INSIGHT

WalMart and Meijers just to name a few have done away with all their baggers and also have several self checkout lanes. What’s next? I have seen a system where a whole shopping cart can be scanned. The self check out will switch, from a customer scanning one item at a time, to scanning the entire contents of their shopping cart at once. They (meaning WalMart) have had their eye on this technology for some time. So what is the hold up you ask? The chips are not yet in all the products that WalMart sells, minus Gillette and a few others that already have the smart chips embedded into the products. Once all of the manufactures imbed this tiny chip, you will be able to push your whole shopping cart over/through a special scanner, and all your merchandise will be scanned at one time. Combine this with a device like the Mobile Speedpass some gas stations have, and you have one automated system. Within the next couple years I predict the extinction of all baggers, and all cashiers (no later than 2010). Of course out of the twenty some odd lanes at some stores, they my keep one cashier/manager to oversee all the lanes. The question then also becomes. What would happen if the power goes out? Even if you have cash you will not be able to buy anything, when you have one cashier/manager to support twenty or more lanes. This is a recipe for a massive breakdown of vital services, do to unpredictable weather or any other cause.

Image of robot who is operating a backhoe:
http://www.aist.go.jp

Updated Humanoid Robotics Info Page:
Android World

The below is a link to a very advanced prototype humanoid robot called Valerie. This robot is available now (for the right price). At the time that I am writing this it would cost around $90,000 (so says my source).
www.androidworld.com

Sony's humanoid robot QRIO is getting access to a Tera-Flop Computer Cluster. Sony is supposedly working on a project to connect the QRIO via high-speed network to a 250 Computer Cluster. The company aims to enable QRIO to make its own decisions. There are no details in the news published in Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sunday edition on the features and approach of the Software running on the Computer Grid. Story on Nikkei Net (subscription).

With the newest in humanoid robots being able to be programmed via voice command. No programmers will be needed (2050), except for analysis of the most advanced artificial intelligence code and then updating this code. This will be a very small programming market in deed, where only the best of the best need apply.

So what will happen to the rest of us in 2050? We will probably be under the utter rule, and living in poverty, by those who own the robotics companies.

Eventually a day will come when the robots’ intelligence is so great; I would guess by 2095, that they might decide they no longer want to work for us. This might turn into a very grim outcome, and with no one left alive who knows how to live off the land (or do much of anything other than be engaged with our entertainment) the old way. Everyone will have no choice but to do as their new computerized masters’ say.