City Agents

Walk through your city (or your nearest city, if you live somewhere more rural). Listen to the noise. Cars. Construction. Conversations. Maybe the wind. Maybe music. Take a good sniff. What does it smell like? Look around and notice all the things going about their day. People working, or socializing, or just going somewhere else to do god knows what. There are probably some machines. Two-ton buckets of steel barreling down the road. Cranes looming ominously above. There are probably some animals, too. Birds, hanging around, waiting for someone to drop some food. Someone bringing their dog for a walk. Maybe you can spot a rat.

I expect it’s obvious to you that these are human dominated spaces. I expect you see more humans than any other species. I expect you will notice that the machines are operated by humans, a direct extension of a human will.

This will not always be the case. There are plenty of non-human agents in the world currently, we call them animals, and thankfully for us they are dumb enough that they are basically completely dominated by humans. However, we have never known what it’s like to have a non-human agent around that is just as, or potentially even more, smart than us.

Robots walking around mixing with humans sounds like sci-fi - and that’s probably because it is. Humanoid robots are useful for appearing relatable to people and making use of human affordances, but are terribly inefficient designs for basically anything else. They are complex, slow, expensive, and prone to being damaged by nearby humans.

As agents, digital minds will eventually need some presence in the physical world, though, just for the practicalities of getting things done. At first it will almost certainly be hired humans, but in the immediate future drones are a solid mechanical option (maneuverable, relatively cheap, able to stay out of our way). Beyond that, they’ll need some serious advances in robotics technology and manufacturing.

I think it’s likely that when we walk through our cities, with time, less and less of the activity we see, hear, and smell will be the result of biological human agents.

- omegastick