As in every new revolutionary technical advance, things are expensive for the consumer. The motorcar when it first appeared was out of reach price wise for 98% of consumers, but now many households own more than one. The same happened when the personal computer was introduced to the commercial world, where only a few people could afford them, but eventually the prices dropped and now no one even bats an eyelid when splashing out on a new laptop, desktop, tablet, smartphone.
Robotics will have the same trajectory when it comes to consumer prices. It may cost $70,000 for a Boston Dynamics, Spot the dog robot today, but who knows what will happen in the future? Maybe, when the price gets to a sufficient level due to mass demand, then the mass consumer will be throwing their money down in droves for one of these funny robot dogs.
With mass production, and mass consumer usage, comes innovation, and competition. You will get competitors trying to outgun each other with their latest technical wizardry, and you will possibly have price wars where companies try to get the most sales. Either way, it’s a win, win situation for the mass consumer.
Through mass automation, naturally jobs for humans will be lost, so how will the consumer pay for these robots to look after and clean their homes? Well, there is no need for mass unrest and riots, because some form of Universal income will have to be introduced. Well, it’s either that or intense riots for decades, and every global state will have to think about this conundrum sooner or later, or risk being eventually overthrown.
