Comment by ben_w

> Assuming an average of 1kW of compute needed per robot

1kW would be hell on the battery, and at the same time make the robot a space heater even while standing still which in turn creates new problems if you want to replace all labour with them.

Further, to my point about moving the compute out of the machine and mains-powering them, the current global electricity supply and demand is about 350W/person. We're currently already using all of that, including for industrial purposes.

To see the effect of demand exceeding supply, observe that the data centres were starting to cause local problems with only 4-5% of the USA's national power use.

Even if the current literally-exponential growth of each of PV and wind continues, it doesn't change my timelines: even with 31% per year compounding growth for PV, and given what we're doing with it already even without androids, it takes a sufficiently long time to build out sufficient electricity for androids that we're not likely to have enough spare electricity to run an economically relevant number of them (say, equivalent to 10% of the current labour force) before we improve both the compute hardware and the algorithmic efficiency of the software running on it.