The development of a 'General Artificial Intelligence' remains, as it has for decades, '50 years away'.

 

Robots still cannot operate reliably in the messy spaces people inhabit, or interact with us in any meaningful way. Our robotic butler is still a fantasy.

 

Task specific AI however has met with some success – recognising faces, identifying patterns, beating grandmasters at chess. Walking.

 

At the same time dramatic strides have been taken towards fast, reliable, global telecommunications.

 

This situation led me to speculate on a different type of 'robot' sharing our spaces with us;
'robots' partly autonomous and partly controlled by human operators. These operators would regularly take control of their robots - injecting the general awareness about the world that the robotic AI would lack.

 

The robot could learn from the remote operators actions, getting better at handling itself in its environment. Perhaps well-trained robots would only have to call upon their operators if they encountered circumstances out of the ordinary, thus freeing the operator to handle many robotic objects at once, switching their attention to each one for brief moments at a time.

 

Fast telecommunications and globalisation would create the ultimate in economic and flexible labour. Jobs currently done by 'migrant workers' would be out-sourced to semi-autonomous robots, operated remotely from parts of the world with lower costs of living and lower wages. New opportunities would arise for people to operate robotic objects throughout the world, in multiple timezones.

 

But who would these operators be? What would it be like to spend your working day operating robotic objects scattered across the globe?

 

What of those growing up in a world where the distinction between animated, autonomous and living is ever more blurred?