science, and I would note that Dean was treated like he was
Bruce Springsteen walking into St. Joe High School, a rock
star, for sure.
I'm also proud to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation with my
colleague, Debbie Dingell, that would use the sale of
commemorative coins for astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who was,
of course, tragically lost in the Challenger disaster, to raise
money for FIRST around the country, and I look forward to
hearing even more from Dean and all of our witnesses about
their recent efforts, whether it be FIRST, how Government had
gotten involved with the program, and I also note that the
Robotics Industries Association is headquartered in Ann Arbor--
go, Blue.
Dr. Kota, among his many projects is a professor at the
University of Michigan. Understanding how industry approaches
advances in robotic technology, whether in capital investments
or new partnership opportunities, is so critical to
understanding how we move disruptive inventions from the lab
into commerce to create jobs and economic growth here at home
and a better quality of life for all.
I thank Chairman Burgess for continuing the series.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Today our Disrupter Series turns to advanced robotics for
what I am sure will be an interesting and thoughtful
discussion. I am particularly excited to welcome my friend Dean
Kamen back to the committee. He has appeared a number of times,
adding his valuable insight to our 21st Century Cures effort.
For those who don't know, he's often referred to as the ``Dean
of Invention'' and has been at the forefront of disruptive
technologies his entire career. His decades of leadership and
imagination have undoubtedly changed the face of advanced
robotics. From the invention of the Segway and the iBot
electric wheelchair to the drug infusion pump.
His inventions and entrepreneurial spirit have led to the
growth of the FIRST competition. FIRST stands for ``For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.'' His
passion for innovation inspires students from kindergarten to
high school and encourages them to get involved in engineering
and other STEM fields. The program has grown from 20 teams to
over 45,000 teams nationwide since it was founded in 1989.
I have a personal relationship with FIRST Robotics and am a
very proud supporter. My home State of Michigan is becoming
``Robot Central'' with, by far, the highest number of FIRST
teams per capita in the Nation. To describe what this
competition is like: FIRST teams receive a box with 120 pounds
of components and have six weeks to design and build a
functioning robot. What they come up with in those six weeks is
nothing short of amazing. I've been to numerous competitions
across the State, and I'm always impressed with what the kids
come up with. It's inspiring, it really is.
From the St. Joseph ``Average Joes'' team to the ``2767
Stryke Force'' team in Kalamazoo, innovative STEM programs--
like FIRST Robotics--allows for kids in our communities to
dream big and aspire to become inventors, engineers, small
business owners, and community leaders. It is also refreshing
to see kids excited by science, and I would note Dean was
greeted like one of the Beatles when he visited St. Joseph High
School back in my hometown.
I'm also proud to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation with my
colleague Debbie Dingell that would use the sale of a
commemorative coin for astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who was
tragically lost in the Challenger disaster, to raise money for
FIRST programs around the country.
I look forward to hearing even more from Mr. Kamen and all
our witnesses about his recent efforts with the FIRST
competition and how industry and the Government have grown
involved with this program. I would also note that the Robotic
Industries Association is headquartered in Ann Arbor and Dr.
Kota, among his many projects, is a professor at the University
of Michigan.
Understanding how industry approaches advancements in
robotic technology, whether in capital investments or new
partnership opportunities, is critical to understanding how we
move disruptive inventions from the lab into commerce to create
jobs and economic growth here at home.
I thank Chairman Burgess for continuing the Disrupter
Series and highlighting the positive impact that emerging
technologies, like advanced robotics, are having on our
economy.
Mr. Upton. I yield the balance of my time to my friend from
Mississippi, Dr. Harper.
Mr. Harper. Thanks for the high degree. So just no doctor--
well, Doctor of Jurisprudence. Does that count?
Mr. Upton. Yes, it does.
Mr. Harper. OK. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
calling this hearing today, and I'm excited to continue this
subcommittee's work on the Disrupter Series and looking forward
to our discussion on advanced robotics.
In my district, Mississippi State University is actively
conducting research and making advances through a number of
projects in the robotics arena, including a National Science
Foundation award to develop the Therabot, a therapeutic robotic
support system in the form of a beagle dog that is responsive
to touch through multiple sensors.
The Therabot will be used for therapy sessions with the
clinician as well as for home therapy exercises, especially for
individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. Another
project that's been funded in the past by Army Research
Laboratories focuses on improving the integration of robots
into law enforcement SWAT teams to develop new tactics and
investigates how robots can be used more effectively in a real-
world scenario to increase safety and information-gathering
capabilities.
And those are just two of the many projects that are going
on at Mississippi State. Additionally, at Mississippi State
University they work with a number of organizations, including
4-H, to put together opportunities and competitions for
students of all ages to learn about robotics and have some fun
along the way.
With that said, I would like to welcome all the witnesses
here today, in particular Mr. Kamen. It is good to hear from
you and to have you be here and to explain these things to us
and know how clearly committed you are to teaching children
around the country technology skills that will prepare them for
a bright future.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Burgess. Gentleman yields back. The Chair thanks the
gentleman.
Seeing no other Members seeking an opening statement, we
will conclude with Member opening statements. The Chair would
like to remind Members that pursuant to committee rules, all
Members' opening statements will be made part of the record.
And we do want to thank all of our witnesses for being with
us here today, taking the time to prepare and to testify to the
subcommittee.
Today's witnesses will have the opportunity to give an
opening statement followed, of course, by questions from the
Members. Our panel for today's hearing will include Mr. Dean
Kamen, founder of DEKA Research; Dr. Sridhar Kota, Herrick
Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan; Dr. Meg
Jones, assistant professor of Communication, Culture and
Technology at Georgetown University; and Mr. Jeff Burnstein,
president at Robotics Industries Association.
We appreciate you all being here today, and we will begin
the panel with you, Mr. Kamen, and you are recognized for 5
minutes for an opening statement, please.
STATEMENTS OF DEAN KAMEN, FOUNDER, DEKA RESEARCH; SRIDHAR KOTA,
PH.D., HERRICK PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN; MEG LETA JONES, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,
COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, AND TECHNOLOGY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY;
AND JEFF BURNSTEIN, PRESIDENT, ROBOTICS INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT OF DEAN KAMEN
Mr. Kamen. Thank you. So I was told I have only a few
minutes, and I decided, since a picture is worth a thousand
words and a video is worth a thousand pictures, I took two
videos. Trust me, they are each under 2 minutes long. One is
sort of a general overview of FIRST, and it ties everybody
together because it's the voice of God. It's Morgan Freeman
from Mississippi, who, after coming, agreed to help us with the
video because people trust the voice of God, and also said he
will help us put FIRST in every school in Mississippi.
So we need to talk. We work with, of course, in Chicago
RIC. My day job is medical stuff and robotics, and we built the
arms that they are using for their optic stuff there and, of
course, we work with Texas in many ways, Massachusetts.
You heard about how tired we are. But I'm going to show two
videos. One is an overview of why robotics are going to be so
valuable to the next generation and to this country in
preparing to be competitive in the world.
The second one is a minute long, and it's not the voice of
God. It's a 7-year-old girl that helped prepare a video for the
international version of FIRST because we are seeing, for
instance, incredible growth in 86 countries.
So another reason that you need to get serious about giving
kids the skills they get through robotics is it's--and you'll
see in that second video, ``it's not robots, it's not
robots''--it's all the skill sets for the 21st century, and I
hope you listen to the 7-year-old. Let's hear from the voice of
God.
[Video is played.]
So there's the voice of God. Now we go to a 7-year-old
who's going to shake up the world with FIRST.
[Video is played.]
Mr. Upton. Mr. Chairman, if I might just ask that--Dean, if
we can--is it OK if we put that on the committee's Web site?
Mr. Kamen. I would be proud to have you put it there.
Mr. Upton. It's there. All right. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kamen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Chairman. Dr. Kota, you're
recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement, please.
STATEMENT OF SRIDHAR KOTA
Dr. Kota. Chairman Burgess, Ranking Member Schakowsky,
distinguished subcommittee members, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss issues of
critical importance to American economic competitiveness--
robotics, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing.
My name is Sridhar Kota. I'm the Herrick Professor of
Engineering at the University of Michigan and also the director
for a new think tank called MForesight, the Alliance for
Manufacturing Foresight.
MForesight works to bring together Government, industry,
and research institutions to scan the horizon for emerging
trends and promising opportunities for American manufacturing.
We help to build public-private partnerships related to
manufacturing innovation. We respond to long-range technical
questions from Government and industry and we work to identify
best practices for training the next-generation workforce.
Our ultimate aim is to enable the United States to gain a
long-term edge in economic competitiveness by strengthening
domestic manufacturing.
Thirty years ago when I was a graduate student in
mechanical engineering, robotics was already a topic on
everybody's mind, but back then the dominant vision of robotics
was of machines replacing human labor, taking over
manufacturing tasks like welding and painting.
Today, researchers and firms tend to think of robots in a
different light as collaborative tools to enhance productivity
of factory workers, as a means to assist soldiers on dangerous
missions, as co-drivers to enhance automobile safety and
efficiency, and as co-inspectors to enable continuous
monitoring and maintenance of high-value assets, such as
bridges and wind turbines.
As artificial intelligence matures, there is promise that
intelligent machines can augment certain types of human
decisionmaking in fields ranging from medicine to
manufacturing.
In short, robotics is now about augmenting and improving
human work rather than replacing it. While robotics and AI
innovations hold incredible promise, it's an open question
whether the resulting technology products will be manufactured
in the United States.
Despite Federal annual investment of over $140 billion in
science and technology, America's trade deficits in advanced
technology products moved from a surplus in 2001 to a deficit
of over $90 billion in 2015.
To strengthen America's competitiveness in the age of
advanced robotics and AI, we need to build the knowledge,
skills, and infrastructure to anchor production here. Put
concisely, we need to be thinking about translational research
and workforce training.
I would first like to discuss translational research: how
Government and industry can ensure that existing investments in
basic research turn into useful new products, including robots
and AI technologies, that create wealth for Americans and
advance our national interests.
What I believe we need right now is a whole-of-Government
approach that leverages the strength and missions of different
Federal science and technology agencies to help ensure that we
can translate promising discoveries and inventions into
successful manufactured products.
This need not be costly. A national innovation foundation
could be created by consolidating relevant offices at a dozen
or more existing agencies.
Such an entity could be tasked with identifying the most
promising basic research being undertaken across the Government
and building public-private partnerships to invest in
transforming that research into American-made products. The
idea would be to maximize the return on taxpayers' investments
in R and D.
The second policy matter I would like to discuss is
education workforce training: how Federal, State, and local
governments, working with employers, can ensure that Americans
have the requisite knowledge and skills to build great products
in the age of advanced robotics and AI.
In spite of our manufacturing losses in recent decades,
there are now a large number of open positions in manufacturing
and about 415,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs in the United
States, according to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
I believe the biggest long-term risk to U.S. manufacturing
isn't foreign competition. It's too little awareness and
interest in engineering and manufacturing careers starting at
an early age.
While high schools commonly require students to dissect a
frog, few require students to disassemble a power tool, let
alone a robot. This needs to change.
Primarily, the programs like FIRST Robotics--we all just
saw those wonderful videos--it's an innovative program that
challenges students to work together to build game-playing
robots in an atmosphere of professionalism, and it is the
roadmap to engineering.
It is the roadmap to innovation, and right now it's
currently done as an after-hour, after-school extracurricular
activity.
This is the kind of program that we need to bring into the
mainstream in order to mainstream curricula in K through 12,
and that's the only way we can build a foundation for that next
generation of innovation in the advanced manufacturing
community.
So through smart research investments and sustained focus
on education and training programs like FIRST Robotics, we can
help ensure that these innovations truly improve American lives
and livelihoods.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kota follows:]
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Mr. Burgess. Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes Dr. Jones, 5 minutes for your opening
statement, please.
STATEMENT OF MEG LETA JONES
Dr. Jones. Chairman Burgess, Ranking Member Schakowsky, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you very much
for putting on this Disrupter Series and for inviting me to
testify before you today.
With all of the excitement that comes with these ingenious
advancements in robotics are ethical, policy, and legal
questions.
Robot ethics and robotics policy conjure problems like how
we avoid creating our mechanical overlords and when AI should
have rights. These are questions for the future.
But what I'm going to talk about today is a really, really
simple problem, and that is that robots don't have screens, and
this is incredibly disruptive to privacy protection in the
United States.
For the last 50 years, screens have been how we interacted
with our information and communication technologies.
You engage with the cloud or a colleague or a retailer
through the interface on your desktop, your laptop and then
your smart phone and your tablet, and then for the last 20
years the Internet age has used that screen to create, collect,
process, trade, and use your data, and it's through that same
screen that you can figure out how your data is collected and
used. You go to the bottom of the page and you click on the
blue link that says privacy policy.
And this is the notice and choice regime that information
exchange around the world had been built upon and the idea, of
course, is that the data controller notifies you what they are
going to do with your data, and you can choose to engage with
the system or not.
There are, of course, problems with relying on this form of
consent in the information age. People can't dedicate all of
the time it would take to read all of those policies. Even if
they could, they can't necessarily understand them, and even if
they could read and understand them they wouldn't necessarily
be able to assess the future uses and harms of their
information.
Participating in one's data is increasingly difficult as
screens get smaller, and we have seen this with smart phones
and wearables already. But robots often don't have any screen
at all.
Some robots are categorized within the Internet of things,
and, as you are aware from previous hearings, the Internet of
things is a catch-all for the movement to connect everyday
objects to make them smart using sensors, wi-fi, and the cloud.
Like most technologies in the Internet of things, there is
no screen, so if you want to know the terms of use for the
privacy policy you can't scroll down on anything.
So how does one figure out what information is being
collected and used, and why?
There was a 2015 Federal Trade Commission report on this
subject, and they suggested using video tutorials, setup
wizards, and privacy dashboards.
Treating the Internet of things like an extension of the
Internet, these are tools that provide notice and participation
for the good old days of personal computers and apps.
At Georgetown, we bought a bunch of Hello Barbies to figure
out how we would know what she was collecting about us and what
she did with the information just by interacting with her.
Now, to set up Hello Barbie, you have to click a bunch of
accept buttons, like most things, but we really wanted to know
what she would tell us.
So we asked her a number of times if she could keep a
secret, or we would tell her something and then we would say,
You're not going to share that with anyone, are you? And she
couldn't really process the questions that we were asking her.
But when you asked her about her privacy policy, she said
that an adult could find details about privacy on Page 2 of the
booklet that came in the box.
So this is essentially the same problems that exist with
relying on notice and choice in the Internet age, except you
have the extra step that you have to go find this booklet or
the box.
More importantly, what if it's not your Barbie? We are
moving beyond the days of personal computers with smart
objects, smart people, and smart environments.
When you get into someone else's driverless car or you see
a drone flying overhead or you walk into someone else's smart
office, what information is being collected?
How would you know? Whose drone is that? What company makes
it? Do they collect information? Do they map your face for
facial recognition? Where is the booklet that came in the box?
And even if you did know the answer to those questions,
what can you really do about it? Notice and choice, even beyond
the practical problems, breaks down at a theoretical level in
what I call the Internet of other people's things, of which
many robots will be a part.
So I know some people think that privacy is dead, and in my
written testimony I noted a few statistics. But one of them is
that, in January 2016, more American adults were worried about
their privacy than losing their main source of income.
So people care, and I think that if we want to usher in the
type of advanced robotics that we want, we have to start by
innovating some of our policy approaches, including privacy.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jones follows:]
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Mr. Burgess. Chair thanks the gentlelady.
Mr. Burnstein, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your
opening statement, please.
STATEMENT OF JEFF BURNSTEIN
Mr. Burnstein. Thank you, Chairman Burgess, Chairman Upton,
and Ranking Member Schakowsky and members of the subcommittee.
I want to really thank you for having the Robotics
Industries Association here to participate in this series. RIA
has been around since 1974, and we are based in Ann Arbor,
Michigan--go, Blue--and what's interesting about RIA is that it
represents 400 companies that are driving innovation, growth,
and better, safer and higher-paying jobs in manufacturing
service industries.
Now, I have been there for over 30 years, and I have to
tell you this is the most exciting period for robotics and
American innovation in robotics in the entire time I've been
there.
We think that the key to staying competitive in
manufacturing, in particular, is to implement advanced
robotics. We see what's happening around the world. RIA is in
China, we are in Korea, we are in Japan.
We see the efforts that are going on there and in Europe,
and we think we have an opportunity here to create more jobs
and to save jobs that are already here.
I'd like to, if you don't mind, highlight some of our
member companies and the innovations they are working on. In
the Boston area, Rethink Robotics is developing collaborative
robots.
These are a new kind of robots that work side by side with
people, that don't require safety fences between them. Or Soft
Robotics, also in Boston, who's taken on a challenge that's
kind of plagued the industry for many years of how to grip
different parts.
So you have very fragile things that have to be picked up
by a robot, like produce or vegetables and tomatoes, peaches--
all the things that agriculture cares about. You have these
hard parts--rugged, on assembly lines. You used to have to
change the gripper, the hand on the robot. But now, thanks to
companies like Soft Robotics, you might be able to do it with
just one gripper.
Aethon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, creating an autonomous
robot that delivers and tracks medical supplies in hospitals,
allowing the staff to focus more time on patient care, which is
really what we want.
And how does this all play out at user companies? When,
there is a company we work closely with called Vickers
Engineering in New Troy, Michigan, a precision machining
company that provides solutions to automotive, oil and gas,
agriculture, defense, and industrial markets.
They had trouble keeping people in dull, repetitive, and
dangerous jobs. They had to keep hiring and retraining. It was
hurting productivity. They said, Why don't we take a shot at
robotics? And they did. Their business tripled, bought more
robots and at the same time they increased their head count,
and we are seeing this across the country with small and
medium-sized companies as well as large ones.
One thing the U.S. is fortunate to have is the greatest
group of system integrators in the world. Now who are these
companies?
These are folks that put together the systems that actually
make the robots work on the factory floor that integrate with
the other machines and equipment and tie into the Internet of
things.
Companies like Genesis Systems in Davenport, Iowa, and
Matrix Design in South Elgin, Illinois, Schneider Packaging
Equipment in Bremerton, New York, Tennessee Rand from
Chattanooga, Tennessee. These are just a few of the certified
robotic integrators that RIA would like to acknowledge.
Today's robots offer U.S. manufacturers improvements in
efficiency that are driving profits and employment, as we said.
We issued a white paper on this called ``Robots Fuel the Next
Wave of Productivity in Job Growth.''
You may read otherwise, that robots are job killers, but
our data doesn't support that. What we see is that whenever
robot sales rise, unemployment falls. And when the opposite
happens--when robot sales fall--unemployment rises. You don't
hear that in the media too often.
We understand the importance of education, STEM education,
and training and retraining to make sure that we've prepared
our workforce for the future jobs and for the present jobs.
There are groups like RAMTEC in Marion, Ohio, a Government-
and industry-supported collaboration that provides training to
high school and college students along with incumbent workers
to support industry's needs for training in robotics and
automation equipment.
And we hope that programs like this will proliferate
because by working together industry, Government, academia can
help make sure that our workers are prepared for the future.
I personally appreciate this opportunity to highlight the
important role that robotics is playing in advancing our
economy in creating not only safer, better, and higher-paying
jobs but also improving society and our health and our
livelihood and our long-term ability to be productive members
of society.
I hope that those of you who aren't involved will join the
House Robotics Caucus with Congressman Rob Woodall and
Congressman Mike Doyle, and we value their work and look
forward to continuing the dialogue on advanced robotics.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burnstein follows:]
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Mr. Burgess. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and the Chair
would note that Mr. Doyle is a member of the full committee of
Energy and Commerce.
So I thank you all for your testimony, and we'll move now
into the question and answer part of the hearing.
Mr. Burnstein, let me just ask you, because in your written
testimony you referenced using robotics to do jobs that perhaps
would be inherently too dangerous for a person to do--a hazmat
situation.
We're all familiar with the bomb-disabling robots that
several of our police departments used in Dallas, Texas, this
July--July 7th. So kind of a unique situation where there was a
shooter who had killed several Dallas police officers and an
officer with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and the individual
was contained in a garage but could not be controlled, and
ultimately Chief Brown made what I consider a very courageous,
a kind of unique, decision to use the bomb-disabling robot to
actually deliver a bomb to this individual and end the problem.
I am sure, from your association, are you aware of that
instance?
Mr. Burnstein. Yes, I am.
Mr. Burgess. Are there thoughts that the association has on
the use of the robot in that situation? Again, I think Chief
Brown was courageous, and I am grateful that he made the
decision. I'm grateful he prevented any further loss of life.
But, obviously, it poses some new questions.
Mr. Burnstein. It does pose new questions and, I think,
ideally, robots wouldn't be involved in harming people. It's
one of the first laws of robotics that Isaac Asimov laid out.
However, in this particular case, if you take the word
robot out of the equation, we sent in equipment that would save
police officers' lives. And so whether it was a robot or some
other way to get that in there, if we could have got a person
in there we would have taken that shooter out in that way.
So, in my opinion, that was the right choice and it was a
good use of the technology because it was saving police
officers' lives.
Mr. Burgess. Very good, and I appreciate your answer.
So, Dean Kamen, earlier this week the One Hundred Year
Study on Artificial Intelligence released a report titled
``Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030.''
So the good news: The panel found that there is no cause
for concern that artificial intelligence is an imminent threat
to humankind or the United States Congress. Actually, I just
added that.
In fact, the findings of the group of academics from the
University of Texas at Austin, MIT, Harvard, and others
concluded that increasingly useful applications of artificial
intelligence with potentially profound positive impacts on
society and the economy were likely to emerge between now and
2030.
So, simply, do you agree with their assessment? You spend a
lot of time in this space.
Mr. Kamen. Well, I think that the whole term artificial
intelligence, or for that matter robotics, means different
things to people, let's say, within that industry and to the
public.
I would almost define robotics as seen by the public as any
piece of technology that wasn't around when you were a kid
because the fact is we've been robotically doing more and more
and more since the industrial revolution started, and before
that, you know, knitting machines made things robotic, and
artificial intelligence, a machine that is programmed to do a
function--the calculator you have was considered, you know, a
mathematician 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.
I think we should always be concerned, as you heard from
Dr. Jones about unintended consequences, of applying technology
to anything, but artificial intelligence, like most good tools,
will just support the real stuff, and we could all use a little
more of the real intelligence.
And I think as long as humans with good judgment and good
ethics are deploying these tools for the betterment of the
world, we are OK. It would be naive to assume that you can
never do damage with it.
But, again, the first tool--the rock--could help you build
a house or break your thumb. That first use of fire could make
us have a life and could burn down your house. Every new
technology bears the potential to be misused.
But putting your head in the sand is just going to allow
somebody else to dominate that technology, and I'd rather be
the ones that decide how to develop it and how to use it.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you. You know, my background is in
health care. I think some of your work has been in the
healthcare space and, of course, we are all familiar now with
robotics in the operating room. Could you speak to that just a
little bit, what the future might hold for us?
Mr. Kamen. So you mentioned in your opening remarks Rosie,
and I think, again, the word robot, coming originally from the
world of science fiction, always displays the robot as this
anthropomorphic thing,
I think of all the things that robots will evolve to, the
least likely is that, because we are pretty good at being what
we are.
We like being what we are, and we are not going spend a lot
of time and money making something else to do what we are and
what we like to do. You're not going to build a robot to take
your trip to Disney.
I think robots will be used like other technologies that
are developed, to augment, as you heard from Dr. Kota, what we
do. There will be robots much bigger than us, like bulldozers.
We don't like digging ditches. There will be robots much
smaller than us, ones that will travel through your vascular
system, go in there and tweak that heart valve so you don't
need to have it removed or replaced.
Robots will get very small. Robots will get very big.
Robots will not look like humans. But in the healthcare field,
they will change so dramatically the process of taking care of
people that a doctor 50 years from today will not recognize,
and certainly a hospital will not look like it looks today.
Nanotechnology, proteomics, genomics, the ability to use
robotic technology to get to critical places without destroying
vital tissue, it's going to change virtually every concept
we've had in medicine more than you've seen medicine change so
far in your lifetime.
Mr. Burgess. And it has changed a lot, even in my short
lifetime.
Chair thanks the gentleman for his answers. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Schakowsky, 5 minutes for your questions,
please.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, all of you. It's been a
fascinating panel and really excellent testimony.
I wanted to ask you, Dr. Jones, a couple of questions. In
all our exuberance, I'm happy that you raised some issues that
we, you know, also need to pay attention to: privacy and data
security.
Robots, almost by definition, collect a vast amount of
information because they need to sense the environment they are
in and process the information and take action based on that
information. And as you pointed out in your testimony, many
robots are or will be Internet connected.
And at the subcommittee's hearing on wearable devices, we
heard about notice and choice like those you mentioned earlier.
We generally rely on screens to provide the interface that
allows for notice and choice, but, as with wearables, robots
generally don't have those screens.
So let me also say for household robots that are already on
the market, let me ask you, What is the mechanism used to
provide notice to consumers and, is it always a question of the
privacy policies are just included in the box, you better take
them out and save them?
Dr. Jones. Yes, for the most part. When you buy a device
for your home, you're still at least within the Internet of
things, not other people's things.
And so when you put a nest system, for instance, in your
home, you click a number of boxes and you can find out more
information about what's collected. And sometimes you have to,
just to set the thing up. And so there is sometimes increased
amount of notice in the Internet of things.
However, if you walk into someone else's house that has,
say, a personal assistant robot that wires the home and does
voice recognition or facial recognition, you don't have a way
to express to that system, hey, I don't like that, don't do
that to me, I don't want you to map my face and store it
somewhere. And I think that that is really the next hurdle, and
it's a wonderful interdisciplinary problem.
It requires a lot of technical considerations as well as
policy and ethical considerations. I don't think that it's
necessarily a regulatory change.
That being said, I do think that reliance on notice and
choice will have to take a secondary seat to something.
Ms. Schakowsky. You know, at one of these hearings I
brought a privacy policy that was included in the box and kind
of unfurled it. It was very long. It was very legalistic. Very
small print. Challenging.
But you also mentioned that, online, how many people--let's
be honest--read all the words before they push ``agree,''
because you know that you're not going to get in unless you
agree.
And so, you know, I think these are challenges that we need
to figure out. But let me ask you this--you mentioned a study
by the Pew Research Center that found that a vast majority of
adults felt it was important to have control over what
information was collected about them and who could get that
information.
And do you agree that most consumers would prefer a more
customizable approach?
Dr. Jones. So this, I don't know, there are a lot of
surveys on privacy, and I think that they are not tailored to
regulatory answers a lot of the time.
So you'll hear people say they really care about privacy.
But it's not clear whether they want a set standard like the
European version of privacy or they want an adjusted type of
notice and choice, a more sort of libertarian privacy
integrated into the way they engage with ICTs.
So I can't say for sure. I think that Americans probably
don't care. They just want privacy.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. When legislators discuss privacy and
data security issues, some have argued that we should only be
concerned about a narrow set of data of personal information,
specifically personal financial information.
However, consumers have more than financial concerns, and
I'm just wondering if you could discuss the privacy concerns
that robots have beyond the financial, and how do we broaden
the discussion to ensure we understand the emerging
technologies and the privacy concerns that come with those new
technologies?
Dr. Jones. So, for anyone who cares about their physical
safety, a robot could easily be something to be concerned about
because, if a robot registers that you're near them, for
instance, someone could know where you're at.
We have seen a number of apps that have shown the location
of women, for instance, that have been not held positively by
Congress or the public at large, but physical location data is
one thing.
The idea that you can figure out a lot of things about
someone that they don't want you to know by putting together a
few pieces of information, we know that that is also true. So
right now we have a ton of little pieces of information that
gets put together that can show basically your route to work,
where you work, what you do, where you go to lunch, who you go
to lunch with, and by putting sensors in the environment, you
just increase that dossier on every individual that's moving
through those spaces.
And what's interesting about robotics is they are not just
in public spaces. They're in private spaces. They're in semi-
private spaces. And so you can link these together in really
troubling ways.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mr. Burgess. Chair thanks the gentlelady. Gentlelady yields
back. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Indiana, Ms.
Brooks, 5 minutes for questions, please.
Ms. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I've always really enjoyed the Disrupter Series and pleased
to be here to talk about robotics today.
Fortunately, our former mayor of Indianapolis, Mayor Greg
Ballard, had the foresight in 2012 to start Indiana State
Robotics Initiative to help build that skilled workforce in the
pipeline of students, and it is that cross-sector partnership
between Government, corporate, and nonprofit organizations to
make robotics accessible to all Indiana students.
And I might say, Mr. Kamen, I have visited the Carmel
TechHOUNDS. Carmel High School has a FIRST robotics team that's
been competing for quite some time. And now, actually, in
January, over 160 teams competed in the Indianapolis VEX
Robotics Competition.
But throughout Indiana, over 40,000 students are being
exposed to robotics and, hopefully, will continue that interest
into the future because I do believe that we need to start this
exposure very young.
What I am very curious about, Mr. Kamen, is based on all of
your experience, what is the one thing you would like us to
walk away from in this hearing with respect to how we continue
the growth of the FIRST program and of robotics in this
country? What is one thing you'd like for us to remember?
Mr. Kamen. So when I was first asked to come, I thought it
would be, hey, let's celebrate, figure out how to grow the
robotics program because we know it works, and I was told,
Dean, that would be optimistic, you should know that part of
this hearing is going to be to deal with real concerns--by the
way, some real concerns--but other concerns that some people
have that, you know, robots will take jobs. You heard what Mr.
Burnstein said and I said. It's hard for me to believe that in
the 21st century people will think that advanced technologies
are going to do anything except grow this opportunity.
In that regard, I took a slide. I visited Beijing with the
president of the U.S. National Academy of Engineers and our
chairman for the first-ever coalition meeting of the Royal
Society in London, the National Academy, and the Chinese
Academy of Engineers, which by the way is way larger than ours.
We get to Beijing to talk about the grand challenges, but
I'm whisked away by somebody who takes me to a local school in
Beijing. By the way, China, he tells me, has 4,000 FIRST teams.
They use FIRST because it inspires kids to get of the ``we
are good at learning engineering, but now we learn how to be
innovators like you Americans.''
And he takes me in there and he shows me this picture on
the wall of the president of China. Could you put that slide
up? And I asked him, ``Will you please tell me why there is a
picture of the president of China in this school where I was
looking at a FIRST field in Beijing?'' And he translated it for
me and said, ``Robotics will become an entry point, an impetus
for growth of the Third Industrial Revolution.''
What I want you all to go away understanding is, if America
wants to remain a leader in the world economically, in every
other way--our security, our economy--it's going to depend on
us remaining leaders in the technologies that result from
learning how to design and build the next generation of
technology, which we generally all call robots now because it's
actuators, it's sensors--it's the collection of everything that
will allow humans to keep moving.
And if anybody thinks that that's not the case, you're
going to be a drag on the future of this country. That's what I
think. We need to focus on giving kids the tool sets for the
next century, and robotics is a great vehicle to do it.
Ms. Brooks. Thank you.
Dr. Kota, what would you say are the most significant
barriers to investment in advanced robotics? What are the
challenges that you are seeing?
Dr. Kota. Barriers to investment in advanced robotics, you
know, we have this national robotics initiative, and actually
there is a new solicitation out for a manufacturing innovation
institute in robotics, which is all very positive, and I think
we should continue to work along the lines of creating next-
generation robotics collaborating with humans.
But I don't see any--more than that, I think the biggest
barrier--I want to pick up on what Dean Kamen said--the biggest
challenge and the biggest opportunity we have right now is
really the robots. It is a gateway to engineering.
It is a gateway to designing and building things, and this
is the way where we can really get kids excited about going
into engineering fields and manufacturing, because that's what
it takes to convert an idea into product.
Ms. Brooks. I agree. But are there barriers that are
causing us, that are stopping our--you know, what are the
barriers?
Dr. Kota. Well, are you talking research, or actually
educational workforce development?
Ms. Brooks. Yes.
Dr. Kota. OK. The workforce development side, the barrier
is--OK, the question, I'll turn it around and say we have right
now this program is an after-school extracurricular program.
Those kids were already motivated and doing incredible
things. We should expose them to every kid in school, and just
like we ask every student to dissect a frog, just about, why
not ask them to work on these FIRST robotics?
Now, the barrier could potentially be, more than the
funding, is actually the requirements for schools to check
certain boxes to meet the curriculum requirements.
But there is a way--we know it's working. We can actually
map this, what they are doing for FIRST robotics experience,
into some of the core curriculum requirements in terms of
creative activities in science and math. That's where the
barrier is, to actually bringing key stakeholders together and
having a discussion.
Ms. Brooks. Thank you. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Burgess. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair thanks
the gentlelady. Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts, 5 minutes for your questions, please.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Chairman.
Thanks again to all the witnesses for coming in and for
your testimony earlier.
I know that this hearing isn't about specifically
autonomous cars, but autonomous cars are a type of robot that
will soon be entering our daily lives and they clearly present
some of the ethical issues that come up in the realm of
robotics.
Science Magazine recently highlighted a series of surveys
to determine consumer attitudes towards autonomous cars.
Their researchers found that survey participants generally
support the idea of autonomous cars that might sacrifice
passengers to save people outside the vehicle, but they don't
actually want to ride in those cars. In other words, people
generally choose to save themselves. I'm sure it isn't a huge
shock to anybody.
The survey illustrates, though, the so-called trolley
problem when faced with two negative scenarios. How do you
choose?
So, Dr. Jones, the example of autonomous cars: Without
artificial intelligence, a person is going to have to make the
decision on how to program the car.
Should it be programmed to protect the passenger at the
expense of others? The other way around? How do you make that
judgment call? It's a difficult question. But what's happening
now with autonomous cars and the types of robots? And if you
play out that hypothetical, if you will for me, I'd love to get
your guidance on that judgment.
Dr. Jones. I think that right now is the perfect time to
answer how we answer that question, which is a great policy
problem, and there are two really innovative ideas that I've
heard recently. I love the trolley problem. Even a 2-year-old
can make a choice about a trolley problem.
There is a YouTube video where he moved all of the people
to one side and then runs over all of them. That's one way you
could. But the----
Mr. Kennedy. Which 2-year-old was that exactly?
Dr. Jones. Not my 2-year-old. The other idea is that, why
is this a decision that is automatic in every vehicle? The
trolley problem asks that individual to look at a moral
situation and decide what are your ethics here, and now we say,
how do we put this in every single car?
And so Jason Millar argues that that should be a setting.
When you get a driverless car, it is your setting just like a
trolley problem would be, it is a setting that said, you want
to run over the kittens or do you want to, you know, drive off
the cliff?
So that is one idea, is to keep autonomy in the hands of
the user for ethical questions, which in itself is an ethical
design choice.
The other is a Web site called Moral Machines from MIT that
is crowdsourcing people's ideas, what they should do, how the
car should be designed, not based on the ethics of the engineer
but based on what the general public's ideas of ethics are in
any given moment, and then those would be embedded into the
car.
And so you have less of the ethics of Silicon Valley and
the choices of Silicon Valley--and other places, I don't mean
to--as sort of a computer--robotics, that's not really true--
washing into DC and asking DC to respond to it.
And I think that what these innovative ideas are doing is
saying let's all participate in the design and ethical choices
that are going into these technologies. And so those are just
two alternatives, because there is no right answer to the
trolley problem. That's why it's a great--that's why it's a
great question.
Mr. Kennedy. Dr. Kamen?
Mr. Kamen. I think you can reduce these to philosophical
esoteric discussions, which are fun, and maybe there is no
perfect answer.
A more basic question might be, in reality this year we'll
kill 42,000 people on the highways with drivers that are
tweeting or not paying attention or are drunk.
We all know that if a single autonomous vehicle tomorrow
hurt or killed somebody, there would be a major national debate
about whether there should be another vehicle like that for the
foreseeable future.
Yet, every year for decades we kill tens of thousands of
people. We hospitalize millions of people. It's the devil we
know.
Instead of solving a very esoteric question, you might ask
how soon will it be that at least augmented systems would make
cars so much safer that, instead of arguing about whether they
should be allowed, we should start arguing about whether we
should be able to sell vehicles that don't have these systems.
Because we know how many people we are killing all the time.
Mr. Kennedy. And at the risk of getting into that
philosophical debate, I would agree with you that we say, let's
move forward because, look, if we can reduce that from 42,000
to one, obviously, that's an extraordinary--or to zero or to
whatever it is, to less than 42,000--that's an extraordinary
innovation, and we want to incentivize that.
The question, basically, and perhaps you can say a little
bit of expertise in the seven seconds I'll give you, but if it
comes down to essentially an algorithm of saying if-then,
right, in a complex if-then decision tree for a computer code,
that is then scaled up across every single car, that is a
choice that somebody's got to make.
So I'm not, you know, asking so much what that right
decision is but what's the right way for evaluating how we make
those decisions, understanding that, if we can make progress on
this, that's tremendous and we don't want to stop that
innovation. But it does bring up ethical issues that we haven't
had to confront in this scenario before.
Mr. Kamen. And I guess all I would say is those are
fantastic debates to have and, as we all know, the good is the
enemy of the great.
I guess what I would come back to say, however, is we
should discuss those issues and what the available technologies
are in the context of the real alternatives and we should be
accelerating the use of these technologies that overall will
hugely reduce injuries and deaths because these technologies
don't get distracted.
Inevitably, as we said before, every powerful technology
can have mischievous and nefarious users. Every powerful
technology will eventually show a weakness or need to be
improved.
But the day we start saying, because of those issues we
will slow down or stop progress, is the day we are in big
trouble.
Mr. Burgess. Gentleman yields back. Chair thanks the
gentleman.
I believe we are going to have time for a second round, if
anyone wishes to stay. When we initiate that then, Mr. Kamen,
I'm going to stay with you on that same concept.
And we had a tragic accident in our district with a
distracted driving situation where four women--two in one car,
two in the other--head-on collision, they all died.
And so lane departure warning device that--you know, you're
right. You almost had--there should be like anti-lock brakes.
There should be, like, a supplemental restraint device or an
airbag or a seatbelt.
It almost should be standard equipment, especially in the
day and age where we all have a device that could potentially
distract us while we are driving.
So I think that is a powerful concept and one which, of
course, in this subcommittee we'll continue to explore because
we have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
under our jurisdiction.
So I appreciate your comments there. Just more broadly, and
you now have touched upon something that I kind of debated
whether or not I should bring up. But just let's talk--we have
got a panel of experts.
I mean, we live under the tyranny of Federal agencies--at
least, that's my opinion. Mr. Kennedy may disagree. Federal
Trade Commission, Consumer Product Safety Commission, National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration is just this
subcommittee's jurisdiction.
But there is also the Department of Labor, Health and Human
Services, Department of Energy, Department of Education,
Department of Energy--I'm sorry, Department of Commerce. I
almost had a Rick Perry moment there for a minute. Department
of Commerce. So how do you see the intersection of all these
Federal agencies, and they don't make anything neat or cool
like you all do. They write regulations, to regulate the neat
and cool stuff that you all do.
I know it's a big discussion, but as briefly as you can,
could you just kind of give us some sense of the direction of
how the regulatory environment should proceed in this very new
area?
Mr. Kamen, we will start with you and just work down the
table, if you would.
Mr. Kamen. Well, I can give you one very relevant to the
self-driving car, I think, because you have a regulatory
agency, NHTSA, and you have one called the FAA. And there is a
lesson here.
When I learned to fly, you had simple autopilots. They
weren't very good and they could get you wings--they could do a
few simple things.
But you were very clearly told when you go take your flight
test, you many not turn that on. It was a crutch. They want to
make sure you could really fly that plane. You're not allowed
to use it.
Over the decades, as those things got better, they started
requiring them in their sophisticated aircraft because when
you're doing mach-point-8 and you're coming in to a very low
ceiling, no human is as good as that autopilot, and then they
went to allowing you to use it, then testing you on how you use
it.
Then they made it part of what's called the MEL, the
minimal equipment list: You are not allowed to fly this
airplane under these conditions unless that thing is working
and is on.
I think we shifted. The FAA has demonstrated, we went from
people have to fly to it's not safe unless that thing is
working and you legally can't do it and you wouldn't want to
get on an airliner traveling around this country if that
autopilot on minimum conditions that was going to land coming
out that fog and touching down two seconds later. It's not
legal to do it. It's not safe to do it.
I think, certainly, in your lifetime, the question is going
to be with somebody sitting up there, Should we allow people to
drive cars? I know they think it's fun, but this is so
dangerous that allowing them that privilege of running around
at 60 miles an hour with a 3,000-pound machine and we can't be
sure they are not drunk and tired, I'm not sure we should allow
that anymore.
That's why we have autopilots, and you're going to see that
change happen. But human understanding always lags the rate at
which technical opportunities arise, and it's always the next
generation that adopts it.
You know, what was indefensible to your parents was
indispensable to you, and what your kids will think of as
normal you will be concerned about. Technology really is
anything that wasn't available when you were a kid.
But I think NHTSA should take a lesson from FAA. They both
regulate critical activities, but as we see technology
developing, we know there are loopholes.
We know there are disasters. We know things can go wrong.
But that shouldn't present an alternative that we don't
aggressively go after improving.
Mr. Burgess. Very well. Dr. Kota.
Dr. Kota. A different context--I was making a similar
statement about how FDA could potentially take some ideas from
FAA.
I have had a little bit of experience working on aircraft
designs, and what I was surprised to note is that--which many
of you probably know already--if you are designing any new
component or system, what are released for an aircraft, there
are a clear set of guidelines and regulations for what's safe
and what's not--and, by the way, NHTSA, FDA, FAA, they all care
about safety. I'm glad they do.
But the way the FAA works--Dean, you probably know DERs--
they have experts who are authorized----
Mr. Kamen. DER is designated engineering representative.
Dr. Kota. Designated engineering--yes. DER is for FAA. So
if you are a small business or a large business, they work with
you to make sure you are following the proper regulations so
you are not spending three years designing, building and going
and finding out that, oh, the FAA doesn't accept it.
These regulations are meant for the right reasons and also
they actually help accelerate innovation, if they do it right.
So on that note, if similar DERs we can have not only with
NHTSA but also with even FDA and others, too, I think that's a
very good practice.
Mr. Burgess. I'm going to suspend that question temporarily
and go back to Mr. Kennedy for 5 minutes for questions, please.
Mr. Kennedy. I'm happy to yield you another 3 minutes if
you want.
Mr. Burgess. Very well. We'll continue on the regulatory
environment going forward.
Dr. Jones.
Mr. Kennedy. I'd just like the record to reflect that he
said that regulation accelerates innovation. So there you go.
Mr. Burgess. I wish it could. I was asking the panel.
Dr. Jones. I can repeat it, if that's helpful.
I think that it is important to remember that, like Mr.
Kamen said, when we talk about robotics AI, we are talking
about technology. It's just a really broad term and so the
ethical issues with drones are not the same ethical issues as
with driverless cars.
So it would be very hard to sit down and say, How do we
solve all of the ethical problems with robotics with using the
same mechanism?
And so I think inevitably these technological advancements
occur within sectors.
Mr. Burgess. I will interrupt you just for a moment because
so many times at the Federal agency level it is putting the
square peg in a round hole. I mean, that's what they do.
Dr. Jones. So the FAA handling drones and the
transportation people handling driverless cars causes lots of
problems and I was at a Department of Homeland Security
roundtable, I guess you would call it, that was also sponsored
by NSF, and what it did was brought these people together and
we realized that, OK, a lot of these drone problems are not the
same problems as the driverless cars, and that's fine.
But there were some shared problems and there was some
policy innovation that was happening in the driverless car that
had not occurred in the drone area.
And so I think that there were huge benefits to bringing
everyone to the table, and I think that a great role for the
Federal Government is saying, you guys have to keep talking to
each other, you have to keep coming to the table. We don't want
redundancies that I think can occur across agencies.
And this was a two-day event where vocabulary was shared
that we realized we were talking over each other and using
different words for the same things. And so it was a great use
of time, and I think that a really simple what can we do--it
just continued to create these deliberative spaces.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Burnstein, either your thoughts or your
association's thoughts on the regulatory environment going
forward and its ability to facilitate or impede development.
Mr. Burnstein. Well, in preparation for this hearing, I
talked to some of our members about that, and they don't see
regulatory issues as a major problem in preventing them from
advancing robotics.
They did talk about some of the issues related to safety.
So our association developed the American National Robot Safety
Standard, and when you got to this area of collaborative
robots, right, so the OSHA inspectors knew about when the robot
was behind a fence how to treat that.
But now we have these collaborative robot installations
that are there, and it's different from region to region, and
it's also different from country to country.
And so our members are saying, look, we set up a safe
application here in the U.S., but then when we go to Canada we
got to deal with changing it to meet another safety regulation.
Is there some way that these international applications
that are safe in one country can be seen as safe in the others?
Is there something the Government can do on that?
But that's as far as it went in terms of the regulatory
discussion.
Mr. Burgess. Very well.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, 5
minutes for questions, please.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just keep it, if I can, to 30 seconds for each of you.
Given that the issues that you underscored in your testimony
and the questions, 30 seconds each.
What recommendations would you give to Congress as we try
to balance these issues and Incentivize the innovation going
forward? What should we be thinking about? What should we be
talking about, and what should we do and what shouldn't we do?
Thirty seconds. Dr. Kamen.
Mr. Kamen. If you wanted the answer related to regulation,
I think any rational person realizes well-established
regulations that allow people to interact consistently--there
would be no Internet.
Clearly, a regulatory environment can be hugely useful.
Unfortunately, the time it takes to get clarity and get some of
these regulations in place as technology is moving faster and
faster is making the time difference between when the thing is
possible to when the regulation has clarity is slowing things
down, and there is a natural incentive of business to move
faster and faster and there is a natural incentive of
regulators to be more and more conservative and concerned, and
that gap is getting so large that it's slowing down access to
medical miracles.
It's slowing down opportunities. So I would urge you to
find a way to make sure that all the regulators are highly
incentivized to do things quickly, even if it's incrementally,
to do it quickly and do it with certainty.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
Dr. Kota.
Dr. Kota. Again, sir, well said. I'd just add one more
point. Just going back to things like DER is what FAA does.
Let's find analogous components in other NHTSA and FDA and what
have you, from a regulation point of view.
One more thing I want to add is that the strategic and
coordinated investment by the Federal Government, not each
agency running in different directions, if you want true
innovation we need to connect the dots.
So the best ideas coming at a national science forum, from
NASA and the Department of Defense, you know, leveraging the
procurement capability of the Department of Defense.
So these are the things we can connect the dots and
accelerate innovation, including regulation. That's one
important thing I want to suggest.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
Dr. Jones.
Dr. Jones. I would suggest that the balance of pros and
cons is adjusted. I think that people are left out when
technology advances and often the policies that we put choose.
We just say, ``Here are the pros, here are the cons. The pros
outweigh the cons, and so we are making this choice.'' But
instead to embrace the cons as part of the policy solution
itself, and I think we've heard a lot about not just job
displacement today but also what do we do with the displaced.
That's all part, I think, of the same policy. Not a choice
to say, well, these factories have these benefits but to make
sure that people who don't design and don't have these
technologies are also part of the policy equation.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
Mr. Burnstein. I would say continue to support the National
Robotics Initiative. That has a major impact around the world
in drawing attention to the importance of robotics.
And in the U.S. I think that stimulated innovation. I think
that we need to continue establishing centers that get the
technology that's being developed in the U.S. into the hands of
small and medium-sized companies.
We have some mechanism in place now. I think we could do
more, and I think the training issue is very important. We have
to prepare the workforce for the jobs of the future and, as I
said, the jobs today.
The number-one challenge our members face: They can't fill
all the jobs that they have open today.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you.
Mr. Burgess. Gentleman yields back.
Seeing that there are no further Members wishing to ask
questions from this panel, I do want to thank our witnesses for
being here today. It's been a very good and lively discussion,
and I look forward to further discussions on this in the
future.
So, pursuant to committee rules, I will remind Members they
have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the
record, and I ask the witnesses to submit their response to
those questions within 10 business days upon receipt of the
questions.
Without objection, then, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]