Hi.

I'm Jan Lindholm and I am the host of.

Oops.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

No.

Excuse me.

I'm just sorry.

No wrong way.

Nope.

I'm trying it.

Sorry.

Excuse me.

Did that shelf just talk to me?

And is it playing the But Why theme music?

Let's talk about robots.

Are robots alive?

I'm at one of the manufacturing facilities for GlobalFoundries, a worldwide company that makes semiconductors: microchips for things like cell phones, cars and even satellites orbiting space.

At GlobalFoundries there are a lot of robots.

And I'm here with Adrien, who's an engineer at GlobalFoundries, to learn more about what they do.

So what do robots do here?

Robots do a little bit of everything as part of either our manufacturing process or helping us keep safe at this facility.

How many robots do you have?

We have maybe not a thousand, but close to it.

Wow, that's a lot.

Are robots are alive.

I don't know that robots are really alive, but it feels like some of them do have a personality of their own.

Adrien is that a dog?

That is a dog robot.

A dog robot?

What's its name?

His name is Spot.

What does Spot the robot dog do?

So Spot works very hard for us at Fab 9.

One of the things that Spot likes to do is walk around and take pictures for us.

So instead of me having to go around and take pictures of that equipment or inspect it, I have Spot do it for me.

Why does Spot need to take pictures?

So it helps us make sure our equipment's running properly.

If equipment's getting too hot or too cold, it's probably not running as efficiently as possible.

So robots are not alive, but they can do tasks that help humans.

Absolutely.

Just like your Roomba.

So we may not have robots that can actually think and feel on their own, but they certainly are capable of helping humans do jobs that might not be safe for them or make the jobs of humans more efficient.

Thanks Spot and thanks Adrien.

Of course.

To find out more about But Why and listen to our full episodes go to butwhykids.org