Modest Robotics Predictions

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I was thinking, "What happens if AI and robotics tech only ever gets slightly more advanced than what we have today?" Assume that present tech improves a little, mostly in terms of being cheaper and more reliable, without getting massively smarter.

Cars: Today we have successful autopilot cars within a controlled test environment, and some successs in real-world driving. Business and regulatory structures are in place and people are using this on actual roads, usually safely. Future: The cars collect several human lifetimes' worth of data and enough analysis that they get roughly as reliable as human drivers. Truck drivers, one of the biggest occupations, become obsolete. Routine small deliveries get automated too; eg. your pizza comes in a mini-car that doesn't need much safety equipment.

Robots: Today we have factory robots with enough sense not to squash nearby humans. Programmable robots in the 5-6 figure price range can do menial assembly-line work. (Eg. Baxter.) Experimental robots can walk around and handle stairs and tools, but they're slow and fall down a lot. Future: Humanoids that can walk around reliably and handle commands like "carry these boxes upstairs" and "look for people in this burning building and carry them out". Menial jobs of the ditch-digging sort are now in competition with robots.

AI: Considered separately from robotics, today we have search engines, natural-language search (Siri), some machine vision, mass surveillance of communications, and surprisingly automated computer programming systems. Restaurants are installing automated order-takers to go with banks' ATMs and the software that replaced travel agents decades ago. If this tech gets slightly better, figure that a lot of clerk jobs become unnecessary... and it'll be possible to spot dissidents in real time and automatically respond. On a happier note, picture automated teaching machines in the form of robot raccoons.

These are conservative predictions. Major disruption is coming even if the technology doesn't get much past what already exists and hasn't been fully implemented yet. And even without considering that someone will invent a nifty new application for this stuff that we haven't thought of yet.
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