In 10 years, we might live and work alongside more robots than people on Earth.
And today, I already found myself dancing with one. 🤣🤖
The numbers around robotics are huge.
In factories alone, there were around 4.66 million industrial robots operating worldwide in 2024 — 9% more than the year before.
For this special afternoon, we came together in the podcast studio built by Richard Van Tilborg, inside the KNVB Innovation Lab.
I joined PODCAST FRANNEMAR with Annemieke Hebenaar, Frank Karsten and Marja Olff, together with Remco Koemans.
We talked about AI, adoption, robots and, most importantly:
people.
Because I don’t think the real question is whether robots will play a bigger role in our lives.
They already are.
The real question is:
What are we going to do with them?
Take healthcare, for example.
Robots could increasingly help with logistics, monitoring, everyday tasks and physically demanding or repetitive work.
Not to replace the people working in healthcare.
But to give them more time to actually be human.
And even though I make my living with AI, I’ll be honest: I don’t really have a connection with robots myself.
I’m much more drawn to real people. ❤️
That’s exactly why I find this development so fascinating.
Because once robots start moving independently through hospitals, businesses and public spaces, a new question emerges:
How do you know which robot you can trust?
That’s exactly what Remco Koemans is working on with Stormcatch Robot Authorization.
Stormcatch gives robots, drones and other autonomous machines a digital identity and makes them controllable.
Think of it as a kind of digital passport and black box for machines.
Because the more autonomous machines become, the more important trust becomes.
Marja, Frank, Annemieke, Remco and Richard: thank you so much for this special afternoon.
And if this is going to be my future colleague, we clearly still need to spend some time practicing on the dance floor. 🤣
What do you think: will robots make us less human, or will they actually give us more time to be human?
