Boston Dynamics and The Late Sir Terry Pratchett
Everyone knows how driverless cars will work: they will be like ordinary cars, except you read a book rather than acting as pilot. And so, people’s understanding of what a technology can do is clouded by what the old technology it replaces does. Which means people without imagination, Head of IBM Thomas Watson, for example, say things like
“There may be a world market for maybe five computers“
and get it wrong. In 1943, computers were used for cryptography, and that’s it. (At least he knew what a “computer” was, which few did back then). Predictions are hard, especially about the future. But it’s probably worth noting here that the famous World Wide What? front page of The Sun, was in fact rather a good a spoof, by The Sun.
Boston Dynamics makes robots.
Who needs Robots? Well, like computers or the internet or driverless cars, the technology is coming. And it will change people’s behaviour in many, unpredictable ways. For example, mobile phones were conceived as portable analogues for the phone on your desk or in your hall. SMS text messaging was added as an afterthought, but became THE dominant means of communication. Calling someone is now rude, often you text first to see if a call would be convenient. Who (apart from mums) leaves voicemail messages any more? Few predicted that change in our behaviour. The smartphone is now ubiquitous, and is more about accessing the internet than calling friends, but wasn’t imagined before the internet, Except by Douglas Adams (and John Brunner of whom I’d not heard until I discussed the issue on Twitter). Driverless cars will be as close to the car, as the car is to a buggy and four. And robots, when they become ubiquitous, will be unlike anything we’ve considered.
I look at Boston Dynamics Robots, the big dog is conceived as a load carrying mule for soldiers on rough terrain, and I think of The Luggage, Rincewind’s inscrutable companion on the discworld. I suspect everyone will one day have a robot the size of a dog to carry daily necessaries, following them round. You could send your luggage to someone else, by smartphone app to pick something up. Your luggage could take your shopping home and collect it from the store for you. Large luggages could be sent on ahead with bags. Small luggages could replace handbags and briefcases. The labour and time saving would be vast, spawning whole new areas of employment, servicing and modifying your faithful electronic companion and providing for the opportunities they create to effectively be in two places at once. Freed from the ownership of motor vehicles by the fact we’ll be taking taxis everywhere, our Robot luggage will perhaps become the next status symbol around which society is built, replacing the car.
Like cars, I suspect the battery technology will be the limiting step, and like cars, I suspect the fuel cell will be the answer. Small fuel cells will one day power your smart phone too.
But think about the opportunities for people from smart phone. There are tens of thousands of app designers round the world now, a job that had barely been considered as recently as 2007, when the first iPhone was released, and that is similar to how the jobs which will be taken by the robots, will be replaced. That is why people who fear of a “post-jobs” future were wrong in 1816 and are still wrong 200 years later. The world’s only limitless resource is human ingenuity.
Anway. I for one welcome our new robot overlords, and this guy should totally be locked up.
