James Wu is the founder and CEO of FJDynamics, a robotics company, which specialises in automating labour intensive industries such as agriculture and construction. He was previously chief scientist at DJI, the world leading manufacturer of consumer drones.
He argues that artificial general intelligence — where systems reach levels of capability similar to those of humans — and humanoid robots are still very far away. Instead there are more immediate gains to be made from advances in AI by focusing on “forgotten” sectors, such as agriculture, where big labour shortage problems threaten sustainability as the world’s population grows.
In this conversation with FT’s Asia Technology Correspondent Zijing Wu, he says the introduction of demand-specific, or specialised, robots can address these issues. He also talks about why blue-collar jobs are becoming more important in a world increasingly powered by AI, and how automation can help make them more attractive to the younger generation.