This blog-post is the third in a series of 4 postings about 4 mega-trends that each can take two paths. Heaven or hell. Everything depends on ourselves and our own decisions. The 5th post will be a summing up and conclusions.
I suppose that most of you have heard about the amazing
Asimo from Honda.
Partner from Toyota is another one and there are many more. Asia is far ahead of Europe and the U.S. when it comes to
humanoids.
Of course a robot must not resemble a human being. It can be adapted to different tasks with different size and design but here we will talk about humanoids. One interesting fact is that it is the
automotive industry in Japan, China and South Korea that invests most resources in humanoids. How come?
What does automotive have to do with humanoids?
There are projections that indicate that the sales volume of humanoids will exceed the sales volume of passenger cars in less than 10 years. These volumes require production, distribution, after market with support. In order to design and develop these things, considerable knowledge is needed. In all produce and sell humanoids and other advanced robots is at a level that is comparable to cars. How many industries, of today, have the required capacity? This is what Asian automotive realised many years ago. One have to start now in order to get market shares in this emerging segment. Even the price might be the same as a small car.
Why would people spend so much money on a humanoid?
Right now they can not do much, but Asimo is working on a number of receptions with simple tasks. Eg to show the guests to the right place and offering coffee. They remember the guest's name and face and can make simple greetings. At first, they may well just be for entertainment and very simple tasks at home. Eventually, he (yes I will say he!) can act as a personal valet to cook and clean up after us. He can serve as a popular babysitter. He can carry your bags. He will remember everything that you need to know, navigate and even be our interface to Internet.
- "Partner" from Toyota
Another path of development, opposite from entertainment, is humanoids for embarking dangerous environments, heavy lifts, hospital care tasks and so on. Pretty nice prospects or what?
Is everything just fine?
There is one obvious catch. What happens when Asimo can do work as good as we people? Many jobs are not more complicated than that it will be possible quite soon if not right now. Outsourcing may not be as interesting when we reach that point but mass unemployment can wait around the corner. We will in the same time get closer and closer to the singularity point (se Singularity - are we doomed?). We do not need to reach that point before they will be able to take over all kinds of jobs including office jobs and eventually leadership job. The whole picture is of course a little more complicated than this. I will come back to that later in the post about "summing-up and conclusions". As you can see in the link above, the singularity point will by itself raise some other questions.
Heaven or hell?
Some links of interest:
Robot Park in South Korea an example of Asian spirit within this field
Asimo from Honda
Partner from ToyotaSingularity - are we doomed? My previous post about heaven or hell "futuramb unfiltered" have a link to h+ Magazine about future scenarios
This article was written in springnote.
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