Robot economics
Open-knowledge reference entry
Robot economics is the study of the market for robots. Robot markets function through the interaction of robot makers and robot users. As (in part) a factor of production, robots are complements and/or substitutes for other factors, such as labor and (non-robot) capital goods. Another part of robot economics considers the effects of the introduction of robots on the markets for those other factors and on the products that robots help produce.
Robots are spreading throughout the economy, in fields such as agriculture, medicine and retail.
Markets
Agriculture
The use of robots in agriculture began with automated milking systems. More recently, agricultural robots have begun to be used in harvesting, pruning, seeding, spraying and materials handling.
Medicine
Medical robots can be categorized in five segments: surgery, rehabilitation, non-invasive radiosurgery, hospital and pharmacy and others. Robot-assisted surgery can improve accuracy. However, medical robots can increase costs.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robot economics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.