What will American society look like when there are millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of advanced robots? Billions of dollars of capital are being poured into developing that future now.

One conventional view is that the future will be a mechatronic nightmare: billionaires attended by a robot Albert or Jeeves in their penthouses while the masses, made economically obsolete by automation, will fight over scraps in a jobless wasteland. That Blade Runner-esque view is wrong for several important economic and cultural reasons. We should all be optimistic about what’s possible with robotics, leveraging decades of computer innovation to transform the physical world.

The first humanoid robots to walk into American homes will be in the homes of the rich. There is no doubt about this fact, because they will cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to design and manufacture; however, it is a law of innovation that what starts with the rich will eventually reach the masses in one form or another. Private drivers and multiple vacation homes are hallmarks of affluence, and technology makes that affluence more accessible. Notably, computers have plummeted in cost over the past 50 years, going from something almost nobody could afford to being ubiquitous around the world.

Robotics is one of the most capital-intensive businesses in the world, and high-capex businesses can’t survive by serving the few. They survive by serving the many. You need a great deal of mechanical and computer engineering to design and produce cutting-edge robots, which are both considerably more expensive than software development alone.

When a business invests billions into robotics R&D, it cannot succeed by making a few hundred robot sommeliers for hedge funders and other high-rollers. Companies will be incentivized to build systems that can replace frontline labor in tens of thousands of restaurants, warehouses, hospitals, and stores, where economies of scale can return the original investment many times over. Soon enough, robots will be highly effective at performing the tasks that are repetitive and generalizable, like cleaning, restocking, delivery, check-in, and check-out. Currently, these roles are filled by individuals who incur ongoing costs, including salary, benefits, and HR expenses. These roles are low-status yet high-volume. 

The core economic value of robotics lies in reducing marginal costs for businesses, and this only becomes effective at scale. Massive improvements in the unit economics of all sorts of goods 

Furthermore, even the richest people in the world will only spend a certain amount on automated help. Consider the iPhone. It is a unique aspect of technology capitalism that the richest individuals use phones that are, for the most part, the same as those used by the rest of the country. One person or another may choose a bigger screen or a faster processor, but one cannot really buy a $100,000 phone, no matter how bedazzled or golden it is.

Self-driving cars are a type of robot, as well. Because of the expense to obtain a self-driving car, the first riders have all been “rich,” too. However, in the long run, as costs decrease, the most significant benefits of autonomous driving will be felt in the lives of middle- and lower-income Americans, who often commute longer distances. 

History shows us that every transformative technology follows the same pattern: from luxury to necessity, from the few to the many. 

Goods that were once unthinkable luxuries, such as on-demand help, 24/7 assistance, and consistent service, will become accessible to people of all classes. Like all previous waves of innovation, robots will augment human capabilities and improve the overall well-being of society. Humans will be able to specialize and do more things that are uniquely accessible to them. Near-zero marginal cost labor will transform everyday life for the common person, not because robots are inherently glamorous or fancy, but because robots will give all humans back the most extraordinary luxury of all: time. 

The real impacts will be felt in millions of homes and businesses, where everyday life is enhanced and the umbrella of luxury is expanded to many more people than before. What was previously only available to the wealthy through costly human labor can now be accessed by millions on a larger scale. 

Robots will not have their most significant effects in Aspen, Woodside, or Monaco. In these places, synonymous with extreme richesse, the rich will need to convey their status in other ways when labor becomes cheap enough for anyone to afford. Do you expect to see an automated checkout at Nobu or Applebee’s? 

Consider how many of the ultra-wealthy already consume. A French or Italian leather bag requires a craftsman to hand-stitch for many hours. Loro Piana sends specialists to the Andes to hand-comb wild vicuña for fibers. A Patek Philippe watch contains movements assembled by a single watchmaker over months. 

Today, there are affordable and high-quality products made in factories, but the luxury of something that was assembled by hand, in some cases, unnecessarily,  has its own appeal. As with factories that can produce goods, robots will help transform human labor into a status symbol. While the masses enjoy their on-demand labor for the first time in human history, wealthy individuals will want human helpers, handmade leather, and all things analog. Robots will establish the new “minimum standard” of cheap, efficient labour that is available to the common person. But the rich aren’t chasing efficiency with their consumption. Inefficiency is the point. It is the summum bonum as it implies the freedom to be inefficient. Even today, ultra-rich individuals may be among the last to use travel agents, paid professionals who plan vacations. The Internet and free booking software have rendered the vocation all but useless, except for someone with unlimited money at their disposal and a desire for something curated.

Robots will appear in affluent spaces as novelties, unserious, and possibly lowbrow. In the rest of the world, they’ll be indispensable, fulfilling critical roles and functions that the future will be built upon.

So, there is no need for the average person to fear the robot revolution. We will give up certain intense physical jobs. The new world will be weird at times, with unpredictable changes. But remember this: the future can be so abundant for all, with so much cheap labor, that the rich will actually counter-signal by using inefficient human labor. When “I can hire humans” replaces “I have a robot” as a statement of elite status, it will be a world of unbelievable abundance.  

Robots will improve the world for all of us: not just for the rich, but for everyone.