How long in the future? How humanoid? What do you categorize as humanoid? Have you considered what is happening to the sex industry and do those ‘bots qualify?
No, not in the near future. Not because there is a fundamental problem with AI, but because the power density of our storage systems is yet insufficient to fuel such a machine. Mechanicals have a tendency to be restrictive.
Assume we live in a slightly more distant future and that, despite the climate, we still have an economic system and civilization. In that case, the cost of production will be the limiting factor in the bot’s distribution.
Consider the advancement of artificial intelligence. We can continue to use smart machinery that our conventional AI manages and programmed interactions up to a degree, potentially with remote AI assisting it in understanding what we want. That isn’t unthinkable. It will not, however, pass any Turing tests. As a result, possessing something like that raises no ethical dilemma.
If we instead pursue full AI, which entails teaching the robot brain to control the robot body in a manner similar to how a baby learns to control its arms and legs, we will end up with a machine that has similar responses to our own, a consciousness, and rights to go with it (if we are reasonably careful about how we socialize it). It is impossible to be “owned.”
So, how long will it take to achieve what goal? – However, I do not believe that humanoid robots will become commonplace. For some tasks, there exist more efficient designs. Instead, I anticipate several specialized systems.
A few hypothetical, science fiction realm possibilities
- Human-like AI appears to have human-like (or wholly human-unlike) psychological concerns, and having an autonomous humanoid in your home may be no different (or worse) than having a human.
- The Robot is a humanoid robot that works for humans and doesn’t even want to kill anyone. The company says it has no plans to remove the robots from their homes.
- Strong AI simply never gets created. Something either sends us backward technologically, or the problem is just too hard to solve. Or once we do understand, we realize that we’re effectively creating life, and we end up stopping due to ethical concerns.
