Issue The Responsible Robot

Summary

The Responsible Robot imagines sustainable development placed at the centre of robotics. Robotics strategies and research would be directed at sustainable agriculture, construction, disaster relief and healthcare, in line with the global Sustainable Development Goals. Advances in materials science, battery life and machine learning are converging to make robots closely tied to development progress, and 542,000 industrial robots were installed in 2024, double the number a decade earlier, with 700,000 expected by 2028. Robotics may help achieve up to 46% of the SDG targets, which address problems such as food security and resilient infrastructure. Affordable platforms could offer scalable solutions to goals once seen as daunting, but if robots stay unaffordable for the countries that need them most, existing gaps could widen instead.