PHYSICALAI.
From machine productivity
to the social contract.
When intelligence leaves the screen to carry, care and transact,
we need to rethink work, wealth and intimacy.
Sixteen essays exploring a shared future.
Click the center, or explore the four coordinates.
Machines can create value.
How will we live together?
This series starts with a practical question: can customers buy only the work a robot completes? From measurement, transactions and ownership, it moves to income distribution, taxation, careers, and the time, companionship and autonomy we have at home. Technology changes what is possible. What we do with those possibilities remains a human choice.
Looking ahead to CES 2027:
The Unit of
Robot Work
Making robot productivity measurable—
a token for the Physical AI era
Proken is a conceptual framework proposed in this series.
Four parts. One continuing question.
Productivity & ownership
How value is created, and who owns it.
Looking ahead to CES 2027: The Unit of Robot Work
From selling equipment to buying outcomes: a unit for physical work that can be verified.
The next Bitcoin—could it emerge from Physical AI?
What connects work records, service credits and network assets?
AI creates wealth—who receives the income?
How do productivity gains reach wages, prices, profits and public services?
Beyond basic income: can we share ownership of AI?
Can income security, public services and participation in capital work together?
Work & distribution
Sharing the gains of technology and the costs of transition.
Robots earn no wages. Who fills the gap in the tax base?
When the structure of income changes, what should taxation follow?
AI may first take young people’s first jobs
If entry-level hiring shrinks, where will the next generation of experts learn?
Who do robots work for—and who is working for the robots?
Putting data collection, teleoperation and exception handling back into automation’s costs.
We teach our skills to robots. Can we share the returns?
When machines learn from human experience, how should contributors benefit?
Family & intimacy
What do we want to preserve as intelligence enters everyday life?
The most valuable output of a home robot may be time of your own
Recognizing the time consumed by care and housework, beyond the household accounts.
When AI enters sex and intimacy, who designs our attachments?
How do adult needs for sex and companionship interact with platform retention goals?
When an AI moves in, who sets the home’s boundaries—and who decides?
Who controls memory, permissions and the right to refuse in a shared space?
Care robots improve efficiency. Who makes sure older people are not more lonely?
Care requires relationships, choice and dignity—not just completed tasks.
Governance & the social contract
Setting limits for machines and expanding possibilities for people.
When a robot makes a mistake, the bill goes to whom?
From models to operators: what chain of responsibility does deployment at scale require?
AI makes services cheaper. Why might life not become cheaper?
What stands between lower technology costs and a lower cost of living?
When robots start paying, who can authorize the transaction?
Automated payments need identity, budgets, authorization and verification.
When work is no longer the only source of income, where do people find dignity?
As livelihoods change, how can people still contribute, build relationships and feel needed?
No matching essays. Try “family”, “work” or “Proken”.
Ideas can be bold.
Evidence must be clear.
The series draws on public industry discussions, academic research and institutional sources. Company claims, research findings and the author’s predictions are identified separately. Chatbot research is not treated as direct evidence of physical robots’ effects. Each essay includes sources for further reading.