Submission + - The Growing Need For Human Robot-Minders Could Juice the Remote Workforce (wsj.com)
Companies working with remote-controlled robots know there are risks, and try to mitigate themin a few ways. Some choose only to operate slow-moving machines in simple environments—as in Postmates’s sidewalk delivery—so that even the worst disaster isn’t all that bad. More advanced systems require “human supervisory control,” where the robot or vehicle’s onboard AI does the basic piloting but the human gives the machine navigational instructions and other feedback. Prof. Cummings says this technique is safer than actual remote operation, since safety isn’t dependent on a perfect wireless connection or a perfectly alert human operator. For every company currently working on self-driving cars, almost every state mandates they must either have a safety driver present in the vehicle or be able to control it from afar. Guidelines from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggest the same. Phantom Auto is betting the shift to remote operation might become an important means of employment for people who used to drive for a living.