More women, More robots, less jobs

To curb the spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19, robots have been mobilised in China and parts of the U.S. to perform tasks that will reduce human contact with people already infected with the virus and inform the public about preventive measures to take to avoid getting infected.⁣⁣

At the Circolo Hospital of Varese in Lombardy, Italy, robots are replacing doctors and nurses for some duties in the fight against the coronavirus. They enable remote monitoring thanks to their cameras, which means that medical staff do not have to physically be in the room, limiting the use of protective equipment and saving precious time. from the hospital in Varese.

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Robots stand in for graduating students to receive diploma and medals at a primary school in the Philippines as the coronavirus pandemic prohibits mass gathering. Graduation speeches and congratulatory messages were also relayed through recorded videos in the school's first-ever 'cyber-graduation'.

Boston Dynamics "Spot" and Softbank Robotics "Pepper" robots collaboratively dance to cheer for the Japanese baseball team Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks before their Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) game against Rakuten Eagles as no spectators are allowed in the stadium due to COVID-19. Up to 5,000 fans will be allowed to attend baseball games from July 10.

Indonesia's Diponegoro University holds its graduation ceremony without its flesh-and-blood graduates, with robots receiving diplomas from the rector's hands in the students' stead. The 2,500 graduates were only allowed to watch the formalities via live broadcast due to pandemic social distancing, but they were represented by the top three students in each faculty -- who had their faces displayed on-screen as the robots took the stage.

Human Rights Watch has released a report saying that a growing number of countries have shown a desire for a new international treaty against fully autonomous weapons. It says 30 countries explicitly seek a ban.

E-commerce giant Alibaba's robotic logistics network, inaugurated in 2018, with claims of being the China's largest robot intelligent warehouse, has some 1000 robots sorting delivery packages ahead of the annual Singles Day, the world's biggest shopping day. Singles' Day, also called "11.11" for the November 11 date, was originally set as an unofficial day for unmarried Chinese. But Alibaba -- which accounts for more than half of China's e-commerce -- commandeered it as a discount sales event akin to the late-November US "Black Friday", which "Singles' Day" now handily surpasses.

The Austrian government is calling for a system of international ethics on the use of killer robots and drones in combat. Vienna says it wants humans, and not algorithms, to decide on matters of life and death.

In the northern Chinese city of Shenyang, robotic arms, built to collect samples quickly while lowering the risk of cross-infection between people, were used as part of a campaign to suppress a rise in coronavirus cases in the surrounding province.

A Hong Kong professor has developed a programme using role-playing robots to help children with autism improve their social skills, an initiative that has been adopted by other non-profit groups and schools.

A United Nations panel in Geneva remains split on whether to ban autonomous weapons, which don't need a human to pull the trigger. The war in Ukraine is complicating the conversation.