The Shape of the Future — Episode II: Machine Economy
The world is developing technology at an increasing speed, and it can be hard to keep up with these developments. So when I decided to start a series of technology articles, I wanted to simplify the current trends to allow as many people as possible to understand them. Welcome to The Shape of the Future, where we will look at the technologies shaping our tomorrows through the lens of today’s world.
What exactly the Machine Economy is might be a question different people have different answers to. The reason for that is that, although we have seen it slowly coming into existence in many fields, the Machine Economy has yet to emerge.
So simply put, the Machine Economy is one of machines. The idea is that machines will reach a degree of autonomy and intelligence that they can run their own economy with little to no interaction with humans. It is also sometimes called the M2M Economy or Machine-to-Machine Economy.
So what would that look like? Basically, imagine a building run by an AI and a cleaning robot autonomously hired by the AI to clean the lobby. The AI contacts the cleaning bot and the two negotiate a price. The AI of the building makes a price comparison with all the other bots cleaning lobbies and the bot calculates energy costs, time, insurance and a margin and makes an offer. If the pricing algorithm of both machines come to the same conclusion, they agree on the price, and the little robot is booked. It begins its journey to the building. Once it arrives there, it begins cleaning and is paid in the process. The AI and machines are doing this every week, until the AI stops. There is an update to vacuum cleaner bots available. To stay competitive, the bot needs the update. It learns that because another AI it hires to keep him updated informed it of this. This AI gets a small fee of millions of vacuum cleaner bots for the service and is paid from the money the AI paid it. Yes, the vacuum cleaner has a bank account. A purely digital one, run by another machine, most likely that gets a fee for banking. So the vacuum bot has the money to acquire the update and also a few repairs. The update comes from an automated network and the repairs are done by another bot specialized in repairs the vacuum cleaner bot hires. The AI is informed that its old buddy the vacuum bot is up to speed again and hires it, now for a new price, as its effectiveness is now higher. Both algorithms update to take this into consideration. The vacuum bot begins earning money again.
The AI of the building also hires repair bots, lends security drones and pays an AI to maintain network security. Maybe it offers the human inhabitants extra services like doing their shopping. Yeah, those bots getting the stuff might be hired too. You can continue with this endlessly.
The example shows an economy humans are not part of, in which machines acquire financial resources on their own and spend them without human interaction to maintain and upgrade themselves. That is the idea behind the machine economy.
M2M communication has long become a reality, so what this economy waits for is the machines getting the means to execute this system. AI and databases are quickly evolving nowadays, so that by now this vision seems like a quickly evolving reality.
The exchange of data described above, by the way, is done in a network run entirely by machines. That second internet is called the Internet-of-Things. We will have a look at that one next week.
