By 2100, as much as 84% of the Earth’s 10.8bn people will live in cities, according to the UN. Potentially dozens more megacities cities with populations of 10m or more, 28 of which exist today, will pepper the planet with developing countries accounting for almost 89% of the growth.

Humans won't be the only inhabitants of these megacities of the 2100, however. Machines and robots will be integral to their ecosystems. According to Cisco, some 50bn machines are already projected to be connected to the Internet by 2020 alone, dwarfing the number of connected humans almost 10:1. While estimates for the year 2100 do not yet exist, the trend is likely to continue.

For more info, visit

http://gelookahead.economist.com/snapshot-of-the-future/

Sounds like a Brave New World! :0(

Well you will need to figure out how resource intensive it will be to build, ship, and operate these future bots and how functional societies will be with 10 billion bodies on the planet.

There is already low level conflict over resources such as water, and all it will take is a good sized regional war or heaven forbid a nuclear exchange between say India and Pakistan to maybe wipe out a couple hundred million.

In heavily congested urban landscapes, existing water and sewage infrastructures will break down. In this 'Bladerunner' future I would posit that large virus outbreaks will also contribute to depopulation.

Nice if you have a shiny robot to answer the door, or entertain you, or help with simple household tasks. Not so nice if you have no food to shop for, water to drink, or have no electricity.

I wonder if the cost for a government to maintain an AI (Artificial Intelligence) unit would exceed the cost of maintaining humans.

To maintain a human, you need clean air, clean water, food, hospitals, shelter and some type of psychological warfare/program to deal with heightened cognitive awareness. With an AI unit, do you need clean water, food, shelter? I think corporations have figured out that it cost more to maintain humans than AI units.

Google, Facebook, and Apple are already collecting eggs of their female employees. There are corporations collecting human placenta because the human placenta contains stem cells. We have organizations such as planned parenthood selling fetal tissues to corporations. Plus we have either an extreme left wing or extreme right wing major news outlet that's hiding the truth.

Malthus was wrong!

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01013.html

heck,wouldn't it be great to have one of those Asimov-Type Positron-Brained Robots at your every beck and Call?
Only Kurzweil would want that,probably even opt for his own positronic Brain!