The last three years have seen a slew of impressive deep learning feats. Machines are finally able to effectively extract meaning from the fuzzy thing that is the real world. This is already enabling all kinds of things, from smarter websites to self-driving cars. I'm very enthusiastic about this rapid progress. I think it's becoming very clear that in the next 20 years, the world will see an increasing robotic presence. I don't mean to say that androids will instantly become ubiquitous. We're obviously not there, both in terms of AI capabilities, and in terms of being able to produce lightweight, affordable and nimble robots. What I mean to say is that many of us have already accepted self-driving cars as an inevitability, since there are already working prototypes. The question is then, why stop there?
How much of a stretch is it to go from a self-driving car to a street-sweeping robot? What about an automated garbage-disposal truck with a robot arm that picks up garbage bags without human workers? What about an automated lawnmower you can control with your smartphone? It's obviously going to take some time for these things to be developed, but I think we can all agree that the automated garbage-disposal truck is not that far-fetched. How much more of a stretch is it to go from such a robot to one that restocks store shelves? Those who have warned us of robots taking human jobs are most likely right.
In the domestic realm, there is already a Berkeley prototype of a robot that can fold laundry. I think one of the biggest hurdles there is going to be the cost. The economic reality is that going from a university prototype to a useful product requires several years and a large monetary investment in R&D. Furthermore, no investors are going to fund the development of such products if the amount of people who can afford to buy them is too small to make a profit. This means that even though we're very close to being technologically capable of building domestic robots, it's going to take some time before they reach the market.
Still, I think at this point, it's only a matter of time. Robots are going to become increasingly present in the world around us, and this will likely generate a feedback cycle. The range of robotic capabilities will expand, the cost of components will go down, and as robots enter the global mindshare, people will become increasingly likely to want to apply robotics to various tasks. We're about to see a robotic revolution. At this point, it seems inevitable.