Wrestling With the Implications of Accelerating Technology

My studies of the latest technological developments coming out of China has left me a bit concerned.  The West and Australia in particular has been slow to grasp the sheer scale of China’s technological growth over the past few years. It is now at a point where it’s too late to catch up, we can only stare in awe at their prowess.  From EV’s, to flying cars and the battery technology that powers them, China leads the way.  The scary part will be if China’s Robotics industry matches its phenomenal advances in EV’s.

There have been a few nerds who have undoubtedly kept abreast of the changes but the rest of us have been asleep and I think we have no idea what’s about to hit us, in terms of China’s dominance in nearly all aspects of manufacturing and new technologies.  Just about every Western producer bar a few, is going to be swept aside by not only the established dominance of Chinese manufacturing of consumer products but in major innovation of advanced technologies that Western companies once presumed they had a lock on.  America is still competitive in the scientific sphere and there are other competitors in Europe and Japan of course.  But it is that manufacturing edge where China will swamp us with huge volumes of cheaply made products that are often technologically superior to the world’s leading companies.

We’ve gone from slowly catching on that some Chinese EV’s ‘are sort of pretty good’ to it suddenly dawning on us that many more are just exceptional.  A long held bias towards Chinese products – a hangover from some dubious product quality in the past – has been holding us back from fully grasping this new reality that they’ve made a quantum leap in terms of innovation, quality, reliability and equally, style.  Carmaker BYD is now “out inventing” outselling and outperforming Tesla, once the undisputed leader in innovation, style, quality and reliability.

According to Stella Li, Group Executive Vice President, BYD has over 120,000 engineers working on design and they are so innovative, they are applying for an average 52 patents per day.  The structural advantage BYD holds, is in the vertical integration where suppliers and engineers work in house so that in Stella Li’s words, BYD goes from concept to manufacture in a very short period of time, where “cool stuff” is out the door before their competitors have caught up with BYD’s previous innovations.  By ‘cool stuff’ you don’t get any better example than their 3000hp, 300mph (500klph) prototype sports car Yangwan.  You will have to visit a few car blogger’s sites to explain to you the sheer depth and scale of the revolution unfolding before our eyes in China and now arriving on our shores and in our showrooms.  Add in the other companies like Zeeker, Xpeng and GAC to name a few and we are witnessing a baton change from the West to China we thought was decades away.

But it doesn’t stop there.  We’ve seen the recent scenes on our TV’s of Robots performing synchronised Kung Fu moves with humans, only to be eclipsed a few weeks later when we recently saw a robot outrun humans in a half marathon.  Though Musk and his Tesla robots are making great advances, along with other American companies, it’s hard to see him and his company matching the brilliance of China’s engineers and innovators, let alone their manufacturing capacity.  If what Chinese companies claim is true and the video promotions and trials they’ve been broadcasting are verifiable, we could witness the twin Tsunamis for employment of not only AI in offices but AI powered and dexterous robots doing the remaining jobs in factories only humans could do.  

There are thousands of them in American homes already.  At this stage they appear to be a gimmick, mostly dancing and performing Kung-Fu.  The latter being useful if you could point them at an intruder but a nuisance if you’re trying to get to the fridge. 

At present the US still has the edge in the software that controls the robot’s movements, where American companies remove and replace the Chinese inbuilt software with US kit.   So there’s time for the West to get its act together there.  But there’s no doubt, the race is on and if Chinese companies can keep up the undoubted edge they have in manufacturing and then bridge the software gap we’re in for ‘interesting times’.

On the positive side, I’m hopeful more companies worldwide can overcome the disadvantage and that only good actors get control of this space.  Because in a decade or two, if they haven’t wiped us out by then as surplus to requirements, I’m looking forward to deploying one or two robots in the home in our dotage.

With all the talk of keeping the oldies in their own home as long as possible, some well-trained humanoid machines sounds ideal.  Especially given the stories one hears about aged care facilities now and then.  I just hope they have soft hands and smoothing voices and the never ending patience of an AI saint as I repeat the same stories over and over.  I can just picture the practicality of being able to stay in my own home and feel totally at ease saying “Robot take me to the toilet.”  “Robot get me a beer”.  “Robot pick me up off the floor.”

I’m sure we are smart enough to grasp the fantastic leap forward this might represent for humanity if we can harness these rapidly evolving technologies and are able to adjust to them and use them as we should.  But let’s hope we can build in safeguards to shut down a Rogue Robot before it accidentally burns the house down.  I already have a cunning way to totally confuse and fry the brain of an out of control robot with my failsafe phrase – “Robot, your shoelaces are undone, tie them up quicksmart.”