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capex | 3 years ago

Great. This is from 50 years ago, and many of the ideas shown have come true. What about the next 50 years? Any video suggesting what we'd be able to see around the house in 2070?

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2OEH8eoCRo0|3 years ago

Many of the ideas in this are better than what we ended up with. I don't see anybody logging into online accounts to use their accoutrements.

This video makes me want to cry.

deckeraa|3 years ago

The microfilm recipe book made me think this -- the recipes were organized and ad-free, unlike most online recipes today.

RalfWausE|3 years ago

I have the bad feeling that in 2070 its more about barbecuing rats on a stick over a fire in an old oil drum while having a shotgun on the ready if the canibals show up...

highwaylights|3 years ago

Ah, you want the Westinghouse Post-Apocalyptic Quick-Evacuate Off-Grid Zombie avoidance shelter.

It’s on page five hundred and two, sir.

adventured|3 years ago

In 50 years human-size labor robots will be common in households that are middle class and above. They'll recharge locally, and won't be meant to travel great distances while powered on, so their battery packs won't need to be massive. They'll be capable of performing a decent variety of mundane household labor, including laundry, dishes, mowing the lawn, picking up / organizing rooms of the house, mopping floors, cleaning the bathroom. We'll organize these spaces to an extent for their benefit, to better comply with how they do what they do. Appliances will be marketed for use by humans only, or mixed use (either robot or human can operate).

As a consequence of these robots humans will increasingly forget how to pick up after themselves (as a routine) and or never learn it in the first place as children.

What, you don't have a refrigerator? What, you don't have a washing machine? What, you don't have a television? What, you don't have a dish washer? What, you don't have a microwave? What, you don't have an Alice bot? And so on it goes.

Work spaces will have similar robots to pick up after employees and perform other assisting tasks in the office. Silicon Valley or its equivalent will get these robots first as a new perk that will be lampooned initially (the nerds that can't even take care of themselves) and then it'll spread across corporate America because of the productivity benefits and convenience aspect.

The same bots will displace very large amounts of labor in retail outlets like Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Costco; and fastfood chains.

It's not a question of if this is going to happen. It's a question of whether it takes closer to 25 years or closer to 50 years (I'd bet on 35-50 years) to hit an inflection point where the robot avalanche gains significant momentum. These won't be hyper competent everything robots, like you see portrayed in eg I, Robot (the Will Smith movie), they'll be quite specialized and quite limited compared to science fiction, but still very useful.

In the style that the smartphone ate one thing after another, the humanoid robot assistant will eat one labor task after another, and that's how they'll be advertised initially. Robot v1 does X; Robot v2 now does X, Y; Robot v3 now does X, Y, Z. It'll be a productivity arms race in the early days, and then the improvements will rapidly slow down and the robots will become a fashion competition or something else, as they saturate the easy wins in labor elimination.

somethoughts|3 years ago

I've actually wondered if we'd be faster to full home automation if you made slight modifications to the home itself to enable more purpose built factory style automation to take over.

- switch to zero wrinkle foldable clothes and use an all in one washer dryer -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gIi4u6NdV0

- self cleaning toilet and bathroom - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CCI-ysfFr8

- faux wood tile floors for robot vacuums/mops

- smart oven with food prep subscription - https://www.tovala.com

- grocery delivery service

Really its the self cleaning bathroom that probably isn't all that common just yet. The rest can be done today.

scyzoryk_xyz|3 years ago

The only doubt I have about this is the amount of electricity this personal labor servant robot will cost. I can imagine that what you describe is a certainty for the rich, but I do wonder where the cut-off will be for the rest of society. I can imagine a reality where those who don’t have such robots, will want to work hard to get them, and a number of lower-cost, less energy intensive helper bots will cater to the needs of those of us who can’t afford the full standalone-Alfred model.

There will be a billionaire with a 100 of these to do random shit with.

Vecr|3 years ago

Some people might (probably not that many on an absolute level, tens of millions worldwide possibly), most people will have what they have now but much less new and more beat up, as the market gets saturated with used/fixed appliances. That's the good future, the bad one is where everything is garbage and can't be fixed at all.

lettergram|3 years ago

While I agree-ish, we already have very cheap general purpose cleaners you can hire. I imagine a robot will be more expensive and less robust. I can see stores and corporate offices, but idk about a middle class home.

axlee|3 years ago

Any company working on this at the moment? If it's bound to happen, I assume the research has already started.

Hellbanevil|3 years ago

In 50 years, I see gated communities of wealthy people being guarded by fixed mounted automatic AI controlled machine guns, or high powered lasers.

We won't have hugh areas of homlessness because the powers at be will be actively using that Broken the Window Pane theory to harass people to the point they commit suicide.

Technology will advance, but only the wealthy will be able to afford it.

The wealthy capitalists will rely more heavily on Globalism to peddle their wares.

I don't even foresee a chit show like current India. Meaning the wealthy live in ivory towers butted up to absolute slums.

The American wealthy will not stand for that. They don't want to see the squalor.

(In all seriousness, I'm concerned about how America is going to treat the huge spike in homelessness post Covid. I don't like what I'm seeing now. Meaning the powers at be are just harassing the homeless until they move along. I'm embarrassed the way my town of Sausalito made a minor problem of homelessness (Anchorouts whom have been there for over a century), and made the current recipients of a ham handed approach to rid Richardson bay of anyone who is poor much worse. Yes--that last sentance is grammatically terrible, but I'm just to tired to fix it.)