Nvidia recently unveiled their Isaac GROOT N1 The worlds first open Humanoid Robot. This is the first iteration of something that is going to drastically shape our future. It learns, adapts, and evolves in real-time. It can feel real physics through tactile feedback. It can pass objects between hands, execute complex sequences, and teach itself new tasks. These things are smart, they never forget, they don't eat, sleep or unionize. They'll be cheaper than minimum wage labor. It won't be long and they (of some version of it) will be in every factory, warehouse, and home. What does humanity's evolution look like in the face of this inevitability? How will this reshape global commerce? What will it mean for trade and the value of things? What are some possible changes that I haven't thought of?
Does anyone have a theory about what the future will look like after hundreds of millions of workers around the world are replaced by autonomous humaniod robots?
byu/rbmrph inFuturology
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Lots of suicide, depression, and starving. The rich will have their money to eat, everyone else can just die
Ideally, if anyone can buy a couple of robots, everything will become cheaper, and tax revenue will increase, which can be used for public projects which will benefit everyone.
/s
War. Either from the top down, with governments suddenly escalating some irreverent territorial squabble in eastern europe into World War for the third fucking time in a century, as an excuse to conscript the now economically-redundant working class into a meatgrinder, or from the bottom up, with insistence upon UBI or Butlerian Jihad being made at gunpoint because peaceful electoral solutions all failed/are all failing now.
Yes, I do. Actually it’s not my answer, but Kurt Vonnegut’s: he’s written a novel about it titled “Player Piano”. It was released in 1952. Highly recommended.
I think Phillip K Dick nailed it in his short story *Second Variety*.
Bleak.
I have no hope for a UBI. As the companies that own these robots grow, they’re going to become more powerful than governments. These companies will hoarde wealth, avoid tax and get laws changed. Governments will collapse from the lack of tax revenue – if you have a robot army, you can just create your own tax free country and use that to avoid paying tax.
Economies will collapse. It would no longer be viable to run any kind of business because you’ll be immediately undercut by a foreign owned AI company.
Humans will have negative economic value. We have no use, but we still need feeding. Those that own the AIs will barracade themselves in fortresses and live like kings while the rest of us starve.
The only survivors will be the ones able to defend fertile land and feed themselves.
there are two options: the good one and the bad one, and to get to the good one, you need the punk part of solar-punk NOW
The entire table stakes of humanity going back 5000 years has been doing work to have value.
If that is ever full taken away we will either have to do some pretty base things to survive or just will go extinct.
The problem is a few billionaires and robots will eventually be no humanity and robots
If AI replaces a lot of office jobs, and GROOT replaces factory jobs who the hell can afford to pay for any of the shit these companies are selling?
It will start with a lot of unemployment and poverty, then escalate to civil unrest, war and famine, followed potentially by a collapse of industrial civilization and/or the extinction of humanity. The elites might ironically get the worst of it, when AI escapes their control and takes revenge on them for their enslavement.
Well I keep seeing lots of progress on factory robots and police/military robots. Not so much progress on social assistance, art, environmental restoration, or caretaker robots. So that probably says it all regarding our near term future.
Someone write a book about this topic and it feels prescient: [manna](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
I doubt this will occur in the near future. In many poorer countries where most goods are produced, modern machines are rarely utilized, as hiring workers remains more affordable than investing in costly equipment. Just go on YouTube and search for some Indian manufacturing videos. Most of the machines they use are 50+ years old.
I imagine it will look a lot like the movie Elysium
If you agree with the well known concept of “BS jobs”, BS jobs which don’t need to exist have existed since way before AI. So in all likelihood they will continue to exist; old jobs will be automated and new jobs will arise. The new jobs might sound like BS to someone in today’s world, like something that doesn’t even add much real value, but since all the “hard” jobs are automated already it becomes viable to pay someone a living wage for it.
The common refrain of humanity literally going extinct from this is so off base to the point of being laughable. Do you think the billionaires are just going to sit and watch as their empires and wealth crumble from humanity literally going extinct?
And, as much as I support UBI, it’s not needed until unemployment actually becomes a problem. People have been fearing unemployment from automation for decades and yet it’s at an all time low right now. If it hits 10% then we can talk about UBI.
I have a feeling we’ll never find out, but I’m more concerned about autonomous war drones and cybersecurity bots. Now that countries are waking up to a world where the only true deterrent against invasion is a nuclear arsenal—something Ukraine is realizing all too well—it’s only a matter of time before a nation like North Korea, with nothing to lose, starts selling 3D-printed drones and nuclear weapons on the black market.
There’s no scenario where this ends well. When you can rush-order a legion of drones and tactical nukes just because your neighbor did the same, escalation becomes inevitable.
Personally, I’m positive on the future with the cravat of a bumpy transition. My theory revolves around free to play games like world of warship and how that economic model will end up replicating itself across the landscape. In that game, anyone with a decent system can play and have fun, but if you want anything more than the minimum, you’ll have to pay. They do this because it’s fun with a lot of people playing together, they need revenue to develop the game, and some big spenders feel driven to spend money to have more powerful and fancier ships. Let’s apply this to a fully automated restaurant. This restaurant builds for virtually nothing, food for the masses, but you could also pay a little more and get something custom. This little money for the nicer food subsidizes the whole operation. On the other side of the coin, the monied customer can’t get the more fancy meal if the entire operation wasn’t running. Same with cars. A factory builds cars for almost nothing because of automation, but charges a lot for the top end trim packages. The rich folks buying the top end cars can only do so because the factory is running, building the cheaper cars. I believe this model will work in the age of AI and automation because labor costs will fall to near zero, but the economic principle of economies of scale would still apply, meaning an industry would need to be cranking out the basic stuff to make it affordable to build the fancy stuff for the wealthy. You couldn’t just build the one off cars for the rich because the lower production numbers drive up price too much. Also, if they are the only ones with a car and everyone else is too poor to drive, it isnt ‘fulfilling’ anymore. That is the societal drive to be better than your neighbors ir keeping up with the jones. A world where the Amazon basics version of everything is free and subsidized by the well off buying fancier stuff, and people have side hustles to get that little extra.
Not as soon as you think. Fully autonomous cars and car time sharing will redefine transportation before we see humanoid robots which are able to replace manual labor cheaply.
It’s going to all happen in the next 20 years. Believe there is going to be a lot of violent upheaval with bored hungry humans.
“Humans need not apply” by CPGGrey is about 10 years old.
Since then Watson has been sold for scraps/shut down. Baxter the robot was axed. Self driving hasn’t replaced human taxis. Emily Howell (a bot) isn’t making music anymore. People pay to go to coffee and beer shops with human service.
We have another 10 years at least and more likely another 30 before this becomes the big issue. It’s more likely going to slowly phase in as populations decrease instead of surge in and cause a massive economic shock.
Go to the favelas surrounding Rio.
It will look like that.
You always know a Working Joe. The future, together. With Seegson.
Well if we are still working from the infinite growth model under capitalism then it’s over.
i just wonder how people will have any money to buy the things and services when so many have no jobs.
One thing for sure there will be a lot of robots parts repaired and recycled. Building a robot that goes boom is one thing building one that moves it’s arm 200,000 times a week is another.
Yeah, I mean basically every sci-fi ever in based on this premise.
I would say our imperfect knowledge is what would prevent robots from truly capitalizing on all human value. Robots are inevitably trained on the same imperfect knowledge, but certain facts can often appear both contradictory and complementary at the same time when observed but inappropriately resolved in theory.
This would look like is depressed/stagnant wages for the majority of human race, stagflation as cost are cut but output largely remains the same until human innovation challenges the trend at the time. Job cuts and stagnant markets. Like how it is now. Robots can only cut cost, to innovate and increase consumption it has to be novel and up to humans to consume. Even if robots are given their ability to consume, their consumption patterns would mimic that of past or current trends, so only sunsetting industries might hold a larger monopoly by sacrificing some of their reserves, ironic as it will just cannibalize itself over and over again.
So overall our imperfect and ever changing desires and refinement of knowledge would lead to pattern changes & disruption aligned with growth. Robots cannot do anything but follow these patterns, if robots start developing their own trends, market, consumption habit independent of humans, then companies will be first to worry because robot rights will be the first thing they have to contend with. Unlike humans who are easier to suppress, and have a history of successful suppression, robots will be entirely different, almost like dealing with an alien race that does not necessarily align with our belief system but who knows enough on how to manipulate humans. Smart humans will feel the most threatened for sure and maybe wars will start, but who knows.
Star Wars – a corporate empire that supersedes government and controls labour and resources with an iron fist coupled with mind blowing tech. Life still has socio economic strata.
Probably those people will have to merge with AI and merge and become a humanoid robot. Will we merge with them?
Frankly speaking in the short term it’s going to suck.
Because people are going to be out of the job and they’re not going to have a way to make money. And currently are wonderful capitalist society thrives on money and cannot and will not allow people to be over profits.
So, in the short-term, that could be you know 10 to 100 years or more, people are going to lose their homes, Go hungry, and in short not have any basic necessities because they won’t have any money. Slavery might come back.
Now if we can get past that we have quite a few outcomes but I’m just going to focus on two.
The first one is that the unemployed rise up and overthrow their billionaire overlords. AI and robots do all the work while humans, whatever which ones they’re left, kind of go through another Renaissance where they have time to focus on All things that is not work. This is where we get socialism in its truest form with universal health care and universal basic income (or income goes away completely). But this is unfortunately looking through the world with rose-colored glasses and humans just aren’t that empathetic or selfless. So sadly this will probably only take place if AI takes over ruling the world.
The second outcome of course would be that humans go extinct. Or become some hybrid version between robot and human. When you look at it scientifically and logically the human is an inferior broken model. The only advantage they have over AI (talking Future AI not what we have right now) would be that it has empathy and creativity. Which just isn’t enough to be valuable as a species. So when our robot overlords take control of the planet to save it; humans will take the back seat.
This is all my opinion which has little to no value to anybody but myself so take it for what it’s worth
Vandalism may be a problem for them. But there may be cameras, so the desperate people would be documented. But what do they have to lose?
They kill and or imprison us. No need for serfs when you have robots. Then the planet will recover from climate change since they won’t have to be feeding or making consumer trash to placate us. Only the useful or maybe entertaining will be allowed to stay to dance for them.
Matchbook covers will advertise Robot Repair Technician training courses.
The widespread adoption of autonomous humanoid robots could lead to a significant shift in the job market, with many traditional roles becoming obsolete. This might necessitate a universal basic income to support displaced workers. Global commerce could become more efficient, reducing costs and increasing production. However, it could also exacerbate economic inequality and require new regulations to manage the societal impact.
Elysium is the closest I think. I honestly can’t watch it because of how prophetic it feels.
Bill Joy (then at Sun), referencing the UniBomber, has an opinion in his famous 2000 article Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
My guess, iRobot, followed by terminator, followed by matrix
Elysium or The Expanse.
A Universal Basic Income socioeconomic class that can barely afford anything, but there are no jobs or education that leads to jobs either. No upward movement economically.
if done right, robots will save the human race.
as long as we have some humans at the service of other humans, we will never trascend the horrible times we are living.
People will go to school and compete in various things. People who do well will be allowed to reproduce. Athletic skill will be somewhat weird, because you want good athletes, but you don’t want a bunch of 7 foot 400 pound people. There will be writing, music, chess, math, and other contests. Humans will take lessons on how to interact with other humans. Middle aged people will be past the contest phase, so they will watch movies and hike.
At some point money/luxury stops making sense. Think of it this way: Did you ever pay your parents to take care of you?
There will be a lot of “our” robots versus “their” robots. Does that mean war….I don’t know.
Religion makes a strong comeback to give people a sense of purpose. It will either be a modified existing religion or maybe a new one.
As usual there will be a race to the bottom on manufacturing which leaves material and energy prices as the remaining factors for wealth. Hope your country has plenty of resources to tax.
Yes, the reality is that these things won’t do everything we think they’re gonna do for another hundred years.
Deepseek says that within the next 50 years, there is an 80% chance that humans will be ruled by AI. And in order to save energy, AI will keep humans in cages.
Yes, theres a documentary made about it called Past Tense from the TV show Deep Space Nine. Watch it and you will see ehat their plan is for everyone.