Futurology

"Experts agree these AI systems are likely to be developed in the coming decades, with many of them believing they will arrive imminently," the IDAIS statement continues. "Loss of human control or malicious use of these AI systems could lead to catastrophic outcomes for all of humanity."

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.

Meta's Open Source Robotics AI

I feel like this is the future, but with all things AI at the moment, it's probably just a money grab.

Dario Amodei, CEO of AI firm Anthropic, in October 2024 penned an optimistic vision of the future when AI and robots can do most work in a 14,000 word essay entitled - 'Machines of Loving Grace'.

Last month Mr Amodei was reported as saying the following - “I don’t know exactly when it’ll come,” CEO Dario Amodei told the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t know if it’ll be 2027…I don’t think it will be a whole bunch longer than that when AI systems are better than humans at almost everything. Better than almost all humans at almost everything. And then eventually better than all humans at everything.”

Although Mr Amodei wasn't present at the recent inauguration, the rest of Big Tech was. They seem united behind America's most prominent South African, in his bid to tear down the American administrative state and remake it (into who knows what?). Simultaneously they are leading us into a future where we will have to compete with robots & AI for jobs, where they are better than us, and cost pennies an hour to employ.

Mr. Amodei is rapidly making this world of non-human workers come true, but at least he has a vision for what comes after. What about the rest of Big Tech? How long can they just preach the virtues of destruction, but not tell us what will arise from the ashes afterwards?

Reference - 36 page PDF - SWE-Lancer: Can Frontier LLMs Earn $1 Million from Real-World Freelance Software Engineering?