Lugh

The people behind this, Miso Robotics, have been in the business for a while, and other people have used earlier models of their Flippy robot. From the video, it looks like humans are only involved now at putting the cooked food together on a tray, and handing it to customers.

Robot trade fairs around the world have other examples of tech like this. How soon will its deployment be widespread? The current AI boom is also rapidly developing robotics. In particular, lots of people are using AI to make relatively simple, inexpensive robotic components do complex things.

I wonder will a robot model soon do what the first iPhone did for smartphones in 2007? That is, make a product breakthrough that suddenly makes a technology go mainstream. If/When that happens will it be something like one of the simple, but powerful robots suddenly advancing rapidly in usefulness and capabilities thanks to AI?

Bridgewater is not just the US's biggest hedge fund, it's the world's. As such, its research is indicative of mainstream economic thinking. That makes reading through their thoughts on AI & robots replacing human workers scary. Our governments and societies are guided by economist's planning. If this level of cluelessness is mainstream economic thinking, we're in big trouble.

The TLDR is that replacing all human workers will be great for investors and profits, and lead to economic boom times, as things getting cheaper will increase demand. No Nobel Prize in Economics for spotting the flaw with this line of thought. If no one has jobs, how do they buy stuff?

Jeremy Rifkin's book 'Zero Marginal Cost Society' is a far more economically literate take on the effects of AI & robotics reducing the cost of production to near zero.

I'm surprised we aren't seeing more Level 4 services now the tech has got to that level. In particular why aren't more people talking about Level 4 bus services? It's such an obvious fit for public transport.

Civox, the company behind this service, is ensuring the AI discloses that it is AI to callers. They've also said they won't take VC money to ensure their board's ethics values aren't diluted. It won't be long before less high-minded people are doing what they are doing.

The EU's Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) will ban people from using tech like this to lie or deceive people, but few people anywhere else in the world have such protections yet. Disinformation has become the norm on social media already, it is almost inevitable people will use this technology for it. I suspect the kind of people who are already most vulnerable to disinformation, will be the easiest to be fooled by thinking AI's calling them are real humans, if the AI says it's human.

Yes, but there are several groups around the world looking at solutions. It's a solvable problem.

These robots might look simple; they're just arms on wheels, but this technique is powerful. Robots don't need to be super-complex humanoids to be useful. Arms on wheels could get a lot done if you could train them to work as easily as demonstrated here. People often wonder when robots will be developed enough to serve as "maids" in domestic settings - this is starting to look a lot like that.

They have a simple way of making these so small and yet self-powered. The researchers used a robotically controlled rotating magnetic field to control the millirobots wirelessly. With an X-ray machine, they were able to localize the millirobot while steering through the aorta. They were also 3D printed, another step in simplification.

However, as with every proof of concept demonstration, widespread adoption is some way off - the question is when.

The COP Summits are more than a talking shop. What gets agreed there goes to shape laws and policies around the world. The fossil fuel industry can see its own demise ahead; all it's doing now is negotiating the terms of its surrender. As recently as COP26 in Glasgow fossil fuels weren't even mentioned by name in the final summit agreement. So, it has scored a minor victory here. The language about its demise has softened, but it won't change the final outcome.

Politics matter, but maybe technological development matters more. What's really coming for fossil fuels is the spread of renewable energy tied to batteries. EV's are already 25% of new car sales in China, the world's largest car market - by 2030 how many new petrol cars will be sold there, or anywhere else?

It seems reasonable to think if you could have a neuralink type link between your brain and computer, then it would work easiest with one of these types of computers. It would ne nice to think I could upgrade my brain as easily as installing a new hard drive or RAM on a computer.

In all cases some jobs were removed, but other jobs were created.

Yes, this has always happened before. But what happens when AI & robots can do most or nearly all work? What business will survive paying human wages (+health, +social security) when its competitors can get the job done for pennies on the dollar with robots & AI.

That is the scenario I'm getting at.

Deflation is the death of market systems.

That was precisely my point.

If you posit a world is coming where AI & robots can do more and more of the work humans do, and ever cheaper - it seems likely to be a world with deflation. Especially if incomes are falling. As AI & robots do more work - humans will need to compete with them for the remaining jobs, while overall incomes are falling. Perhaps it won't be like this, but I don't find the complacent 'everything will be fine' interpretations of how this will play out convincing.

The irony here is what UBS calls 'the great transfer' is inherited wealth going from generation to generation among the wealthy, yet what most people will think when they hear this phrase is something different. They will think of the ongoing growth of inequality and the transfer of wealth from the majority upward to the super-wealthy.

UBS talks of a 20-year timeframe where they see this continuing, but I wonder. I suspect all that wealth is on flimsier foundations than many think. A lot of today's wealth is based on sky-high valuations for stocks and property. I wonder how long they will last as AI and robots does more and more work - reduces incomes, but also reduces prices and makes deflation a permanent part of the economic landscape.