OK, look, right now it's still in the nightmare fuel stage of innovation. You stumble into a convenience store on the way home from the bar to grab a late night snack, and you're confronted with the terrifying-looking robot creature you see above, casually refreshing the Red Bulls. The poor remaining human employees have to do a lot of cleanup on aisle five.
But a few years down the road, running into the inventory robot will be a common as seeing a human stocking cans. And there will be a human involved as well -- they'll just be in the comfort of their homes, anywhere in the world, wearing a headset and powering the robot. And as strange as it may seem right now, this could be a big part of the future of work -- and help level the playing field for disadvantaged workers.
Take food delivery, for example. It is extraordinarily difficult and dangerous work, but the demand exists so people rush to fill it. Autonomous delivery robots have thus far been underwhelming, but spatially aware human powered delivery robots could be the answer. And the people powering the robots could be anywhere in the world, thus eliminating some of the economic displacement of communities.
This could be an especially big benefit for women, who are often shut out of industrial work. If the robot is doing all the heavy lifting, the size and strength of the person powering it in headset is totally irrelevant. And if a robot is broken or destroyed, it can simply be fixed or replaced, whereas a human being injured or killed is a tragedy.
There will obviously be bumps along the way and we will need to make sure that people have other outlets for in-person connection if they are no longer in the streets or on factory floors. But the era of spatial computing and robotics could do a lot of good for workers around the world.