"Robots are the expression of our highest aspirations as human beings: to make life easier, to explore the universe, to extend our reach beyond the limits of our bodies and our minds." - Daniel H. Wilson
The term "robot population" typically refers to the number of robots in existence within a particular context, such as a country, industry, or specific application. Robot population can vary significantly depending on factors such as technological advancements, economic conditions, regulatory frameworks, and societal acceptance of automation.
If Big Tech’s trajectory is any signal, AI tools will increasingly be involved in how we learn and how we express our thoughts. But these tools will also influence how we schedule our daily activities including laundry, how we design products, how we write laws, and even how we diagnose diseases.
The expansive role of these technologies in our daily lives gives corporations opportunities to exert control over more aspects of society.
- AI-powered ads, industry leaders say, will be much better.
- Google assures you that AI can tweak your ad copy in response to what users search for, and that its AI algorithms will configure your campaigns to maximize success.
- IBM is confident its Watson AI will make your ads better.
- Amazon wants you to use its image generation AI to make your toaster product pages look cooler.
Different experts mean different things when they talk about “AI”, but they also hold widely different views on how good it is and where it’s going.
- Elon Musk thinks we’ll have AI smarter than humans by 2025.
- Dario Amodei predicts that by2025 “AI models could be able to replicate and survive in the wild”.
- Yann LeCun of Meta says today’s systems are stupider than a house cat.
- Gary Marcus reckons it’s nothing more than a magic trick.
Demis Hassabis says Google will spend $100 billion developing AI. And every week, a new AI model appears to supposedly rival GPT-4, but never quite manages it; and each week brings yet another example of the weaknesses of these models.
Chinese company SenseTime has released SenseNova 5.0, which is reportedly better than GPT-4 in a range of scenarios. Sam Altman said: “We can say right now, with a high degree of scientific certainty, GPT-5 is going to be a lot smarter than GPT-4 and GPT-6 will be a lot smarter than GPT-5, we are not near the top of this curve.”
However, the impending robot “population boom” is the result of technological breakthroughs, intense investor appetite, labor cost arbitrage, and long-standing demographic trends.
But buying a robot outright is expensive.
- Will large corporations choose to buy machines outright?
- Will they lease them similar to a car?
- Will they simply “hire” them, as you would any other worker?
Or should robotics companies give them away for free, receiving a portion of the efficiency gains as royalty?
In addition to industrial robots, there are various other types of robots, including service robots (such as those used in healthcare, hospitality, and domestic settings), agricultural robots, autonomous vehicles, and drones. The population of these robots varies depending on their respective applications and adoption rates.
The next decade will reveal which model best meets commercial realities.
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