Robot Risk

Robotics have been around for decades. What’s changing now?

The potential with robotics is mind-boggling. Robotics is being used in healthcare for surgical applications. There’s an origami robot that’s being developed that, after being swallowed in an ingestible pill, unfolds itself inside the body and can be moved around. It’s been tested to remove small items like button batteries. In the auto industry, robots have been welding and moving parts with precision, which has advanced the industry. Robotics are being tested for self-driving trucks. Then, there are drones. There could be more than a million commercial drones operating in the United States soon, and that brings a lot of risk.

Are there emerging risks for robots working more closely with humans?

That’s a unique angle. Now, you have workers interacting with machines that sometimes think on their own—robots that are programmed to make decisions. The interaction of the two requires a lot of precision. The worker has to know what the robot is programmed to do and what it is designed to do. It’s like having a duo doing a job and they have to get in sync with each other.

How does robotics change the risks for manufacturers and service industries?

As you look at this, you see the potential for product liability and general liability where design problems or software glitches cause the robot to malfunction and hurt someone. That brings up a red flag on how to better ensure that the software has been critically analyzed so that if there is a problem it won’t cause damage or injury. If you have a smart machine that has been told what to do, that decision tree has to be correct. The software has to be flawless. If not, you have to design the robot to shut down so that, if it fails, it fails safely.

Looking ahead, what are the risk management considerations?

When you’re trying to analyze a company’s risk, you’re not just thinking about today, but about tomorrow. If the business strategy is going to involve robots, it’s incumbent on the risk team and their brokers to think that through.

With medicine, if you’re using robotics to do surgery, that could involve malpractice lawsuits. If a robot makes an error in welding an auto part and the car crashes, there’s the potential for death or injury. If you have very sophisticated robotics in a manufacturing center and you have a hurricane, your very expensive robots may no longer be operating. You’d want to anticipate that business interruption risk. There’s probably a significant risk in patents and trade secrets, for instance an innovative way of doing surgery or using drones. If you have a robot in any industry, there will be risk ramifications.