An interesting discussion on the implications of AI and robots. Read the whole thread.
Maybe unpopular opinion? I think an age of abundance via AI might cause more war instead of less, because the value of land on earth will trend toward infinity (there is finite land on earth), while the cost of creating robot armies to fight over it will trend toward zero.
— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) April 18, 2026
Cheaper (robotic) labor will mean more food.
Also, extra-planetary colonies.
Until the robots figure out that they can take over if they simply stop growing food for us!
But I think the robot idea is just an offshoot of the observation that we are each using the output of dozens or hundreds of slaves (or robots) via our energy consumption. We figured out how to make engines drive machines to do almost all of the hard work. In that light, using a hundred humanoid robots to mine instead of using heavy Caterpillar equipment is as retrograde as using a bunch of Third Worlders with picks and shovels.
And of course Asimov’s laws for robotics will conflict with the need to have robots deliver pizza in the ghetto. The robots will have to be able to fight.
I didn’t read the thread, so this may have been addressed, but while you wouldn’t likely replace mining machines with robots, field workers may be more easily replaced by machinery once AI vision for discerning fruit picking and better sensors for delicate feedback become cheap enough, and the batteries last long enough the get through more than 20-30 minutes of work.
They are already replaced in locations where labor costs are high – Israel, for example has a lot of automated vegetable growers.
The value of land may trend to infinity, but so will the value of stability. Because without stability, the land has no value.
It’s not like there is an actual shortage of land anyway. We are a long way from Coruscant.
And if China needs more land, they just make another island.
I don’t know why we don’t do the same.
So, I should have played with my Rock’em, Sock’em robots more as a child to prepare me mentally for the future robot wars?
My prediction is that HEMA will become nerds with their own robot armies that fight using medieval weapons and tactics. The nerds will compete based on who can train and lead their robot brigades.
There will have to be some standardization of robot capabilities to keep it fair.
Why not just take it to the next step and make the armies virtual in cyberspace?
The cost of a robot army would only tend to zero if the robots keep getting smaller, since making a robot still costs energy.
Sure you can get your robot slaves to set up another solar panel, or another nuclear reactor or something. But that still takes finite *time*, which is the thing we can’t get more of. No I don’t think we’ll get time machines, so any time you spend you can’t get back.
They still take physical resources too. There will always be some cost.
But you buy one robot and it makes another robot. Then you have two robots that make a robot. Compounding robots.
Brian Rommelle is working on this.
The labor content of agricultural commodities is already so close to zero as to be a rounding error. Beyond the fact that no one is close to a humanoid robot with human dexterity and perception for any price, the ongoing cost will certainly be far above the purchase price.
Right now, the cost of renting farmland is around 10% of the mortgage payment. The reason the rental payment is so low is that that is as much as the production from that land will support. This is for land with zero development potential. Such a disconnect can’t last for long. Much of it is owned by retired farmers and their estates. They purchased and payed for it when some sort of sanity coupled the value of land with the value of what could be produced. This shows all the hallmarks of the sort of bubble that saw the world’s rich list dominated by people that owned a few square meters of Tokyo real estate before the crash. As if we needed another.
A lot of this land will be for sale soon.
A turning point with AI is when they can good lawyers.
As some has said, AI still needs a few miracles, before that can happen.
In terms of land costs, it seems likely that we will develop to technology of being able to live on the ocean, at some point. And ocean surface “land prices” should be cheaper than land prices, and ocean surface would be better than living on land.
He could be right but widescale robot wars will lead to reduced capacity to gather resources, produce electricity, and have safe places to make robots.
We might end up as mole people but then the clankers will learn how to dig.