Peter Haas -- Our Robot Future (every three months -- resend with unsubscribe)

****My Apologies for those who got a double send, the unsubscribe link in the last email was not working, this email will only be once every three months going forward and you may unsubscribe now at any time using the link at the bottom of the email*****

I’m writing today because many of you have been reaching out to me recently about AI and Robotics. Something’s different with the popularization of large language models through ChatGPT, with the whole movement of generative AI art, with computer vision and with robotics. From the emails I am getting it has many of you apprehensive about the future, about our robot future. A lot of you saw my AI trust talk when I was at the Brown University Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative about the “Real Reason to Be Afraid of Artificial Intelligence”, but that talk was half a decade ago and a lot has changed in the intervening years.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and disagree with Rodney Brooks by saying Robots and AI are coming to unstructured environments in about 15 years. This shift into our robot future is about to change everything about the way we live and work. To consider the magnitude of this change take a look at the following two photos. One from New York City in 1900, where the challenge I pose to you is to find the one automobile among the horse drawn carriages:

The next photo is also from New York but set in 1913, the challenge is to find the horse among the automobiles:

At the start of the 20th century the automobile took over and changed the world. Now we can’t imagine a world without them. We’re entering a similar sea change with robots and AI.

This newsletter, that will come out about once every 3 months, and the monthly version that you can subscribe to below, will cover both the tools we will use to get to this robot future, and the social impacts of going down this path. Covering topics as diverse as large language models, liquid neural nets, optogentics, computer brain interface, robot choreography, and neuroethology, this is going to be a broad survey of the industry that will hopefully catch what is next and not just harp on the successes of GANS and LLMs. I will be looking at the impacts of robots and AI on many fields including manufacturing, defense, construction, international development and other sectors (yes including restaurants). I will try to cover the deeper questions of law and policy that will inevitably surround humans interacting with these robots and AI agents. Larger trends like demographics, climate impacts, and supply chain concerns will all weave into the narrative. I will be interviewing experts along the way to capture some of the latest research in industry and academia.

If you’re interested in joining me on this exploration I invite you to subscribe for the price of a large iced americano using the link below (discounted if you subscribe for a year):

https://www.ourrobotfuture.com/upgrade?offer_id=eced6c02-c109-4ea9-8cc7-06a94cde7fa2

A summary of highlights from those emails will be published to this list every three months.

If you don’t want to hear from me again just hit the unsubscribe button below and I won’t bug you further (and this time you can unsubscribe).

All the best,

Peter Haas