Ask HN: When might we not have to do laundry or fold clothes or cook (news.ycombinator.com)
At this point it feels like in the next decade or two, we might have superintelligence and robots doing most of my work. My question is a bit funny but how soon do you guys estimate robots that do your work become common even in second-world countries?
A few years ago, I saw a talk that made a point about how prosthetics that mimic original human body parts are often designed from an able-bodied point of view. They look inoffensive and are designed for the wearer to blend into what's considered normal.
However, these prosthetics frequently are not all that useful. Once one starts to rethink from first principles in terms of function and efficiency rather than aesthetics this opens up an entirely new space of solutions that might be much more efficient than the original "solutions" they replace - the most famous example probably being Oscar Pistorius' running blades.
The same applies to digital transformation - and by extension AI and robotics. We don't need faster horses. We need to rethink and replace existing processes entirely.
I expect robots in unexpected, previously unautomated areas. I don't expect them to look humanoid other than the ones that will look exceptionally humanoid perhaps changing form from time to time.
I'd wish we could have robots helping us to produce bionanotextiles4.0 that make folding/ironing optional or obsolete, or microwaves that turn some gunk mix of element in the periodic table an turn them into a salad or a stake, rather than getting a remote controlled clanker harvesting every fart of data I produce.
We urgently need an answer to that question before it happens. The Elon suggestion is so laughable as to be unworthy of an answer.
I’m not a roboticist but I get the core concepts and challenges (and I’ve been in the room with leaders in the space). And I know a bit about LLMs and the current state of AI systems.
the human-form robots out of China unlocking motion based on copying human motion indicate that generally useful human labor replacement robots should be on the market within five years (probably at a starting price of $40k) and really good within ten. (And market forces might drive the price to $20k in today’s dollars)
And given how long it takes to invent, validate and adopt new economic systems we need to predict the failure mode of what happens when 5 rich dudes own all work and everyone else is homeless and hungry (hint the French Revolution was a mini study on what happens when the top gets too heavy and the bottom stops having it)
Like I said, you don’t want this. Nobody wants this. Hopefully some smart billionaires figure that out and solve it soon enough to save their own skins. (Along with everyone else)