What is this based on? We're well past a 50-ish year deflationary period in the cost of major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc). We're pretty clearly at or near the end of the deflationary era for computers and computation. Automotive... speaks for itself. We're still there for televisions, surprisingly; but it looks like these technologies tend to have a handful of decades of rapid cost decrease, followed by a never-ending cost increase over time as the manufacturers consolidate and claim an ever-increasing margin.
EVs are a great example: they keep getting cheaper for what they provide, even if the price stays the same. 200 miles of range 5 years ago is now 400+ miles of range today. Compared to ICEs, where advancement has stalled for the last 20 years, which seem like a worse deal every year.
It hasn't really stalled: VVT, VCR, Cylinder deactivation that works properly, and start-stop becoming commonplace are all meaningful improvements (though smaller than the ones seen in EVs over the same time frame, which makes sense given the relative maturity).
It is mostly because ICE tech is mature and has no real place to go for improvements beyond incremental refinement. EVs can ride the wave of battery tech advancements for another decade or two.
Even crazier take: Japanese companies always do this. Like knocking out features in an alternating fashion, so that you never get features A and B together, and such.
But the point was currently general-purpose humanoid robots is not affordable by the average person like say cars or washing machines currently are, but it will be because the costs will decrease. There was no argument that the price will forever keep going down, just like the price of cars or washing machines are not expected to constantly go down.
>> There was no argument that the price will forever keep going down
It's very hard for me to read the first quote as anything other than a continuing decrease in expected value of cost as a function of time. This directly contradicts the second quote.
The components of computation have been getting cheaper every year… it hasn’t lately because the demand for memory suddenly massively started outstripping supply.
Even in Switzerland, unemployment is on the rise - it's up by a massive 12.2% compared to last year[1].
The only way I see humanoid robots becoming a threat is a company with deep pockets mass manufactures them and subsidises them heavily that they can compete with desperate humans.
However, I doubt an actual competent robot could ever be that cheap in the near future. I mean, I still haven't come across a Roomba-style robot that's actually smart enough to detect which obstacles it can go over, or have a small robotic arm or something that can move light things that's in the way. Like say there's a sock on the floor, it should be able to simply move it out of the way and continue vacuuming; or say there's a wire, it should be able to determine whether or not it's safe to go over the wire instead of going around it. So until I see some real advancements in roombas, I remain skeptical about humanoid robots. And when we do get a humanoid robot that's clever enough to make sense of all the chaos in common households - and take care of it intelligently - you can bet that it won't come cheap.
[1] https://swisscareer.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-low-unemploym...
The cost of labour varies hugely in different parts of the world. The cost of hiring someone in Switzerland is on the order of 100X more expensive compared to Bangladesh, for example.
With many countries currently in an anti-immigration political mindset and with birth rates declining globally, labour costs are likely to continue to increase in the future.
But once a technology like general-purpose humanoid robotics exists, costs are only likely to decrease over time.