Science

Another AI winter is coming, but it will be briefer and less pronounced than previous ones where funding almost completely dried up.

AI works, just not nearly as well as those promoting it would have us believe. It is not going away, and it will get better and more powerful, not immediately. Consumer robots in 2029 might happen but there won't be much uptake. AI penetration into call centres and "agents" will continue, but mostly just as the first filtering stages until some time later. Companies will pull back some from agentic AI but not abandon it. AI will be used to gather information and suggest options and assist with data intensive work like programming and legal briefs, but everybody involved in that will pull back some due to "hallucinations" and the strict requirements for testing and fact checking. Courts have no patience for fake citations in legal briefs.

But by 2050, I think self-driving and free standing self-directing robotics will be plentiful and useful.