Futurology

Boston Dynamics latest demo of its humanoid robot Atlas shows the day when robots can do most unskilled and semi-skilled work is getting closer. At the current rate of development that may be as soon as 2030.

Many people's ideas of the future are shaped by dystopian narratives from sci-fi. For storytelling purposes they always dramatize things to be the worst possible. But they are a poor way of predicting the future.

UBTECH, a Chinese manufacturer's $16,000 humanoid robot is a better indicator of where things are going. The sci-fi dystopian view of the future is that mega-corps will own and control the robots and 99% of humanity will be reduced to serfdom.

All the indications are that things are going in the opposite direction. The more likely scenario is that people will be able to purchase several humanoid robots for the price of an average car. It's not inconceivable that average people will be able to afford robots to grow their own food (if they have some land), maintain their houses, and do additional work for them.

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Here's a video of the latest version of the humanoid robot Atlas.

Boston Dynamics has always been a leader in robotics, but there are many others not far behind it. Not only will robots like Atlas continue to improve, thanks to Chinese manufacturing they will get cheaper. UBTECH's version of Atlas retails for $16,000. Some will quibble it's not as good, but it soon will be. Not only that but in a few years' time, many manufacturer's robots will be more powerful than Atlas is today. Some Chinese versions will be even cheaper than UBTECH's.

At some point, robots like these will be selling in their thousands, and then millions to do unskilled and semi-skilled work that now employs humans, the only question is how soon. At $16,000, and considering they can work 24/7, they will cost a small fraction to employ, versus even minimum wage jobs.