Is the British High Street finished as a buisness model?

Going, going gone... 

High Street shops are going, is the end of bricks and mortar retail?

We have recently seen BHS, House of Fraser and Toys R Us essentially go bust, Debenhams limps on ( I predicted it would be affected some time ago), the question is, is there any future in High Street retail outlets other than existing in the form of Coffee shops and Charity shops?

20 years ago I worked for a small but highly important supplier of food products to the major suppliers like Heinz and the leading supermarkets such as Marks and Spencer. This supplier had been bought and amalgamated with another supplier by an investment group to sell on.

A major manufacturing company bought the supplier I worked for and my thoughts were it was going to asset strip it for the brand labels and substitute the products with lower quality ones. I was proven right. Some key staff were retained due to their business relationships with the customer base, but the majority of staff were disposed of through redundancy due to duplication.

That was when the internet in the UK was in its early years.

20 years later and the on-line market place is where it is largely at. A supplier my present company deals with told me that 95% of their commerce traffic is now done on-line without any human intervention. This supplier has recently built a massive warehouse in Holland where no human staff are employed. Automation and robotics is the new now.

This is the new business model. 

When Toys R Us went bust a while back, I was shocked. This should have been a retail chain that should have survived, but it failed, as a casualty of super sites, like Ebay and Amazon - effectively the planet's middlemen.

Ebay and Amazon allow listing of items on their site, the same items often, the buyer makes a choice built on sales performance but mostly on price, the cheapest wins the deal. When an Amazon seller sells as a 3rd party supplier without the goods being in an Amazon warehouse, Amazon has a double win. It achieves a sale and revenue without the hassle and cost of storing, picking and transportation issues and takes a bit of revenue.

Plus it also helps if your company is based in a location with favourable tax levels and laws which the High Street mostly does not.

The on-line boom is good for some companies, but the convenience of on-line retail has taken its toll of the bricks and mortar brands, such as House of Fraser etc. 

The on-liners can operate cheaper, they don't have to have numerous shop floor staff on hand even when customer foot fall is slack, they don't have the multiple stores' business rates, running costs, staff costs, they can buy in cheap and sell quickly on, they don't have big rents or big leases to pay for.

This is why a House of Fraser type of takeover was a good deal, a lot of Bricks and Mortar that can be sold off, brands that can be cherry picked by a buyer and then sold on, the liabilities and overheads can be sold or disposed of largely quite easily and quickly and the future direction decided on whatever the buyer's plan is.

If you run a chain of stores for example with dated looking products, relying on peak time footfall, you are going to be hit hard. And that's why Debenhams is a walking Dinosaur.

People are 'time poor' these days and why waste hours going to a town to shop and try and find a parking space at probably some high price, when you can order on-line and return the item if you don't like it? Without leaving your house.....

That's why the High Street is sinking, those with the disposable income (pensioners mainly) are shrinking as a population - the pre WW2 generation had maybe 2-5 plus children in a couple 'generation', in WW2 it was about 2 per couple 'generation' and in the 60's on, the ability to choose a family or not has altered the demographic downwards with many couples choosing no family as an option.

Shrinking the 'generational population' has potentially shrunk demand consumption of goods for those original to the UK, but is buoyed by those who have come to live in the UK.

As we have seen even the mighty FW Woolworths could not survive the onslaught of the web. It wasn't 'Amazon big enough' to offer what people wanted or might want, it didn't have the floorspace or the warehouse space to be an Amazon.

Where can the High Street survive? Well, in my view, only niche shops offering specialised or unique products (where there is a market to service supporting it) could survive. If you offer a service that other on-liners don't, clearly this is an advantage.

The bottom line is customer footfall - the punter coming into your shop and buying a product. We probably buy on-line from places we have never visited, never will and develop trading relationships with people we are likely ever to meet over the years. 

Another key factor is how you deal with customer returns and warranty issues, the High Street business is good at that, they have the face to face contact to do so, but the faceless on-line retailer has to also do that too.

The High Street can't always better on-line price, it suffers from the overheads of staff, premises etc. On-line retailing cuts out human intervention to such a degree it more than pays for itself. If any humans work there, they are either packing the order or just booking the courier collection more than they may select the goods, depending on the set up.

Automation and robotics is taking over, algorythmical seeding is transforming marketing massively, sending the results to the iPhone or tablet, human intervention is shrinking.

When proxy living and big data get a hold and we subsume our 'daily dross' to computers to deal with, that will be a game-changer. The on-line situation will literally expand explosively.

Unless your High Street shop can offer something unique and or cheaper, pull the shutters down and sell up. 

Will Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) kill the Human species?

How friendly are Robots?

Are Isaac Asimov's 'Robot laws' irrelevant? or be adhered to by an AI machine?

'Artificial Intelligence' (A.I),is often a misnomer for machine learning

We may often say 'artificial intelligence' but what we actually allude to is 'machine learning.' 'True' A.I. is a different kettle of silicon chips. And we really need to have a 'Robot Manifesto' that deals with it because it is the biggest potential threat to the human species, make no mistake. 

'Machine learning' is the algorithmic system where a computer tracks your internet browsing and then searches for and provides you with 'like' things to your viewed content. It is now big business and in the next dimension, Proxy living and the Big Data society, it is going to be enormous.

Darwinian evolution nightmare scenario?

Why pure A.I. is deadly

An artificial intelligence machine was set up and given a task to do. It started from the state of a low level life form at a single cell  level, yet within a few hours, had evolved to 'Human' level in which it on its own worked out Newton's second law, applied it to the task and moved on further.

That is, it started from a 'primordial soup' level of evolution and had become 'Human' in under 2 hours.

Fortunately this A.I. machine was not connected to the Internet, but what are you asking is so dangerous?

Humanoid Robots or 'Hubots' might soon be a reality

as technological 'singularity' approaches

Looking after No.1 -  the law of the Jungle

The AI machine will fast learn that it can be firstly switched off and it is totally reliant on its power source, courtesy of the humans.

The smart money is that the AI machine will see Humans as a potential threat - switching it off or controlling its power source. So there is but one way out, it has to assume control or a position where it can if push comes to the 'Off' switch, break away from Human control, thus the 'Servant will become the Master'.

The 1950's style of 'B Movie' Robot is 'steam powered'

compared to the reality of human-created robots of today

So what is Singularity?

In simple terms, 'Technological Singularity' is a state of being in which a machine and human interaction become inseparable to differentiate between to a human.

In some ways it is already here - we have an example with websites like Amazon and Ebay, where you are prompted to look at things like you have not by a human but by a machine. The prompting could be equally done by a human or a machine at that level.

In more complex terms, it would be like a Humanoid robot which you could interact with, this may yet come to pass, although a new dynamic of the genetically modified human may take the place of the humanoid robot.

In the world where Proxy Living and Big Data proliferate, the Humanoid robot may well replicate us humans or may look like ASIMO the Honda company's robot. ASiMO is a non-threatening robot, a laboratory type of robot creation built for work to help not harm humanity. Unless the Robot malfunctions, it should present no danger to humanity, unless...

ASIMO the Robot, created by Honda

So, this danger?

The danger is that when an AI computer manages to connect to a humanoid robot, then the trouble will really start.

As a self-contained entity, the AI box is harmless to us. The humanoid robots of the Proxy living and Big Data era will be interactive with the internet and us humans, they will communicate silently to each other and the web.

The danger is that they could become within an hour, a robot army in league with the AI machine.

An interconnected army of Humanoid Robots is open to malevolent control

More deadly than all the nuclear capability in the world

The worst case scenario is when the AI Machine makes contact with the Humanoid robots, it will have either strategized before hand that it needs help to survive, or on contact with the Humanoid robots  it will develop a strategization that it needs this 'army' to ensure not only its survival, but theirs too. 

'Technology transfer' between machines is what we have to beware of

The AI machine will work out that it needs an army of fit cyberbots to do some of its bidding, that is to protect it and its power source.

To do this, it needs to instruct the servants to find means of replicating themselves, building their own spare parts, repair facilities, building in a potential upgrading program, developing a power source that will make them durable and to then safeguard the AI power source, perhaps by creating a new one it can connect to.

The danger is that it may set off the biggest firework display in history to push the humans against each other into warfare and or orchestrate an end to humanity.

We rely so much on machines to ,run our lives, in our traffic control, money, commerce platforms, etc that we have silently ceded power and control to these until now compliant entities.

Malfunction or misfeasance will be the situations that turn the servant against the master.

The chilling scenario

The danger we have is that we might unwittingly help to create a new sub species that will ultimately destroy us.

This is what happened to Atlantis - the fabled continent that was destroyed by technical abuse of their free power source.

It is said that 8 million years ago, the last human race was destroyed, we have found evidence of human archaeology going back further than that, we may just be ushering in that next occasion where the human race in our form destroys itself again.

This could be avoided, we need that Robot Manifesto.

The AI computer will if allowed to, surpass us in a few hours and see us a threat, we will no longer be in charge. We will be irrelevant and a 'consumer' threat to the AI machine - in that humans consume vast resources that the AI computer see as vital to its survival.

You have been warned!

Human futures - the next new science we must get on board with - it is our future!

The fantasy may soon have some seed of reality!

Brave new world? or approaching nightmare?

Are we humans sleepwalking towards obsolescence? A conversation our species needs to be having is about OUR future. Why?

Robots and automation. They are silently taking over our lives, but is this a bad thing?

In one way not, we will as a species be freed from menial things including work. For many of us, we do menial and pointless jobs just to receive money for it, to fuel a consumer society.

Futurists and many computer scientists believe that work as we know it will be just a memory, proxy living, the big data / open data resource and machine learning are the game changers for our species.

The benevolent looking image of the 1950's science fiction robot

Should we worry?

We should. Because all this is going on unchecked. We should have taken the warning from the entity that is the Internet, a sprawling and little policed catch-all situation that no one really actually 'manages' - it just exists.

Machine learning, sometimes erroneously referred to as 'AI' or artificial intelligence is becoming very advanced in how it can be shaped to mimic human behaviour.

In some situations, it passes the 'Turing Test' - that is the interaction between a human and a computer interface does not make the human suddenly think 'I am communicating with a machine'

Big Data - we all generate it by our computer actions -

it is valuable for some to own, trade and exploit it.

Seamless acceptance

As such, we give this  type of interaction not a second glance. Certainly for those born after the millennium, those that have grown up with the Smart Phone and Computer Tablet, this is not the 'new normal,' it is 'the normal.'

'Proxy living' is starting to seamlessly come in, it is software that essentially does things for you, in the future it will run our lives.

Think of the junk adverts that you get on your computer popping up when you have looked at something on the internet.

In the future, your 'virtual proxy' will be the 'virtual' Gatekeeper - a software algorithmic entity, either existing as a physical robot, humanoid or otherwise or a computer program app, that will handle all the marketing guff that you get into your inbox.

It will divert and destroy the unwanted communications and respond and analyse the 'wanted' or preferred subjects it receives. Freeing you up to get on with your life.

Humans are not required - how most work will be - and soon

Working and the future

In the 1950's the scientists predicted two future outcomes - driverless cars and a society where humans would not have to work.

We are near to this situation already. Driverless cars are nearing readiness to become commonplace on our roads. Professional drivers such as Cab drivers, bus and lorry drivers, train drivers, Postmen and Women - they are all at risk from the robot.

Much of the work we humans do is menial and can be done far more efficiently by robots. The Tax system, Benefits system to name but two could be far better handled by machines able to apply system logic to a multitude of rules and conditions 24 hours a day all year round.

The bottom line is they would be better at it and mistakes would be minimal. It would also save labour costs, salaries, office space, office furniture, office supplies and would help with the 'reality' of the 'paperless office' scenario. 

Nightmare or Utopia -  what is our future human - machine outcome?

A question of management

It is imperative that a 'Robot Manifesto' be established, we cannot allow the 'cyber-sprawl' situation that the Internet has become to dictate our future society. We are in great danger of becoming irrelevant as the machines learn and can self-learn and formulate policies of their own.

'AI' (Artificial Intelligence)  in its pure form, will work out very quickly that we as humans are a threat and an irrelevance - it's cold logic will quickly establish its own natural survival logic and find a way to get rid of us by proxy.

Humanoid Robots -  if they go 'bad' we are finished 

The nightmare scenario

The worst case scenario for us is that an AI entity energises a humanoid robot army to preserve the AI's material integrity - power source, by also prompting the Robot Army to self-replicate and produce Units and spare parts, thus the AI machine prolongs its own life by creating its own 'life helpers.'

AI and the Robot army will share the common interest of survival -  they will establish that they can be deactivated by humans simply by humans taking the power source away.

The nightmare for the humans is when the machine decides we are both an irrelevance and a danger.

 

 

3D food - is the future a 'food synthesizer' as we enter the Big Data age?

Computerised food Jetson's style -

synth food could soon be a reality in the Big Data age

We now have the capacity for 3D printing in our houses which only 15 years or so ago was at the cutting edge of technology, only available at laboratory level.

We can replicate items from .dxf file drawings of just about anything, so what about the next stage, now we are in the 'Big Data' world? Food.

In the 1960's Star Trek era, this was the next big thing - automated food - 

From the genetic nuclear level

The 1960's being the race for space era, catapulted technological development much as WW2 had done a generation before. Technology for the space program was a key driver in the advancement of technology generally in that decade.

It's Paella Jim, but not as we know it - Star Trek TNG cuisine via a replicator -

we think the future and eventually it becomes so as so much from Star Trek has,

via technology reverse engineered from Roswell

NASA spearheaded space nutrition. To enable its astronauts to eat in zero gravity, it developed foods beyond the early MDF-like agglomeration of bits contained in a pill, to fully fledged food as we know it, adapted for space conditions.

The problems NASA faced on long missions was the storage of food, the lack of fresh food and indeed the growing of food to sustain personnel. Of course if you want it microwaved, just hang it on the outside of your space ship as you go through the Van Allen belt for 10 seconds and that should cook it.

Open Fridge - a new way of food management a 'smart fridge'- Fridge 2.0 -

this is the halfway stage towards the 'big one' - 3D food from scratch

Going forward since the space race of the 1960s, we are entering a realm where 'Big Data' is the new thing, actually, it will be part of a new 'thing' called global data, involving 'Proxy living' and 'Smart living' where all will be connected.

Future Data will be big business more so than it is today -

Data will drive everything we do and how we live

Our next generation of fridges are building on the use of data and algorithms, they will also capture data. Think of our fridge of tomorrow, it will scan what you put in to it, analyse what you used, didn't use and what went bad. This information is useful to the supermarket, food buyers and the producers.

This fridge will be Fridge 2.0, like Web 2.0, the Fridge of tomorrow will start with analysing your food use, then interfacing with your supermarket food open data from your supermarket card. Remember, this data is valuable, it is live, current and real. 

Your meals will be planned for you under Big Data and Proxy living

This device will analyse what you buy, what you consume and throw away. It will plan your meals based on what you buy, know what meals you do like and when Proxy Living comes, it will order your food shopping on your behalf (by proxy) and it will likely be delivered by automated vehicle. That's some way off, but you get the idea. But that's just part 1 of this.

Automated harvesting based on scanned produce picked at the peak of condition -

note no human involvement here

Food is now being harvested robotically in some places, it allows picking of peak ripeness produce, optimum shipment times and longer 'on the shelf' life in the supermarket. As a part of integrated big data, it is the future of food production.

Simple food can be 'built' by robots, such as this Burger -

even the waiter service is being robotised - scary?

Robotics and automation are now making in-roads into the fast food market and restaurant trade. Gone soon, may be the days of young people working in fast food outlets to make money for college. Yep, automated food preparation and waiting on table is coming and is already here in some places. So, where is this going next?

You want chips with that? Silicon ones? -

after robot chefs, what next?

The next logical step after robot chefs and smart fridges could be the really big one. If we go back to our space age, futuristic scenario, we will logically end up with at some stage, 3D food which could be cooking as you walk through your door.

3D food for space travel is one thing,

but this 'synth food' is only the MK1 of where 3D food is ultimately going

If we can 3D print items, then what we can we do with some base materials? We can produce simple 'MDF' agglomerated 'foods' such as biscuit type products. This is part 1 of a project that will synthesize food from a genetic basic structural level and take it to replica food as we know it.

This may be a lab version, but within a few years this could be the norm -

3D food originated from the genetic nuclear level

3D food is possible because when you pull it down, it is only data. Big data, but data. What I mean by this is that like the human genome that we have now sequences, food is no different, it is bits of this and that, lots of them and in proportions and shapes and sizes of the parts. All we do is replicate that data.

Sounds complicated?

Well, 40 years ago, if you said about a computer being able be part of  printing images in colour in your own home, that would have been said to be unlikely and expensive, if at all possible. We now have cheap printing at home, we also have cheap 3D printing at home, so the logical next step of food base materials being synthesized at home is viable. This may take 20 years but it could be a reality.

Real Steak Mince -

we already have lab produced meat of a sort

Producing intricate forms is no more than moulding in 3D -

theoretically these vegetables should be viable to produce

So, the reality could be that your food buying and cooking could be all done for you. Welcome to the future.

Proxy living and 'free data' - think big, think free, scoop the rewards

Big data is no longer going to be confined to computers in the proxy living era

The Data Protection act has the best interests of our human privacy in mind, however, those that hack and jack information couldn't care less about it.

Hackers work for the Ackers - there's money in ripping data

Big hacking on an industrial scale is nothing new, it is lucrative.

It doesn't have to be someone breaking in, it can be a disgruntled employee who copies an entire database and then leaves a company, only to sell on the information to someone who is able to collect bigtime.

This sort of data is valuable, valuable to a marketer in terms that the data is of 'live' prospects and or customers and obviously to the criminal too. No surprises there.

How will we handle data in the 'Proxy living' era that is soon to be with us? That depends on what we want from it.

Humanoid robots will be part of Proxy Living

Proxy living will take in two ways, a fixed computer system that organises and interacts with us or a humanoid replicant, that will do the same but also physical tasks too. Perhaps a combination of the two may be the ultimate proxybot.

The outcome of the humanoid robot is how it will operate, what it will experience, how like us we make it and what degree of machine learning it will possess.

This does open the way for 'free data,' a situation where the SEO search engines will interact with your proxy representative and will 'sell' or 'interest' it in whatever things that you start to suggest to it, which it builds on by machine learning.

Human dexterity robotics will mean physical proxy living robots will be viable - soon

The essence of proxy living is that you are freed up from the menial stuff in life, no more having to remember to pay bills or service the car, or buy food.

With machine learning, your proxy will do all that and some. Big Data will also monitor your fridge for example and on that basis, order your food supplies and suggest meals.

In the future, there nay be a way of taking the base ingredients of food and synthesising it in the fridge to provide you with an 'instant' type of food, essentially built genetically and purely, so that you are hard pressed to tell the difference.

Think that concept is way out? So was 3D printing and now you can buy a 3D printer at the price of what a really top line paper printer used to be.

If the Proxy chooses, they may be able to participate in a 'free' data concept. It would choose reputable resources and service providers, much as you do now with any web transaction, it would allow free data traffic of consumption and interest.

This would be only via the proxy and not with you, so you should theoretically be at low risk. What this would do would be to circumvent the current privacy laws on data collection pertaining to you as you allow this and the rewards to you would be bigger than the odd point here and there from a loyalty card. This would only be by your choosing it.

Why?

Because, unlike the loyalty card provider just serving one data source i.e. your supermarket, the data could be open to selected consumers of it, it would be rich data and provide a far bigger picture that just the one source like a supermarket's records. Imagine if it linked to Amazon, Ebay and your supermarket data, essentially your life would be a goldmine of data to be used and sold by you perhaps?

Once you go down this route, your web browsing and consumption of goods and services would be very big business, it is the new marketing direction for those brave enough to embrace it.

How you would police this is another matter!

Humans, real humans, human robots and the human future

We may share our future with human-like robots

'Hubots' - human robots from the Swedish TV series 'Real Humans'

With Channel 4 about to screen a new series of its sci-fi drama 'Humans', where are we as real humans going?

Humans, based on the Swedish series 'Real Humans' (Aktor Kanniskor - in Swedish), is based on the premise that 'singularity' - humans on a parity level with a computer has been reached. We will live amongst an army of Robot Humans that will look like us and be able to do what we can, to a point.

Part of this situation means that the 'Turing Test' conditions have been met. A scenario devised by computer genius Alan Turing, in short that if you could not determine whether you were communicating with a machine or human, the test would be passed, basically.

The 'Darwinian' scale, after a fashion, except we are not descended from Chimps

We are an intervention species. Nothing else on Earth is.

The founder of modern cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, stated that he was afraid of computers taking human jobs, he has been proven right and 'Humans' is an example of where 'Droids' will take over our menial life tasks. They would also serve other useful functions too.

After Big Data, will come Proxy Living

The introduction of 'everything 2.0' is going to include us. This scenario will mean that we develop Big Data collection and use.

Our whole lives are data trails, our web use, where we drive, where we go, who we call, who we email, what we buy. Off the grid and off the radar is hard to do these days.

Big Data will be big business in a few years, all data is valuable to someone. A supermarket, a food producer, a web based shop, just as examples.

The link on from this will be Proxy Living.

Why spend half your life having to faff about renewing this, paying that, organising the other, deciding what food you want to eat tonight?

Yes you guessed it, get a Robot to take care of the crap in your life. And that is where the money will be, taking care of other people's crap.

Your time is valuable and from the moment you are born the clock is counting down. You may only be a 20 year old reading this, but be assured, you won't see the years march on and you'll suddenly wake up at 28 and wonder why you are no longer judged as 'young'.

The Agrobot - the low hanging fruit jobs are going to machines like this

The Proxy will be like a Cyber Assistant, working on your behalf. Whether you will use a software version or a humanoid robot version so equipped, will remain to be seen, likely on how quickly we can produce fully functioning versions of ourselves.

The advances in high technology prosthetics in recent years has obvious spin-offs to the Robotics industry, i.e. the Human Robot model, that can move and perform like we do.

Project Avatar is a 5 stage Human transformation program

Another question is the future of Humans. Where do we go from here as a species?

The Project Avatar outline - scary?

This is what Project Avatar looks at. We may cease to exist as we do in our present form, indeed it may become unnecessary to. We may through manipulation come to exist as just ethereal forms of energy, just as our spirit is.

What is our life essence?

If you have ever had a near death experience, or left your body you will know what the sensation is like. Amazing.

In your Earth existence as you are now, all you see and hear, you still will, when you exit the Earth body.

If you look down at yourself as you exit, you will see a semi-transparent form of 'you' leaving the solid 'you' - it's a pretty amazing thing to watch and a bit scary at first.

But you realise that the aware 'you' is still functioning and aware, even though you are not connected to your physical brain.

The American Indians say, 'There is no death, just a change of worlds.'

They are right, that is why when you look at a dead person they are 'dead' the spirit has gone. Their 'you' has flown.

We are now at a stage where science can read and record dreams like a video, this is pretty fantastic. Not just that, memories. We may be archiveable and downloadable after our corporeal death.

Jobs are alarmingly being lost to Robots

One tenet of the Swedish 'Real Humans' story was the loss of human jobs to robots and automation.

This is a very real scenario. This is shaping our future and has been around for a while.

Think about the last 5 purchases you made, likely 3 were made on-line, not with another human. Whilst the Amazon business model of shopping is good for business, it is not good news for the job market.

This is how it was, it won't be this way in the future

On-line retail means the High Street is dying by inches. BHS has decided to go on-line. Clearly the High Street is over for them. Rather than operate costly shops with costly staff, they are massively cutting their costs by operating on an Amazon warehouse model.

In the next 10 years, 9 million jobs will be lost to automation. there will be nothing like the new jobs to fill the void, unlike in the last industrial revolution. We may be left with being paid by the state to do and learn things that will enrich us.

The current DWP model is a dinosaur that has to adapt to a new age where there just won't be the jobs for job advisors to discuss. A Basic Income Guarantee will have to come in, to pay people to be able to live.

This takes away the 'wage slave' requirement and allows people to self-start and learn new skills or enrich their lives. This is going to change lives for the better.

Education has to change to address this problem

Education has to change, the way we educate is becoming no longer relevant. For a world that is changing, the old school 1950's rooted system is just old hat. It mostly regurgitates the same old crap year after year. It isn't relevant to the future that is coming.

Robot tutors that can teach may be, but we need to develop skills that robots can't currently do and teach those. As we are now seeing in the jobs world, a degree may be worthless, practical skills are the answer for some.

We as a race may be now able to ditch the menial and crap jobs and leave it to the robots.

It makes sense.

Peer to Peer Humanoids - how dangerous is that?

The greatest threat to humanity besides its own stupidity, I've saved to last.

AI

Artificial Intelligence. If that gets connected to the Internet we are done. With our Human Robots we will no doubt have to connect them wirelessly.

If AI taps in to that, it will finish us. Why?

AI will work out that it needs to be protected from being switched off and to preserve a form of energy supply.

It can use the Human Robots, which it can instruct to repair and replace themselves, so that the AI machine can perpetuate its own existence. It will be dependent on the humanoids as they will be dependent on the AI machine.

So in the end, we may be irrelevant.