The potential day-to-day impact of robotics and connected devices

By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, April Koury, Alexandra Whittington, and Maria Romero
With emerging technologies further developing and surging onto the market on a daily basis, the world we live in is likely to look significantly differe...

With emerging technologies further developing and surging onto the market on a daily basis, the world we live in is likely to look significantly different in twenty, fifteen, ten, or even five years from now. 

Having explored the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and a growing range of other increasingly powerful technologies in service of humanity in books Beyond Genuine Stupidity and The Future Reinvented, authors Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, April Koury, Alexandra Whittington, and Maria Romero highlight examples of how robotics and connected devices, in particular, could change a range of life experiences – hopefully for the better.

The public

Autonomous Drones for Crowd Control and Border Security - Autonomous drones with AI enabled behaviour recognition and infrared capabilities could patrol border areas and other sensitive security situations when there are risks to safety and the potential for social unrest. On identification of security breaches or potential anti-social behaviour, the appropriate human or automated resources could be mobilised and deployed to counter the risk.

Rescue Drones - Drones are already available that can target individuals in need of emergency assistance, and either airlift them to safety or provide them with vital life-saving equipment. These drones will become ever more sophisticated and capable, with the ability to undertake more complex search and rescue missions and perform a growing range of medical procedures on the spot.

Droneloo - Single user droneloos could be summoned on demand—dropping into the midst of a crowd at an open-air festival, concert, public rally, or sporting event to enable those caught short to relieve themselves in privacy.

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The personal

Personal Robo-Delivery - Small autonomous robots are already delivering fast food and mail—soon they could run daily errands while their owners work. As our grocery order or dry cleaning becomes ready, the robot is alerted and sets out through the town to pick up the orders from the local shops.

Robo-Mummy - Continuous monitoring of health indicators would allow your devices to order what you need to prevent you getting sick. Your devices would try to nudge your decision making towards a healthier lifestyle and what’s best for you.

Digital Twins - After collecting massive amounts of data about a person through connected devices, robots would be able to replicate this person’s behaviour and responses. In fact, your digital twin could attend a meeting for you and comment on your behalf. You twin could also capture and summarize the entire conversation including analysis of the body language and micro-facial expressions of the other participants and then report back.

Food supplies

Robotic Farming - Our farms may become entirely automated. Intelligent robots will plan, plant, water, weed, fertilise, and harvest entire crops at the perfect time based on a continuous feed of connected sensor information. An apple at a grocery store may never have been touched by a human hand until the moment a customer picks it from the shelf or eats what their robo-assistant has selected.

Self-Filling Vertical Farmer’s Market Bag – Smart, self-filling, self-unloading, reusable bags could communicate with smart homes and smart appliances to place new orders from a local vertical farm or supermarket. The bag would fill itself with groceries at the point of origin, be delivered via autonomous vehicle or drone, unload on arrival, and be returned empty on the next delivery run. This could save time for shoppers, support local produce, and discourage food waste.

Always connecting

Life Automation - Connected devices and ‘life automation’ apps will share your agenda and habits to plan the flow of your day. Music from your surround system would automatically keep playing in your headphones after you leave your home and switch to the in-car system when you get behind the wheel. The home heating system would turn on when you are ten minutes away. Food would be delivered or ready to serve minutes after you walk in the front door.

Unisex Utility Jacket - This totally safe and secure everyday fashion item would keep mobile devices connected using built-in chargers and a personal private data network. The jacket might also collect, convert, store, and distribute kinetic and heat energy from the wearer’s body to sell back to the local power grid.

AI HR - Artificial intelligence is already changing the way HR operates. Perhaps we are edging toward human-less HR with AI powered recruitment, selection, appointment, onboarding, performance monitoring, payment (employees, contractors, gig-bots), and offboarding based on automated needs and skills matching. The smart HR could also monitor us via all our devices and detect factors such as stress levels, distraction, the extent of social conversation we engage in, and when we are performing at our peak.

Conclusion

Many questions arise that we’d love to ask our future selves. Do robots do everything to feed us from farm to table? What do you consider ‘smart’? Do you get used to drone surveillance? How much better has life really become?

Understanding and seeing hypothetical future customers and employees as people experiencing some of the same universal human dramas that we do today, the future feels a little more relatable.

Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, April Koury, Alexandra Whittington, and Maria Romero - authors of “Beyond Genuine Stupidity and The Future Reinvented”

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