"iPhone Moment" Coming for Robots
The iPhone moment is fast approaching for robots.
So says Zerohege in a new article how robots are the next "deployment vector” for Artificial Intelligence, with hardware advances meaning we could be just 2 to 3 years from mass adoption of robots.
Are we about to be replaced by robots who can fold laundry better than we ever dreamed.
And maybe do our job better than our boss ever dreamed.
The Robots are Coming
Elon seems to think so; last week he said part of stepping back from politics is to focus on robots as the next big thing for Tesla.
Indeed, for the world; a new Morgan Stanley report estimates the market for humanoid robots could hit 1 billion robots by 2050.
Elon thinks it's much bigger, ultimately 3 to 5 robots per human — closer to 20 to 30 billion.
This implies a market on the order of $5 trillion plus per year-- bigger than the global automobile market.
Now, Morgan Stanley thinks we've got about a decade before the rise of the robots.
Elon thinks it's coming much faster, with at least 50,000 Optimus robots rolling out by next year.
You can find videos of Tesla's Optimus robot, the dramatic improvements by the month. Same for Boston Dynamics robot dogs that looks positively science fictiony.
What Happens When the Robots Take Over
So what happens when the robots take over?
On the home front, it's all good: They'll mow the lawn, walk the dog, fix the leaky faucet. And, yes, fold the laundry.
For the average American, housework that could be automated consumes around 4 hours per week. Implying almost a half-day per week freed up — almost a long weekend.
Robots will be expensive at first — a plaything for the rich.
Then, like all new inventions, get cheap fast to where we're probably looking at 10 to 20 thousand. Comparable to buying an expensive gaming computer. Or a cheap second car.
So a lot of people will have them.
As for jobs, it's more complicated.
A lot of jobs can be done better by robots — estimates vary between 10% to 30%. Especially when labor regulations and minimum wages price out humans.
On the other hand, automation has a thousand-year track record of making us richer, whether it's horses pulling plows or bulldozer versus shovel.
Because every wave of automation is like stepping down on an escalator -- your old job is replaced, but the automation itself makes the new jobs pay even more.
High-automation Japan, for example, is a lot richer than low-automation Congo. And the idea of making a living as an “influencer” or mukbang sounded absurd a century ago.
There's a classic economic metaphor for this from the 1800's, Frederic Bastiat's Candlemaker's Petition, where he highlights the job-killing power of the sun. As in, if we force people to work at night and close the shutters during the day, think how many candlemaker jobs we'd save.
Instead, of course, we just enjoy the giant robot candle in the sky and find other jobs to do.
So, too, with automation, whether it's Ai alone or Ai paired with robots.
What’s Next
The key for public policy is it has to be really easy to create new jobs to replace the old. Get rid of the red tape, the licensing and regulations -- heck, get rid of the taxes.
After all, both Hong Kong and Detroit lost their entire manufacturing sector. Hong Kong got richer because it was easy to create jobs. Detroit never recovered.
The robot revolution, like the AI revolution, will deliver incredible growth -- probably surpassing the automobile (robots) and the internet (AI) in terms of prosperity.
And both will deliver hyperventilating predictions of catastrophe.
Just last week the brilliant Marc Andreessen warned robots could "break" the economy by making everything too cheap.
That's not how it works -- the industrial revolution made everything too cheap, which rescued humanity from the long night.
Still, smart public policy -- as in stay out of the way -- is required. Or the techno-utopia could turn into a jobless nightmare.
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Still waiting for the flying cars. Can I rent a couple robots to paint my home?
Plumbers will always be safe. Very few situations are alike. Robots need repetition. And water and electronics don't mix