Chinese robot co-workers on the rise. Say hello to AI cobots

While China’s humanoid robots and automated “dark factories” have made headlines, another form of automation has been advancing: the collaborative robot, or cobot. Designed to operate alongside human employees, cobots have been transformed by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). The latest models feature programming which requires no coding knowledge; instead they respond to natural-language voice commands, gesture controls and drag-to-teach demonstrations of tasks. They are also...