What can Robots really do? / Austereo
Every day there seems to be a new Robot doing something that we used to do ourselves, so this week Austereo’s Anthony Tilli and I chatted about the reality of what robots can and might do for us.
Aged care is a really great place to start and most of these are coming out of Japan, which has a growing elderly population, decreasing numbers of human aged care workers and a long time love affair with technology, which gives us robots that can wash hair, robots that monitor dementia patients and exoskeletons that human carers can wear to give them super strength and the ability to easily pick up and move patients around.
Police, army and rescue services have also picked up the pace with sniffer bomb robots and drones that can be sent into hazardous spaces and conditions amongst many other new pieces of tech and are also beginning to explore the use of artificial intelligence to predict issues and deploy people and resources accordingly.
As always a great chat, have a listen now (3 minutes 49 seconds) and then share the robot you’d most like to see invented.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What could robots actually do well in 2016, and how has that changed by 2026?
Robot capability in 2016 versus 2026: in 2016, robots excelled at: precise, repetitive physical tasks in controlled environments (automotive assembly, circuit board placement, warehouse picking of specific SKUs); dangerous environment operations (nuclear facility maintenance, deep sea inspection, bomb disposal); high-volume, low-variation manufacturing where the task is standardised; and increasingly, basic surgical assistance in structured, predictable surgical environments. By 2026, significant advances include: robot dexterity in unstructured environments has improved substantially, though still lags human capability in complex manipulation tasks; construction robotics has moved from laboratory demonstration to commercial deployment in specific tasks (bricklaying, concrete pouring, site surveying); agricultural robotics has achieved commercial scale in fruit picking, weeding, and precision spraying for some crop types; and humanoid robots have reached commercial deployment in specific warehouse and manufacturing contexts, though at a smaller scale and slower pace than the 2023-2024 humanoid robot hype suggested.
Q: What is the most reliable framework for thinking about which tasks robots will automate next?
The most reliable framework for robotics automation sequencing looks at: environmental control (tasks in fully controlled, predictable environments automate before tasks in variable environments — factory before construction site, warehouse before kitchen); task definition (tasks with complete, unambiguous specifications automate before tasks requiring contextual judgment — sorting by specific criteria before sorting by quality assessment); physical standardisation (objects with uniform dimensions, weights, and properties automate before objects with high variability — manufactured components before fresh produce); and feedback requirement (tasks where the success criterion is easily measurable automate before tasks where success requires subjective assessment). The tasks that remain hardest for robots are those combining high environmental variability, physical manipulation of irregular objects, and contextual judgment — which is a large proportion of the physical work that humans actually perform.
Q: What does the robotics trajectory reveal about the timeline and nature of automation’s impact on physical work?
The robotics impact on physical work reveals: the automation of physical work is proceeding sector by sector rather than uniformly, with automotive, electronics manufacturing, and e-commerce warehousing having automated significantly while healthcare, construction, agriculture, and food service have automated selectively; the displacement pattern is typically task-level rather than job-level in the near term — robots take over specific tasks within jobs (driving the forklift) while humans shift to the tasks that remain harder to automate (exception handling, quality judgment, interpersonal coordination); and the productivity gains from physical automation are real and significant, which creates the economic argument for continued investment that drives further automation. The timeline is not uniform, but the direction is clear.
Q: How can I book Morris Misel for a robotics, automation, and the future of work keynote?
Contact the team at morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
Every day there seems to be a new Robot doing something that we used to do ourselves, so this week Austereo’s Anthony Tilli and I chatted about the reality of what robots can and might do for us. Aged care is a really great place to start and most of these are coming out of [].
When signals like What can Robots really do emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.
The most important question is not whether What can Robots really do will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
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