A big and often unremarked upon aspect of being a reporter is knowing your audience. It’s not always as straightforward as it sounds — particularly when writing about tech. You’re always walking that tightrope between over- and under-explaining. Assuming too much knowledge makes text impenetrable for the non-expert, but getting caught up the finer details is recipe for condescension. On Friday, I asked LinkedIn to air their annoyances about mainstream robotics coverage (i.e., big publications that don’t specialize in the topic or even technology more broadly). For me, the headline “The Robots Are Coming” has been a minor source of annoyance that seems to crop up at least once a week. Other people’s responses are more or less what I was anticipating: robopocalypse/killer robots, a lack of historical context, too much focus on gimmicks and flashy form factors like humanoid robots. That’s all fair and certainly feedback I will apply to my own work going forward. “Robopocalypse” is a term I dropped from my vocab a while back, aside from references to the internet’s knee-jerk reaction to any new robot. Another thing that cropped up in people’s complaints is the job conversation. As with robopocalypse headlines, I absolutely agree that things trend toward the sensationalistic. The “Robots Are Coming” is often amended to include “For Your Job.” It runs parallel to the “AI is taking your job” talking point. As a general rule, the AI conversation focuses on white-collar jobs and the robots on blue. It’s not one to one, but that’s largely how these things go: a robot in the factory, an AI in the office.
Full feature : Should the US implement a ‘robot tax?’
