Robots are nothing new. They have been quietly working away in factories for years, for example in the motor industry, where they routinely assemble car body panels more accurately than a human being can.
In the on-line grocery sector more agile and more tech-savvy robots can now assemble customer orders more effectively than humans, due to the rise of pick-and-pack robotics. Indeed one major on-line grocer has been able to stay in business not by delivering groceries to its customers, but by selling its remarkable pick-and-pack technology to other supermarket chains.
But these are not the kind of robots that will influence our lives dramatically in the future. These are only task-specific robots, designed to do a particular task (albeit capable of doing it very well).
What will change things forever will be the arrival of general-purpose humanoid robots, which can carry out a wide range of tasks currently only done by humans. It is the arrival of general-purpose humanoid robots which will herald a workplace singularity.
Consider for example a dental receptionist working 35 hours a week. She sits in a chair, welcomes patients, takes their details, takes payments via debit or credit cards, and politely wishes the customer goodbye. Currently, in the UK to pay someone to do this would cost about £18,000 per annum.
Yet with the economies of scale of mass production, a humanoid robot might eventually be produced which will cost in the low thousands of pounds or dollars, perhaps no more than a couple of months' wages at the national minimum wage.
Yet this robot will be able to work 16 hours rather than 8, seven days a week rather than five, will not need a lunch break or bathroom break, will not get bored or start checking its smartphone. It will always be attentive, charming and polite, and never get flustered.
On the contrary, it will remember the faces of all its customers, using facial recognition. It will call or text all its customers to remind them of their appointments. It will never forget to take a payment, and seamlessly integrate with all administrative and book-keeping systems. It will respond verbally to all requests from the dentists for information, and carry out back-office functions. In short it will be far better than a human.
In the home too, the right kind of general-purpose robot will have enormous advantages. When a lightweight humanoid robot has been built which can carry out everyday simple tasks, like peeling the potatoes or putting out the washing, the workplace singularity will truly have arrived.
However we are not quite there yet. At the moment there is no serious contender for a robot which can carry out a wide range of everyday human tasks.
As I say in my book 'Some Time In The Future', a robot which is going to be around people, perhaps in an office or home setting, cannot be made of steel or other metals like 'Atlas', the back-flipping metal monstrosity produced by Boston Dynamics, which has got a lot of publicity.
Instead the general purpose humanoid robots of the future will be made out of lightweight materials, to save weight and to be less harmful to humans, should one fall on top of a sentient human being.
They might – as I speculate in my book – even be constructed out of lightweight substitutes for human muscle, contracting and releasing in the same way human flesh does, stretched over a lightweight substitute for a human skeleton.
But whatever the precise make-up of the humanoid robots of the future, it is their ability to carry out everyday human tasks which will be crucial, and which will usher in a new era for the human race.
How far away are the general purpose humanoid robots of the future? Probably not that far. Most of the technology needed to make them already exists – or is not far away.
Yet precious little real research is being done into these areas. Elon Musk for example has just unveiled a prototype robot which can do even less than Boston Dynamics' Atlas, which is not really the future. Yet if Elon Musk had devoted himself to creating a range of lightweight general-purpose robots made of plastics and composites, instead of his Space X or Tesla programmes, by now he might have a robot capable of doing nearly every task humans can do, like peeling the potatoes or cooking your dinner – and washing up afterwards.
Such a breakthrough will confer immense wealth and importance on whoever creates it. Produced at scale they promise to have massive implications for western societies. Our way of life will be changed for ever, and whoever achieves this will be of immense standing and importance – as the workplace singularity takes place.
Will all human employment end, when general purpose humanoid robots become available? Probably not, for there will almost certainly need to be someone about to watch what our friends made of carbon fibre are doing.
Moreover there may be many situations in which humans will want to interact with other humans, rather than a robot. I speculate in my book that restaurants will continue to employ humans, because you might want to get away from robots when you are relaxing.
It is possible that humans might have to learn to deal with and work alongside robots on a daily basis. Perhaps half of all jobs might eventually go, with general purpose robots taking them.
As I also speculate in the book, this may not necessarily lead to any great problems. It is possible that humans may learn to live with robots relatively easily, and it might become the most natural thing in the world to have a robotic assistant.
Human beings living with robotic companions is another possibility. Depending on how realistic they become, these relationships might become intimate – another possibility for the future.
This might open up all sorts of possibilities, of humans preferring to live in a relationship with a humanoid robot rather than a human, which might have profound consequences for the future growth and reproduction of the human race.
It might be that governments might have to regulate the relationship between humans and their robotic partners. I speculate that it might be necessary to keep all house robots indoors, so that human beings have to go out and do their own shopping, to make sure people get enough exercise.
Will the house robots of the future be beautiful? They might be if people are going to have relationships with them. But it might not be necessary for general purpose humanoid robots to have particularly expressive faces. It might be that a modicum of facial movement will be enough for most purposes, or even none at all. These things might vary from model to model.
All in all it seems that somewhere down the line big change is coming. A workplace singularity will sooner or later take place. Not all jobs will go, but we might find that the person sitting next to us is made of plastics and composites – and unlike us will never need to take a bathroom break.