[dennisw]

I've thought for a long time that we will get to a point where each person will have a "device" of some kind that is completely integrated into our lives. When you get to work, it will be the device you use for work. In that car, it will be the device that you use to navigate, listen to music, etc. It will be the device you use to shop, buy and pay for things. At home, it will provide you access to information, will be the pathway to your entertainment choices. On Sunday, you will get your sermon from it if you so choose. Etc.

An enhanced smartphone could do this. It would have to have the features of a $1000 laptop in smartphone size. It would have to have mini-hdmi out so you could connect it to monitors, HDTVs. It would have to connect with an external keyboard...bluetooth? It would have to have much better video and storage than what you have today

If you want to go a little further into the future, this device will have a wireless man/machine interface. If you "think" a question, this device will go get the answer and communicate it to you telepathically. We aren't that far off. There are now robotic prosthesis that are controlled by thought.

In short; The Matrix. Question is,in a world this automated, what value can humans provide to earn a paycheck?

In America humans cannot provide this value and it is getting worse all the time because of computerization-automation. This is why I say "productivity" is a joke and the obsession with "productivity" is as stupid as it gets. It was better 50 years ago when all men's labor was needed in a pretty much zero unemployment (3.3% was acceptable and a part of job churning) economy. Human labor was so highly valued that we brought slaves here....But today the labor of those slaves ancestors is unskilled thus unneeded.

I don't know about telepathy. I think the robot will anticipate your thoughts by doing a brain scan or you will have wires to your brains hot spots

[kevkrom]

An enhanced smartphone could do this. It would have to have the features of a $1000 laptop in smartphone size. It would have to have mini-hdmi out so you could connect it to monitors, HDTVs. It would have to connect with an external keyboard...bluetooth?

It would probably make more sense to have a wireless connection to displays, rather than HDMI. Probably some high-speed BlueTooth or ad-hoc WiFi. A system like this should only have one wire: the power cable, and induction chargers might even be able hide that, aside from initial setup.

I don't know about telepathy. I think the robot will anticipate your thoughts by doing a brain scan or you will have wires to your brains hot spots

Looking back at well over half a century of tech punditry, I think the one certainty is that we have absolutely no idea what the next big idea will be, or how it will change our lives. Which is good, in a way... I like surprises (nice ones, at least).