For disabled people who can use their arms and propel themselves, a wheelchair is low-maintenance, dependable, repairable, self-powered, and generic enough for there to be a healthy market and not too much vendor lock-in. Wheelchairs are not necessarily low-tech, but they are fully understandable. If the user of a wheelchair is unable to move themself for whatever reason, any able bodied person can step in and push. These things matter in any situation I think, but they matter even more in an emergency or a war zone.

Exoskeletons can't match that.

Much like wheelchairs vs exo skeletons, the simpler (and cheaper) tech tends to win. I'd imagine in a future where robots are everywhere, they'll use whatever cheap locomotion is appropriate for their tasks, probably predominantly wheels. It's a fun vision to imagine bipedal robots everywhere like in old sci movies, but I'm not convinced that's how it'll play out, the economics don't make that much sense.

Bipedal robots are more expensive to develop, build and maintain, more limited in their payloads, and because of the additional complexity, less reliable.

> If we applied the same logic, there should be a massive effort to ditch wheelchairs and build exoskeletons instead.

Knowing the kind of markup on wheelchairs that means a YouTuber wheel chair look like a bargain (see Jerry rig everything wheelchair), I can't imagine how much the US healthcare "industry" would charge for a "medical grade" exoskeleton.

There just aren't that many people in wheelchairs. There's not a lot of TAM in trying to build a better wheelchair that involves a huge capex.

So instead the government gets involved and demands a change to built environment instead of a speculative bet on the idea of a new technology.

I hear you, I think there's some obvious points you've already considered on price and serviceability. But maybe we do see that coming soon? Exoskeletons currently require some mobility from the legs from the user in the products available today, but as automatic bipedal motion gets more reliable maybe that changes.

I have seen how robots currently behave when they lose their footing though, and I'd be bloody terrified to be strapped into one.

Maybe wheelchair users and robot manufacturers can share a force for getting wheeled locomotion into more spaces, but I think homes will always be a challenge as stairs are a requirement for denser living, and elevators are expensive.

With the wealth gap increasing ever further, I think we will see technology in lock step with that divide.

I doubt robots will actually end up in every household, but a niche luxury product and utility for businesses makes some sense. Even if you think about it from that perspective, robot makers would still want them to be a universal robot not dozens of unique use case bots.

If a business can pay 30k for a general purpose extra set of hands I think that would be a no brainer, and I think the wealthy would see it similarly.

Increasing wealth inequality will increase this type of thing. William Gibson novels explain it.

Such robots aren't more expensive than cars though, you can buy a humanoid robot today for a fraction of the cost of a car. They lack intelligence but they can move around.

I’d look to the lasting infrastructure improvement from the dotcom era. Such as laying fiber.

A big ones here may also be increased technological literacy, the rise of a new UI paradigm (chat with a non-human) and the structuring so much data in the world that while it previously existed was hard to meaningfully leverage because it was unstructured.

And, last but not least, lowering the barrier to entry to starting tech companies by eliminating and launching a new generation of SMB-like tech startups that don’t need to take VC-money and scale to survive. And as a result can can solve problems facing niche industries (not to be confused with things like Wix or Etsy that lowered the barriers business selling real world products to create an online presence)

If nothing else, mainstreaming AI will have the same impact mainstreaming spreadsheets did.

For some radioactive isotope probably. Uranium 235 half life is, what, > 500 million years? That would make iron significantly hotter. Normal Fe is effectively around forever.

Hahahah,

fair point, maybe you could show me a 50 year old rail that is still worthy of being ridden. ;)

Even a 20 year old rail is problematic from what I understand (from a UK perspective).

Maybe some isotopes of iron have a half-life, stable isotopes don't decay (iron is the element where all decay chains end)

Rust.

I'll be honest: this list sounds like grasping at straws to find something positive in this fiasco and doesn't come close to building something lasting and valuable for USA.