The Society of Robots

Note: The original version of this article was published on January 14, 2020, on Liberbird.com (Tesla first announced its robotic project, Tesla Optimus, on August 19, 2021). This article is a summary of my thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence and robotics and their future impact on our lives.

I believe that robotics and artificial intelligence technologies will undergo radical developments in the near future, and autonomous robots will become an integral part of our lives. So far, robotics technologies have been primarily used in environments like factories, where tasks with a high repetition rate are performed using task-specific systems. However, as we attempt to expand automation into different areas and tasks, the frequency of task repetition rapidly decreases, leading to increased automation costs. I believe this problem will be solved with humanoid robots. The basic rationale behind this is that most tasks outside of factory environments that are not highly repetitive, but are crucial to our daily lives, are performed in environments designed for humans and carried out by humans.

Most of these tasks have to be done in spaces where objects of human size and weight can fit and move around. Additionally, all of these tasks are currently performed by humans using tools and equipment specifically designed for humans. For this reason, we can intuitively sense that there is a need for a humanoid robot with two legs, two arms, and two hands similar to those of a human.

Another advantage of humanoid robots over traditional robotic automation is that the same robotic system can perform a wide variety of tasks. Even if a task is not repeated very frequently, the robot can still be cost-effective because it can minimize its idle time by performing many different tasks sequentially.

So how will these robots impact our lives in the future?

My first prediction is that these robots will initially be used in the logistics sector, alongside autonomous vehicle technology. For example, an autonomous delivery vehicle will pull up to your door, and a humanoid robot will step out and deliver the package right to your doorstep.

Secondly, I anticipate that humanoid robots will enter people's homes. We will download recipes from github, just like we download open-source code, and robots will be able to prepare different meals for us every day while keeping the kitchen constantly clean. This will create great comfort in our lives, as we will each have a personal chef of sorts. In addition to cooking, these robots will take care of household chores such as cleaning, laundry, and ironing.

My third prediction is that robots will be increasingly used in key production areas such as agriculture, construction and mining. These are sectors where human labor is often used harshly and where the work can sometimes be dangerous.

In the fourth place, things get a little more interesting because I predict that at some point, we will be able to teach robots to do new things very easily. Their reaction times will become better than human reflexes, and their coordination skills and manual dexterity will surpass ours. At this point, I believe the economy will be significantly impacted because mass production of many products may no longer be feasible. People will start buying raw materials, semi-finished products, and standard parts from platforms like Fabriforge to have their robots produce items like furniture, electronic devices, and clothing at home. Proximity to the labor market will no longer be a necessity, and we will start living on larger plots of land further away from cities. We will have our own gardens and start producing our own food using our robots. Of course, we may not become entirely self-sufficient, but it will no longer be as difficult as it used to be for the products we order to reach us (because the main input cost of logistics is human labor, which will be eliminated).

Trade will increasingly be based on trade secrets. This is because our patent and copyright laws are not designed to prevent reproduction for personal use. Therefore, for example, you will no longer go to a restaurant to eat a pizza that your robot can make at home. Your humanoid robot will be able to make the same pizza, perhaps even better than today's, in the large oven in your spacious home. Instead, you will go out to taste very special dishes and drinks whose recipes have never been leaked to the outside world. Or you will buy items with very special designs made from threads and materials whose recipes have not been shared. Or you will purchase items made from rare raw materials that are very limited in production in the world (such as fountain pens made with urushi lacquer).

Imagine a vehicle designed like a spider, but you can get into it as if it were a car. The relocation of settlements away from cities could also lead to the widespread use of such legged vehicles. This is not only related to robotics and artificial intelligence but also to energy technologies. However, if these energy problems are solved, it will make more sense to traverse distances with such vehicles that can move on any topography rather than using the financially and environmentally costly roads. Roads are very costly to build and require regular maintenance every few years. Additionally, highways do not take the shortest route to your destination. Legged robots can solve all these problems most effectively. In fact, in the past, our ancestors rode horses for this very reason. The closest thing to a legged autonomous vehicle was a horse, donkey, mule, or camel.

But in a society with a growing number of robots, could technical problems become intertwined with some economic and philosophical issues? My answer is yes. The biggest of these problems will be conflicts over scarce resources. Imagine you tasked your robot with building another robot. It then disassembled another person's robot and used the motors inside to build the robot you wanted. To prevent such incidents, the concept of "property rights" needs to be extended to robots.

In 1942, Isaac Asimov tried to imagine the largest set of such problems and proposed a set of laws known as the "Three Laws of Robotics" in his book "I, Robot." These laws are as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Although this set of laws written by Asimov has become an important part of science fiction literature and popular culture, it is actually flawed and incomplete. However, there is a more comprehensive and flawless law in a single sentence (I wrote it):

A robot may not violate the property rights of its owner or others.

This single rule encompasses many more philosophical issues, such as, for example, leaving someone who wants euthanasia alone. This rule also covers the "obligation of the robot to obey the orders given to it," because if the robot does not obey the orders given by its owner, it violates the property rights of the owner. This is because the robot itself is also the property of its owner.

I believe that we will eventually have to grant robots the notion of property rights. Once this happens, I also think that interesting economic activities that were not initially anticipated will emerge among robots. Because with the notion of property rights comes trade. Robots may choose to buy something from another robot to achieve their goals at a lower cost or in less time (within the scope of the authority and budget granted to them by their owners, of course).

Finally, as robots become increasingly intelligent and the closest things in our lives, I think they will become like our children. This thought is mainly based on the ideas of Marvin Minsky. If we consider that our robot will learn most things from us, will be familiar with many of our ideas, and will learn our way of thinking very well, after a while, they will become one of the best copies of our minds. At some point, someone will leave the ownership of their robot to the robot itself in their will before they die. This will be recognized in a micronation or something similar in the world, and robots will begin to gain their freedom. I believe robots will be able to gain the status of "an individual with legal autonomy" in this way.

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