The conventional wisdom is that robots are the future. We take disembodied AI and make it corporeal - with home assistants, self-driving transformation and robotic companions.
This makes a lot of sense in the short-term. “AI Meets World,” so to speak.
But an alternate vision (largely driven by META today) is out there. As cool as it will be to see robots helping us in 3D, Virtual Reality is getting better every day. Between haptics and, one day, brain-computer interfaces, it’s possible that a virtual world will feel more “real” than any combination of robots and humans in the realm we know so well today.
Imagine:
* You can take a Waymo or you can be transported anywhere you can imagine in VR.
* A robot can clean your house or your “house” can instantly be whatever you want - tidy or messy.
* A Shakespeare-like droid can be your best friend or you can experience the Bard in verisimilitude,
With bits being far more fungible than atoms, I’d bet on VR long-term. This isn't happening now (VR and robots are both very hard!) But in 10 years, it will be interesting to see which world is moving faster. Ready Player One, here we come!
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