Cars, computers and robots
Lateley, I've been thinking about the future. More specifially, which new industries will become important in the forseeable future? Some might say nanotech, quantum computing or artificial general intelligence (AGI). I agree all of those will be important eventually, but I think it will take some time. I’m more interested in the near future (but not next-year-near).
The 20th century saw the rise of a two industries that changed everything: automotive and computing. They have some properties in common:
Are there more industries that fit these criteria? Telephony come to mind. I don’t think airlines make the grade, long-distance transportation is not a universal need and airlines don’t shape our homes, streets and workplaces the way the others have. Television is an important consumer technology, but hasn’t affected business much.
Is there anything like automotive and computing on the horizon? I think there is: robots. Robots have the potential to be the “computer” of the physical world.
When could it happen? Usually, new inventions take 10-20 years to move from the lab to the store. Given the current kinetic capabilities of prototypes like Honda Asimo and Boston Dynamics Big Dog, and advances in prosthetics technology, I’d say robots will be mass-market products within that time frame. 20 years from now they will also be desperately needed. Within 10-20 years many rich countries will begin to feel the effects of low birth rates. Japan’s population is already shrinking now. In fact, most rich countries would have shrinking populations if they didn’t have immigration (the United States is an exception). In 20 years time nearly all baby-boomers will have retired but most will still be alive. The largest and wealthiest generation ever will have stopped producing but will still be consumers. And what will they buy? Health care and personal services, both personnel-intensive businesses. If economic growth in the developing countries continues to be higher than in rich countries migration to rich countries will probably slow down as there are more opportunities at home. So the rich countries will have a labor shortage. The stage will be set for personal robots.
But wouldn’t you have to solve “strong AI”/AGI to build a useful assistant? I don’t think so. We don’t expect to have a conversation about Shakespeare sonnets with our washing machine or Roomba. Turning knobs and pushing buttons is an acceptable user interface for specialized machines, that doesn’t have to change just because the robot is universal. Of course an assistant would have to solve much messier problems, like walking around in a cluttered home and being able to distinguish between clean and dirty socks, but if insects with tiny little brains can navigate and solve problems in the natural world we should be able to build machines with similar capabilities, especially if they get to cheat a little with tagged objects.
So robotics is not a bad career choice, but remember that when there’s a gold rush it’s not the miners who get rich, it’s the people selling shovels.
Lateley, I've been thinking about the future. More specifially, which new industries will become important in the forseeable future? Some might say nanotech, quantum computing or artificial general intelligence (AGI). I agree all of those will be important eventually, but I think it will take some time. I’m more interested in the near future (but not next-year-near).
The 20th century saw the rise of a two industries that changed everything: automotive and computing. They have some properties in common:
- They solve problems common to everyone: transportation and computation/information/communication (although most people didn’t realize they had a need for computation before they had a computer).
- Both were enabled by new underlying technologies; advances in mechanical engineering/taylorism/refineries and microprocessors/cheap lasers, respectively.
- Both have given rise to new professions and supporting industries.
- Both require a common infrastructure. Cars require roads, computers require the internet to be really useful.
- Both are in some sense universal. All cars can drive on all roads, if you can drive one car type you can drive any other, a car can transport anyone or anything that is small enough to fit inside. Any computer can run any program (via emulation, albeit slowly) as long as it has enough memory and appropriate I/O-devices.
- Both have affected both consumers and businesses profundly: they have changed everything.
Are there more industries that fit these criteria? Telephony come to mind. I don’t think airlines make the grade, long-distance transportation is not a universal need and airlines don’t shape our homes, streets and workplaces the way the others have. Television is an important consumer technology, but hasn’t affected business much.
Is there anything like automotive and computing on the horizon? I think there is: robots. Robots have the potential to be the “computer” of the physical world.
- The common problem: a personal assistant. A butler, if you like. Who doesn’t need at least one assistant, either at home or at work?
- New technologies: cheap sensors. Faster computers, of course.
- The common infrastructure might be a tagging system to make the physical world easier to navigate. Perhaps a use for RFID tags, a solution looking for a problem if there ever was one.
- What about universality? The physical world has such a vast range of scale, temperature, pressure, etc that a truly universal robot is hard to imagine. But almost all of us spend our time in human-made environments using tools made for humans. A universal robot in this context is a humanoid human-sized robot which can be programmed with new behaviors as needed.
- New profession: robot behavior designer is an obvious one, probably there will be many we can’t envisage yet.
- Ability to change everything: Universal robots productify services. Productification of services has been a theme since the industrial revolution, but with universal robots it will really take off. That will change everything.
When could it happen? Usually, new inventions take 10-20 years to move from the lab to the store. Given the current kinetic capabilities of prototypes like Honda Asimo and Boston Dynamics Big Dog, and advances in prosthetics technology, I’d say robots will be mass-market products within that time frame. 20 years from now they will also be desperately needed. Within 10-20 years many rich countries will begin to feel the effects of low birth rates. Japan’s population is already shrinking now. In fact, most rich countries would have shrinking populations if they didn’t have immigration (the United States is an exception). In 20 years time nearly all baby-boomers will have retired but most will still be alive. The largest and wealthiest generation ever will have stopped producing but will still be consumers. And what will they buy? Health care and personal services, both personnel-intensive businesses. If economic growth in the developing countries continues to be higher than in rich countries migration to rich countries will probably slow down as there are more opportunities at home. So the rich countries will have a labor shortage. The stage will be set for personal robots.
But wouldn’t you have to solve “strong AI”/AGI to build a useful assistant? I don’t think so. We don’t expect to have a conversation about Shakespeare sonnets with our washing machine or Roomba. Turning knobs and pushing buttons is an acceptable user interface for specialized machines, that doesn’t have to change just because the robot is universal. Of course an assistant would have to solve much messier problems, like walking around in a cluttered home and being able to distinguish between clean and dirty socks, but if insects with tiny little brains can navigate and solve problems in the natural world we should be able to build machines with similar capabilities, especially if they get to cheat a little with tagged objects.
So robotics is not a bad career choice, but remember that when there’s a gold rush it’s not the miners who get rich, it’s the people selling shovels.
posted by Jan Mattsson at 11:28 PM
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