Robots will shape the cities of the future — from educating children, to cleaning streets, to protecting borders from military threats and much more. While the ubiquity of robots isn’t arriving tomorrow, it’s closer than many realise — by 2030, humanoid robots (such as personal assistant bots) are slated to exceed 244 million worldwide, soaring from 220 million in 2020.
Examples of some cities with existing robotic infrastructures are Masdar City’s Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and The Line, a future city in Neom, Saudi Arabia, South Korea’s Songdo Waste Management system, Denmark’s Odense City collaborative robots or cobots, and Japan’s traffic navigating robots at Takeshiba District.
But the rise of robotics poses thorny ethical questions about how we govern entities that sit between the conscience of humanity and the mechanical nature of machines like a dishwasher or a lawnmower. Getting on the front foot with governance could make a huge difference by the end of the decade.
