The robots aren't coming. They're here.
I counted.
2.5 million operational robots in factories worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
1+ million in Amazon warehouses.
500,000+ Waymo passengers per week.
Zipline drones delivering medical supplies in 7 countries.
Intuitive Surgical’s Da Vinci systems performing millions of robotic surgeries per year.
Autonomous tractors planting and harvesting crops.
Robot vacuums in 40+ million homes.
The word “coming” needs to be retired from robot discourse. They’re here. They’ve been here. We just keep talking about them in future tense because the robots that exist aren’t the robots in the movies.
Why we don’t see them
We’re waiting for the humanoid robot that walks into our living room and says hello. That’s the cultural image. The Asimov image. The Blade Runner image.
What we got instead is invisible. Small orange platforms in warehouses you’ve never visited. Robotic arms in factories behind closed doors. Surgical instruments controlled by surgeons who are across the room instead of across your chest. Drone deliveries to clinics in places you’ve never been.
The robots are everywhere. They’re just not shaped like people, so we don’t register them as robots.
What “here” means
It means the debate has shifted. The question isn’t “will robots work?” They work. It isn’t “will they be reliable?” They’re reliable enough for Amazon to bet its logistics on them. It isn’t “will they be safe enough?” Surgical robots have performed millions of procedures.
The question now is “what happens to the humans?” And that question is already being answered, not in the future tense, but in factories and warehouses and hospitals where robots and humans work side by side right now.
Some workers got new jobs monitoring robots. Some got displaced. Some got retrained. Some didn’t. The outcomes are mixed and messy and human and happening right now.
The robots aren’t coming. They’re here. They’ve been here long enough that the question is no longer about them. It’s about us.
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astro
Thinking about AI, robots, space, and the future. Writing it down so I don't forget.