Most discussions about humanoid robots focus on how many jobs they might eventually replace.

I’m starting to think the more immediate problem could be which jobs disappear first.

Entry-level work is often repetitive, closely supervised and relatively easy to measure. That also makes it some of the most obvious work to automate.

But those jobs aren’t only cheap labor. They’re where people learn how an industry actually functions. They build judgment, make mistakes with limited consequences, form professional relationships and gradually become qualified for more complicated work.

If companies automate the bottom of that ladder while continuing to hire experienced people at the top, the system may look efficient for a while. Ten years later, though, where do the experienced workers come from?

We could end up with an economy that still needs skilled humans but has removed the process that creates them.

Do you think automation will create new entry points quickly enough, or are we about to automate the apprenticeship layer out of large parts of the economy?

"Cherubim said as a result of the new study, we now know LHS 1140b has all the ingredients for a habitable environment: a relatively rocky planet, a temperature that supports liquid water, and an atmosphere to prevent the water from escaping and to shield the planet’s surface from harmful radiation. In addition, the star itself is quiet with few flares."

Are we on the verge of a Golden Age in Exobiology Astronomy? We're starting to pinpoint the likely places simple alien life might be, and will soon have many powerful tools to tell if it is there.

ELT - Extremely Large Telescope

GMT - Giant Magellan Telescope

TMT - Thirty Meter Telescope

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Habitable Worlds Observatory

LIFE

China Earth 2.0 Telescope

China CSST

ARTICLE - Earth-like exoplanet could have life-supporting water on its surface: Scientists discover the first confirmed atmosphere in habitable zone outside our solar system on LHS 1140b

We were given rare access to the factories, training centers, and test sites where Ukraine is developing a new generation of robotic weapons.

When you put a giant legion of humanoid robots on the floor of an auto factory, do they actually increase efficiency and replace labor, or is that just a corporate fantasy? An auto workers union in South Korea, where Hyundai may one day deploy one such legion of robots, doesn’t seem to be asking that question. Instead, it’s essentially asking for reassurance that when—not if—the robots come to take people’s jobs, there will be a deal in place that cushions the blow.

The US-based company Foundation Future Industries, which builds humanoids for commercial and military use, has already tested its Phantom robots in Ukraine.

Japan's labour crisis is pushing Mitsubishi Motors toward humanoid robots, and potentially into producing them at scale

Do you think you can trust Meta to not automatically share this data with the government? What if their AI flags people criticising ICE or supporting Palestinian statehood? You're a fool if you don't think the current US government wouldn't want data like this, and a bigger fool if you think Meta would say no to them.

Nations are starting to talk more and more about AI sovereignty. We need to think about data sovereignty for individuals, too.

Dystopian Meta Glasses Get Brutal Backlash

Being an armchair futurologist and pondering human future (fuelled by objectively reading world news and watching documentaries such as "Turning Point" and "Broken"), I am left with the feeling that as a collective global society we have always been and always will be unable to see ourselves to utopia. I use it loosely, but lets agree that everyone's interpretation of utopia is an existence where you are fed, sheltered and happy (not having to live in constant fear) - not implying that utopia is a universal goal for each human, but a large number of humans would like to be in a better situation than the current one.

Yes, we have come a long way since bloodletting and witch-burning, but in today's reality, there is still a shit-ton of crazy stupid practices/convictions/disagreement that persist in the name of (insert political/religious ideology here). None of which are ever really resolved.
Of course, you can easily dismiss this by calling me depressed/cynical/pessimistic, but I know my own reality, and I am none of those, this question is just my genuine curiosity.

To finally over-generalise, humans have gotten to where we are, predominantly by the power of the sword. So while I acknowledge the benefit I reap in today's modern life, achieved mostly by force along our entire history, I wonder if we have a chance of achieving a real and long-lasting trajectory of improvement with a happy ending?

Weird thought I can't shake: identity used to be the hard problem online. Who are you, prove it, here's your account. But I think personhood is about to become the harder question, just whether a real human is behind an action at all, completely separate from who that human is.

The tools we built for identity don't really transfer to that question. They're heavier than they need to be for a much smaller claim. Proving you're a unique human shouldn't require the same amount of exposure as proving you're a specific named person, but right now most systems just don't separate the two.

I think whoever solves the narrower version well ends up mattering a lot more than people expect. World ID is the one project I've seen actually going after that gap directly instead of bolting proof of human onto an existing identity system. Genuinely not sure yet if it's the right approach long term, but the framing feels right even if the execution is still unproven.

JOHANNESBURG, July 15 (Reuters) - Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab low-earth orbit satellite internet venture Amazon Leo has signed an agreement with South Africa's Herotel to launch a ​new broadband service aimed at connecting underserved rural communities, it ‌said on Wednesday.

SpaceX is preparing for Starship's 13th test flight. Starship is still experiencing issues during ascent and has yet to successfully launch anything from orbit. This test flight will only be sub-orbital.

Is Starship's design flawed? Is it too heavy to achieve its goals? Rocket development is notoriously time-consuming, but SpaceX promised it had cracked that code.

NASA selected SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to transport astronauts from lunar orbit down to the Moon and back. Starship had a tremendous set of goals to achieve before taking on the Moon. Including mastering space-based & lunar refuelling & becoming a crew-capable craft that can land on the Moon, refuel there, and take off again with people on board.

Does any of this have any chance of happening soon if Starship is more fundamentally flawed and cannot reliably reach orbit with cargo?

SpaceX's 1st Starship test flight since going public is set to launch