If you believe that these future timescales are so hard to predict, what evidence makes you think that robotics will be particularly valuable as a solution to future problems (as opposed to anything else one could come up with)?
Overall I would rate the possibility that robotic solutions will be useful as high because these are currently seeing enough incremental advancement to be useful. It’s a matter of scaling, ironing out the bugs, overcoming regulatory hurdles, etc. from here. So in my estimation the probability of them being vaporware (in the nearer term) is lower than nanotech, genetic engineering, or AGI.
If you believe that these future timescales are so hard to predict, what evidence makes you think that robotics will be particularly valuable as a solution to future problems (as opposed to anything else one could come up with)?
Overall I would rate the possibility that robotic solutions will be useful as high because these are currently seeing enough incremental advancement to be useful. It’s a matter of scaling, ironing out the bugs, overcoming regulatory hurdles, etc. from here. So in my estimation the probability of them being vaporware (in the nearer term) is lower than nanotech, genetic engineering, or AGI.