Automate or Perish

I'm most excited about automated agriculture, they've already successfully prototyped many robots that can do things like pick fruit /vegetables, milk cows and so on. It could be as soon as 20 - 30 years that we see food costs in first world countries drop to 1/10th of what they are today. As the cost of goods is just raw resources + human energy and when the raw resources is only the cost of the land (+ setup costs and maintenance which will eventually be dirt cheap too) the final product cost will drop dramatically.

This adage is true, but pretty ancient at this point:<p>&#62; <i>Successful businesses will be those that optimize the mix of humans, robots, and algorithms.</i><p>I mean, that's basically the motto of the mechanized assembly line: increase production by attempting to deploy the optimal mix of calculating devices, machinery, automated circuitry, and human operators.

&#62; <i>And if he doesn't automate, the other guy will.</i><p>This is why I feel that the development of AI is pretty much inevitable - barring a global catastrophe (WWIII/nuclear holocaust) or a significant reduction in R&#38;D on semiconductors and machine learning (global economic collapse). It appears as though the gains are too large and the incentives too strong for anyone to restrain themselves from pursuing it. Replacing intelligence has to be one of the most profitable business models ever created in the history of humanity. Someone is going to end up a trillionaire and a lot of people are going to end up unemployed (or worse?).<p>Am I the only one feeling pretty fatalistic about all of this stuff (AI/ML/Robotics/Automation) - it's probably going to end up killing us all. Not on purpose, of course (it's never the obvious things that ruin you) - but probably thanks to the law of unintended consequences that operate in complex, unpredictable systems like the Earth.<p>But I suppose we should keep working on it - because the alternate - a world without AI is just too damn boring.<p>Reminds me of a quote from "Wired for War":<p>A robotics researcher was asked for his thoughts on the end game for robotics. This is his answer:<p>&#62; <i>"Yeah, I may be designing something that enslaves and kills my grandchildren someday... but I can't help it, it's so cool!"</i>