7 September 2025: News from the end of the world

[Zed Clampet]

The robots are here. Honest to God robots. Something I've been wanting to see since I was a child and saw the original Star Wars. Even as a youngster, I was concerned about what the arrival of robots would mean to the human workforce, but what I could never have imagined was that we were going to stick literal psychopathic AI "brains" into them.

I had a solution to the job problem. It was that businesses would be prohibited from buying robots from robotics companies and had to, instead, rent them from the citizens who could no longer find work. I suppose I also would have had a solution to the psychopathic AI brains, which would have gone something like "Don't do that, you f****g morons". Here at the end of the world, I still think both of these solutions are worth considering.

But none of that matters because absolutely no one on the planet listens to me, least of all the people who know me best (hmm) so I've decided, instead, to simply chronicle the end of the world by way of linking to relevant news sources. I will occasionally add commentary, but the few people who bother to open the thread will be forgiven if they skip that.

If you don't believe me, believe Melania Trump, who gave a speech from the White House about how wonderous and dangerous this new tech is. (Crazy enough, she started her speech with the exact same words that I started this chronicle with, "The robots are here." I hadn't even looked for articles yet when I wrote that, so I believe that she may be my soulmate...please don't tell Donald...

Boston Dynamics is using Large Behavioral Models (not LLM) to train their robots to be generalist robots, capable of thinking through and performing many tasks. They basically show the robot how to do some things, and then it extrapolates from there. I'm okay with this sort of robot for a very smart reason: I refuse to believe Boston Dynamic's adorable dancing robots could ever try to kill me. Hey, do you suppose that was one of the reasons for all the dancing videos? Anyway, here's a video of Atlas doing some work. I'm a little concerned that they keep picking on him while he works....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYwekersccY


You can glance through the first page of The Robot Report and see jobs already going away in droves. China has billions of humans, so naturally they are currently leading the world in giving jobs to robots. Here's a report on how the West is trying to catch up and give even more jobs to robots. I'm not at all concerned about China's industrial robot revolution. It's the robots they are handing guns to that concerns me. Though, admittedly, I don't care quite as much as I could so long as they all stay in China.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IImt7zMIUQs


Here's an article from Wired called "2025 is the Year of the Humanoid Robot Factory Worker"

Wired is the best place for mostly non-sensationalized AI and Robotics news, but you need to subscribe to read more than one article so I won't link anymore of them.

AI is not just ending entry-level jobs. It's the end of the career ladder as we know it. Postings for entry level jobs in the US have declined by 35 percent.

The Guardian reports on how Google is killing the news business with it's use of AI that no longer refers people to the news sites. I wonder if Google doesn't recognize that there is a bit of a problem with this plan?

And, finally, from PC Gamer, an article that implies there's no problem because AI and robots are completely incompetent.

The $500,000 robot servant Elon Musk claims will sell 10 billion units by 2040 can barely walk and struggles with questions like 'where can I get a coke?'

The latest video of Tesla's robot is the "dawn of the physical Agentforce revolution," whatever that is.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Pifanjr]

We've known for years that the current supply of several important resources is going to run out in a couple of decades, if not sooner. There's a decent chance that we'll see a lot more wars, but maybe robot weapons will actually result in less collateral damage than traditional weapons, so this might actually be a good thing if war was inevitable anyway.

I don't think the problem with robotic weapons like this is countries having them. Countries have had nuclear weapons capable of wiping out other countries for years and I think(/hope) if all countries have these robotic weapons they'll be just as reluctant to attack each other as when they just had nuclear weapons. I think that the biggest problem is that these robot weapons are way more accessible and easy to make than nuclear weapons are. I'm more worried what will happen when it becomes easy to 3D print most of a drone, stick something like a Raspberry Pi in there, upload an AI and tell it to go attack someone.

Luckily our billionaire overlords will have hidden themselves away in their fully autonomous bunkers before the consequences of their actions can catch up to them. But don't worry, they'll be able to continue controlling the world through their robot armies remotely. Even after they die, their AI will have been trained to enforce their will on the world, perhaps even the entire universe until its heat death.

 

[Zed Clampet]

We've known for years that the current supply of several important resources is going to run out in a couple of decades, if not sooner. There's a decent chance that we'll see a lot more wars, but maybe robot weapons will actually result in less collateral damage than traditional weapons, so this might actually be a good thing if war was inevitable anyway.

I don't think the problem with robotic weapons like this is countries having them. Countries have had nuclear weapons capable of wiping out other countries for years and I think(/hope) if all countries have these robotic weapons they'll be just as reluctant to attack each other as when they just had nuclear weapons. I think that the biggest problem is that these robot weapons are way more accessible and easy to make than nuclear weapons are. I'm more worried what will happen when it becomes easy to 3D print most of a drone, stick something like a Raspberry Pi in there, upload an AI and tell it to go attack someone.

Luckily our billionaire overlords will have hidden themselves away in their fully autonomous bunkers before the consequences of their actions can catch up to them. But don't worry, they'll be able to continue controlling the world through their robot armies remotely. Even after they die, their AI will have been trained to enforce their will on the world, perhaps even the entire universe until its heat death.

One possible nightmare scenario with robots and guns: China has released a $5000 robot. There is no doubt that China will lead the world in making personal robots, and this one gives them a huge head start. But China's government is not exactly trustworthy (none are, but China is worse than most), and this sounds nuts, but what is to stop them from selling every western home a robot and then just sending a signal to turn them violent? We are talking about not letting Americans use their social media sites. What is more dangerous, tiktok or a robot that is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government?

 

[Colif]

The world ended yesterday? I am sure I would have noticed.

Don't worry about robots, we are running out of other more interesting resources

 

[Zed Clampet]

The world ended yesterday? I am sure I would have noticed.

Don't worry about robots, we are running out of other more interesting resources

Yeah, we aren't going to run out of rubber. You can make rubber from dandelions, and you don't even need petroleum! We'll incentivize farmers to plant more rubber trees. and dandelions. Problem solved.