Futurology

If you thought the idea of a 100% human-free Ship-Store logistics network was some far-off sci-fi future, think again. It's almost here.

Several ports around the world are almost fully automated with minimal human intervention. Shanghai, Busan (South Korea), and Rotterdam in particular. Fully self-driving trucks that can do highway journeys are a thing too. Now robots have mastered unloading the trucks. Warehouse operations are moving closer to being human-free too.

What's left for humans? Self-driving is still at Level 4, and Level 5 is some way off. That means robo-vehicles can master predetermined routes they are trained on. But more and more they will get trained on highway exit-warehouse and highway exit-store routes. Even with just Level 4 driving this could be almost fully automated.

This all brings closer the day topics like Universal Basic Income go mainstream.

The Holy Grail of Automation: Now a Robot Can Unload a Truck

There are still some people who haven't realized just how fast and vast the global switch to renewables is. If you're one of them, this statistic should put it in perspective. China installed 93 GW of solar capacity in May 2025. Put another way, that's about 30 nuclear power stations worth of electricity capacity. All this cheap renewable energy will power China's industrial might in AI & robotics too. Meanwhile western countries look increasingly dazed, confused, and out of date.

China breaks more records with surge in solar and wind power

The Titan submersible is a cautionary tale for those that believe human ingenuity can overcome nature's limits, now or anytime in the future

Is there finally about to be a Brexit dividend? The EU & US are placing tariffs on Chinese EVs, but Britain isn't. So British drivers will soon have a welcome choice. Cheap well-made Chinese EVs whose EV charging means they travel 100 kilometres for a third of the price an average combustion engine car does.

Yet another death knell for fossil fuels and combustion engine cars.

How China made electric vehicles mainstream

BYD Dolphin Surf Review

Renewables’ intermittency—sometimes too much energy, sometimes too little—could be an advantage. Use excess solar/wind to produce synthetic oil, gas, and coal, enabling a 99% renewable grid and cutting fossil fuels in industry and transport.

The fossil fuel industry may resist, but economics and geopolitics favor this shift. Renewables+storage keep getting cheaper, and nations like China—leading the tech—gain energy independence.

To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization

Space is really spread out, and we will forever lack the means to get around it fast. Space also happens to be highly inhospitable to human life. For these reasons, I submit that no human will ever go farther than Mars.

"China extends its lead over Europe and the US as it is the only country where EVs are on average cheaper to buy than comparable ICE vehicles."

An interesting snippet from this report. Do you know why EV's aren't cheaper than combustion engine cars in Europe & America? Because they are taxed with tariffs to make them artificially more expensive.

All of this is helping China in the long-run. Not only will they dominate in global transport manufacturing. They'll also set the technology standards in 21st energy and transport. Oh, and added bonus. With cheaper EV transport, all their other costs are cheaper & more competitive too.

Meanwhile with regional war looking more likely in the Middle East and gasoline prices probably due to steeply rise. Those cheap Chinese EVs are going to start looking even more attractive to global consumers.

Global Electric Vehicle Sales Set for Record-Breaking Year, Even as US Market Slows Sharply, BloombergNEF Finds

Ukraine's recent Spiderweb operation pointed to how decisive drones can be in modern warfare. Now here's another indication. With commonly available materials they can be built by amateurs.

20th century mass-warfare was defined by a nation's industrial might. But it seems you don't need that to build drones. They're following another 21st century trend - working from home. In traditional warfare, bombing industrial centers got results - what will it mean with drones when there doesn't have to be a 'center' - as they can be made anywhere and everywhere?

I made a 3D printed VTOL that can fly 130 miles (as a CAD beginner)

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Open Source AI seems to be setting Silicon Valley up to fail. While they pour hundreds of billions into closed AI systems in the hope they'll get a 'Unicorn' that will dominate the market, at every step Open Source AI equals or exceeds them. If this goes on long enough, eventually the Venture Capitalists are going to lose.

Is the same about to happen with robotics? This announcement is not the first time a Chinese group has open-sourced a robotics model. The US is desperate to slow Chinese technological advancement. Is this all part of Chinese counter-measures? If it isn't, is it just a coincidence it will severely hamper how Silicon Valley functions?

The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI), a prominent non-profit research institute, has unveiled RoboBrain 2.0—an open-source AI model engineered to serve as the cognitive core for China’s next generation of humanoid robots.

By 2035 I'd expect humanoid robots will also be making a significant impact in healthcare. In particular, doing a lot of basic nursing assistant/healthcare assistant tasks.

When people worry about the burden of an aging population in the 2030s & 40s, I rarely see them factor in how much robots will reduce the need for human workers to do this.