#94: When Robotics Becomes Reality
Robots will be integrated into our lives when we trust them
Author’s Note: Relentlessly Curious will be taking next week off, resuming on June 23rd.
Last week, we touched upon the importance of branding in the physical AI narrative. As robotics companies look to purchase real-world data sets, people will be faced with a new reality: are they willing to delegate traditional human tasks like cleaning and driving to AI? Do they trust AI enough to do so?
Regarding driving, I’d say the answer is yes. In March, TechCrunch reported that Waymo is completing 500,000 paid rides across 10 cities. There is interest, but there is also pushback. Recently New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani let Waymo’s autonomous vehicle testing permit expire at the end of March due to concerns on how autonomous driving will impact the local economy (read: taxi drivers, who have already taken a critical blow already from Uber/Lyft).
Although having a robot maid is tempting because doing the dishes and vacuuming aren’t the most fun tasks, I believe people will be hesitant to let a robot roam around their home cleaning and interacting with their precious belongings. Sure, iRobot’s Roomba has been sucking up dust from homes for over two decades, but it doesn’t have limbs and stays close to the ground. No real threat there (or not yet).
But then I read an article like this and wonder, maybe we are closer to the future than we think. Pepsi is testing out a fleet of autonomous vehicles to transport its products from distribution centers to retail partners such as Walmart.
Fascinating stuff. This got me thinking: what will the future look like if physical AI gains widespread adoption? Here’s a potential day-in-the-life scenario. Entirely fictitious, but food for thought.
Your alarm clock goes off at 7AM. You immediately regret going to bed late last night and subsequently hit the snooze button.
You finally drag yourself out of bed and step outside your bedroom. Who greets you right away, with a cup of coffee in hand? Your robot maid, of course.
After handing you your double shot of espresso with whole milk (you programmed the maid to make and deliver this), it waltzes into your bedroom and starts making the bed. In a matter of two minutes, the bed is made with military precision and may also be on display at Crate & Barrel.
You stumble down the stairs to make breakfast, and you hear the toaster going “click”. Your robot loaded bread into the toaster before it went to make your bed. You spread butter on the bread, while your refrigerator routes your low butter supply to your Instacart account so that butter is included in your next order. Your refrigerator knows you better than you know yourself.
Time to go to work (robots haven’t replaced all jobs yet). You pull out your iPhone (yes, Apple finally got its AI act together and avoided mobile phone disruption) and tap a few buttons so your autonomous car can drive you to work.
Where did you buy your robot maid? Well, you put down a deposit and pay a monthly fee to Tesla, which owns the entire autonomous “everything” market. The car, the robot, and your spaceship. Tesla and SpaceX merged and bought all car dealerships. They now use them as showrooms for their line of consumer and commercial robots. Ford and GM failed on electric vehicles and just couldn’t cut it when it came to autonomous driving. Elon won out.
Your car drops you off at work and then returns home. Heck, you don’t even need to own a car anymore as cars on demand arrive so quickly. But you bought it to feel some sort of nostalgia for a world where you used to own things, versus opting to lease the car from Big Tech.
During your work break, you log into Instagram and scroll through a feed of entirely AI-generated content. Humans have given up creating videos and taking pictures as AI does a better job of entertaining us than we do ourselves.
The workday wraps up and the moment you walk outside, your Tesla is waiting in line to pick you up because you scheduled it to do so the night before. Reminiscent of your mom waiting to pick you up from preschool.
On your way home, you see drones flying through the sky, hovering close to people’s doorsteps. The drones have the Amazon logo and appear to be dropping packages. A perk only available to Amazon Prime members.
You arrive home and see your robot maid picking up your drone-delivered set of Swiffer dust pad refills. The maid saw dust pads running low and pushed a notification to your Amazon app so you can approve the purchase.
This is a scenario that could plausibly happen if the physical AI narrative really picks up steam. We’ve talked over the past few months about how robotics firms are actively looking to acquire data that allows them to build the robots to handle so many unique edge cases associated with consumer applications.
However, this scenario greatly depends on trust. Trust in the companies building robotics to not compromise your safety or security. Trust that autonomous vehicles can function more effectively than humans driving cars. Trust that the labor market will reinvent itself in an AI-first world.
The robotics company that wins won’t necessarily be the one with the best robot. It may be the one people trust enough to let inside their home. And they’ll focus on building trust long before they look to sell you something.