Hi and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah, and in this episode we talk about automation as it impacts the way humans work now and how it will transform the work of the future, beginning on the factory floor with everything from co-bots to AI.

Joining us are Prasada Kela, founder and CEO of Drishti, Paul Doherty, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of Accenture, an author of the recently published book, Human and Machine,

reimagining work in the Age of AI,

and A16Z operating partner Frank Chen.

What has changed on that factory floor from Henry Ford to today?

What kinds of new information is available and what new needs?

What are the core organizational and technical habits

of an ML AI-centric company of the

future? We're here to talk today about how AI machine learning is changing our workplaces and

beginning on the factory floor. Prasad, this isn't the first time you've tried to automate the

activity on the factory floor. Talk a little bit about your history with this field.

94, I land up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Occupational Health and Safety Agency is threatening

General Motors with a big fat fine because they weren't taking enough care of worker health

on the line. Now, if you pick up something as simple as a battery, one a minute, eight

hours a day, I promise you you will come home ridiculously sore. And try and pick up a 150-pound

cockpit, fully built cockpit that's coming off from some supplier, and try to get it through

the door opening. And it's famously called the piano mover's problem, where you're coordinating six degrees of freedom trying to make it through the door opening. And it's famously called the piano-moor's problem.

Where you're coordinating six degrees of freedom

trying to make it through a narrow opening.

And it's even worse.

So the question on the table was,

can we take robotic technology

...