Robotic Nation Evidence

There is an Apple ad in Scientific American magazine. The headline for the ad is, "The dawn of a new PC era. The 64-bit processor." Here's part of the text from the ad:

Before now, a chip this formidable could only be found in the world's fastest servers and supercomputers. Which is precisely where the G5 chip came from. Developed by IBM and Apple, the G5's DNA is from the core of IBM's highest-performance, 64-bit POWER4 processor. But just as impressive as the G5's pedigree is how it's manufactured. In IBM's (and the world's) most advanced semiconductor facility, the G5's 12-inch silicon wafers are untouched by human hands as robots guide them through 500 processing steps, creating 58 million transistors..."

The "untouched by human hands" line is interesting. We can assume that these ads have been through a dozen focus groups and numerous other forms of vetting and tweaking before publication, so the "untouched by human hands" line must strongly resonate with consumers.

In other words, humans have already started to see humans as a liability rather than an asset. Robots are now better than people.

It is easy to imagine the "untouched by human hands" line transferring to lots of other businesses. For example, McDonald's could cook all the food robotically and advertise that your meal is "untouched by human hands". An airline could advertise that the controls of the airplane are "untouched by human hands". Your new clothes could be manufactured in a robotic factory "untouched by human hands". So could your new car. And so on.

This trend will be a key driver for the Robotic Nation. When robots are better than people, it is easy to hire robots.