The Straits Times newspaper reported on 18 Mar 2009 that the Japaneses had invented a robot receptionist ( see newspaper cutting).I had difficult in accepting such idea. When you visit a company, you are going to be welcomed and greeted by a robot. Where is the human touch going to be.
I already could not agree with automated telephone messages when I call some companies. I am not sure how the society will responses to such machine.
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Peh - One of the management gurus I appreciate best is the late Peter Drucker who predicted that the most pressing problem of the 21st century is unemployment. Look at the current situation, unemployment goes by the millions world-wide. To worsen this dire situation, companies further aggravate this problem by extensively using of automation and robots to cut cost. Just to quote one example to illustrate the seriousness of unemployment - the use of ATM. By using this automated bank teller, the bank is able to do away the human employee that greets you in the bank whether you deposit or withdrawing your cash. The bank further saves on CPF payment, medical or vacation leave, uniforms, salary, bonus and all other types of entitlement due to the employee, just by deploying an ATM machine in place of an employee. Just imagine the consequences of the widespread use of automation that will affect society if all companies only think of cost cutting. Do companies really care about 'human touch'?
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