I'm just wrapping up three weeks of great things, from meeting with some excellent government officials to speaking at the World Economic Forum AI Governance Summit to a great panel and some wonderful conversations at AWE. As I mull over everything, one thing stands out -- a conversation I had with a very smart person about human-powered machines.
Despite enjoying a Waymo ride in San Francisco (and not taking one in LA, for obvious reasons), we're still a long way away from fully autonomous vehicles going mainstream. Waymo is only in a handful of cities and only on certain roads; even as it expands to new markets, it's going to be a long road (hah) to full adoption. I occasionally see delivery robots in parts of LA and the Bay Area, but they certainly haven't been widely adopted. And humans continue to do all sorts of dangerous, monotonous, and generally un-fun tasks.
We're nowhere near totally autonomous robots for many things, but we're a lot closer to what I believe will be the next wave of work -- human powered robots. Wearing an XR headset for a 360 view, humans can control these robots, steering them through a variety of tasks, some harder than others. This is the win-win scenario; humans continue to be employed and add value while their working conditions improve.
In New York City, food delivery drivers zip around on unsafe scooters and due to tight delivery times, often have to ride in bike lines at high speeds or cut corners. This is not safe for anyone, nor it is particularly enjoyable work. These folks work grueling hours, often in terrible conditions, in order to make a survival wage. Now imagine if rather than biking through a rainstorm, a human in a headset in a nice warm room anywhere in the world could power a robot through the streets. The robot could be built with parameters around speed to make it safer, and if it does get hit by a bus, that's a shame for the person who was waiting for sushi, but nowhere near the tragedy of a human being hurt or killed.
Additionally, this means that people can work from anywhere and still make a living. The conditions for law wage workers in major cities are generally terrible; this would give folks the freedom to live in a lower cost market or even in their home country. When people migrate for economic reasons, they often do it against their will, and leave behind families and communities. This would allow people to remain in their communities if they wanted and bring benefits and economic resources to those communities.
The next wave of human/machine interaction will have profound impacts for the labor market, generally for the better. It's up to those working in the XR space and the robotics space to come together and collaborate on something that improves life for everyone.