u/brainland

Robotics has quietly moved a long way.

Things that once seemed like pure science fiction are now being demonstrated in real-world environments.

But sometimes we're so surrounded by new technology that we don't stop to think about how strange some of it would have sounded a decade ago.

What's the best example you can think of?

It doesn't have to be a humanoid robot.

It could be anything from autonomous vehicles, robot dogs, warehouse robots, surgical robots, household robots, drones, or something much more obscure.

What can robots do today that would have made you say "no way" ten years ago?

Ok, let's forget the humanoid robot hype for a moment.

Imagine a genuinely capable robot could live next door to you. It could move around independently, understand what you say, use tools, and perform useful tasks.

What would you actually want it to do?

Would you want it to:

Help elderly or disabled neighbors?

Deliver things?

Keep an eye on the neighborhood?

Help with repairs?

Mow lawns and handle outdoor work?

Help during emergencies?

Or something completely different?

And perhaps more importantly: what would you absolutely NOT want your robot neighbor doing?

What would you actually find useful versus what just sounds cool in a demo.

One thing that caught me off guard was versioning the payload used for cryptographic hash verification.

Initially, I generated a deterministic SHA-256 hash from the contract payload (terms, fields, signatures, etc.) and stored it as the integrity anchor.

Everything worked until I realized that the payload itself would evolve over time. Maybe a future release adds attachments, amendments, or new metadata. Even though the original contract hasn't changed, the serialized payload would, producing a completely different hash.

Then I came up with a solution which was to version the hash payload itself and store that payload version alongside every signed record. During verification, the system reconstructs the payload using the original version before recomputing the hash.

It seems obvious in hindsight, but it's one of those details that's easy to overlook until you start thinking about long-term verification.

How do you handle evolving hash payloads or signed data structures in systems that need to remain verifiable for years?

Austin Hinder posted on X

"Hot take, WordPress plugins coded by humans will become obsolete. The most popular WordPress plugins will be generated by AI models, Fable and beyond."

I came in and saw it differently cos I believe the future isn't just about AI-generated plugins.

It's WordPress becoming a core application framework where a single, well-architected plugin delivers an entire solution with minimal or zero dependencies on another plugins.

Thanks to the fact that WP is open source and anything open source is AI friendly. Also, thanks to custom tables support in WP.

I may be wrong but it's actually the only true path that I see in a space where clients don't wanna manege 10different plugins with one core plugin.

So what's the next phase for plugins sellers? How has been sales? What approach are you leveraging and looking forward to?

We can code, edit videos, design apps, attend meetings, play games, manage servers, and build businesses all in one place.

Yet it barely gets the credits it deserves.

Which software do you think comes close?

#Austin

I have been reading a lot about humanoids especially from Elon and it gets interesting but scary at the same time. Elon stated that it could also lead to Universal Basic Income.

This means a lot of us will not work anymore?