Comment by reticulates
18 hours ago
this is tech fart sniffing self-aggrandization. You’re saying words that mean nothing. Tens of billions of robots? To do what, exactly? Have you ever interacted with people, not nerds, real human people? Real people don’t crave a future filled with robots, real people want real people.
The world will be filled with robots is not the inspired forward-thinking of a visionary it is the uninspired regurgitated science fiction of someone who doesn’t care to understand that the world is people, a society.
There's nothing that is going to stop the AI-robot saturated future from arriving. It doesn't matter if you dislike it.
China will have many billions of robots just in their industrial efforts alone. Every house and every apartment in China will saturate with robots of various usefulness. That single market will be at least 10+ billion in scale.
There will be a billion robots for just the delivery and transport categories globally. We're going to peak at at least 10 billion humans (population), a billion robots for delivery & transport segments is easy.
In the toy category there will eventually be far in excess of a billion robots. They will seem quite advanced compared to what we presently are used to in that category. The Microduck is a primitive example of what will be a large industry around smart entertaining toys. Your artificial friends will be able to 'hop into' (take control of) your Microduck (whatever the 2035-2050 equivalent is) and cruise around the house or wherever you're at. Entertainment will continue to be a gigantic industry and that will obviously apply to AI + life. We haven't even begun down the road of AI + entertainment, it's less than early there.
Every household in the world will eventually have numerous robots, from primitive robots (including single purpose and toys), to advanced humanoid robots. It won't take longer than 2050-2060 to push $10k-$20k humanoid robots into middle class or upper middle class homes. China will put enormous pressure on the cost of those robots, and they'll mass sell them to the bottom 4/5 of the world in terms of household incomes (that is, they'll come up from the floor on price and take most of the market, while some companies in affluent nations will produce more expensive high-end humanoid bots, ala what Tesla is attempting).
Tens of billions of robots globally is easy. 200-300 billion artificial friends is also an easy prediction. Social junkies will have 50-100 artificial friends that they try to tend to. It'll largely replace platforms like Facebook, the utility that served for the average person. Humans will get a lot more isolated from each other and as that occurs they'll fill in the void.
I am a nerd on Hacker News. My preference for technology and robots is obvious and an assumption that my disagreement with you is based on personal preference is brainless.
I have spent time in China and Korea where attitudes towards artificial intelligence are much more positive than the west. I have interacted with robots in these countries.
You are making the fundamental mistake all nerds make. You’re thinking about what is possible and concluding that it is what will happen. Just as nerds believe that someday it will be possible for us to live on mars and therefore we are going to live on mars.
Humans are humans. Humans are interacting with artificial intelligence as if it is human because they crave human contact and are so desperate they settle for the best they can get.
The houses filled with robots future goes hand in hand with the robots will be doing all our work future. And if robots are doing all our work, what do humans have? Time. So much time. Humans become creatures of leisure. No longer is there a too little time to build relationships, there is only time, so much time. Human relationships become abundant, humans spend all their time being human.
The idea that people will have 50-100 artificial friends is so batshit crazy that I could totally believe your comment is parody.
If real people want real people, then why is everyone at the coffee shop, on the train, at parties, and even at the dinner table all looking at their phones? Not all the time, but way too much of the time, imo.
> at parties, and even at the dinner table all looking at their phones
This is very different from what I see.
At coffee shops and on trains, sure, people are working or on their phones. But at dinner and parties, at bars and climbing gym and dances, we're there to be there with each other.
Maybe a cultural difference between where you are and where I am?
But then again, they are mostly looking at images and videos of other people, right?
Because using internet is an addiction.