[skybrian]

The "and physical" is the part I'm particularly skeptical of. Sure, drones are scary, but nobody's really solved getting a robot to deliver a package to your front porch in a civilian setting, and it seems unlikely to be solved quickly.

[foobiekr]

A lot of it relies on what is effectively "the AI will be so smart it can solve anything" magic.

[markstos]

The book Sentient is not about AI but abount the most amazing physical senses some other animals have.

The theme of the scientific findings is that while humans excel with none of our physical sensors, we do very well across the board in making use of them thanks to our relatively huge brains.

And fantastical amounts of compute power is exactly what are handing over to AI. The fact that their training data isn't perfect may matter less.

[CamperBob2]

but nobody's really solved getting a robot to deliver a package to your front porch in a civilian setting, and it seems unlikely to be solved quickly

If you don't care about getting the drone back, it does simplify the problem somewhat.

[burlesona]

Zipline is growing fast… it’s drone-based, but it definitely delivers packages to your front door. (https://www.zipline.com/)

[Grombobulous]

Nobody’s even solved a self-driving vehicles yet, not in in the sort of “they took over everything and put every uber and truck driver out of business” kind of way.

Maybe they will soon but it’s massively far behind the kind of timeframe AI 2027 would have implied.

[wavemode]

I actually think self-driving is one of the easier paths of development. The main thing holding it back right now is regulation and liability.

But, if you could wave a wand and eliminate all legal and liability hurdles to self-driving, automobile deaths would plummet. They're way safer than the average human driver. The technology is definitely capable, our society just isn't ready for it.

[Grombobulous]

I disagree. It has not been figured out enough to take humans out of the equation from a functional standpoint, not just a regulatory one.

This past 4th of July weekend a Waymo ran over an actively burning firework in a low speed scenario, the kind of thing a 95 year old driver would have avoided.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/waymo-car-travels...

[reasonableklout]

Do autonomous systems need to solve humanoid robotics to exert power over the physical world? Seems like a lot can be done with drones.

[skybrian]

Military power, sure. In Ukraine they hit everything they can see.

But during peacetime, you don't make money running a delivery service that way, so it's not going to replace those jobs.