From what I've heard, automation is actually, really on-the-way. I've forgotten the exact conversation and this is certainly hearsay, but a friend of mine was

From what I've heard, automation is actually, really on-the-way. I've forgotten the exact conversation and this is certainly hearsay, but a friend of mine was describing a conversation with a upper level person (VP, CxO or board member) and was hearing about how 2014 was the year Starbucks would start to get rid of the "barristas". [Yeah, they used to be icons of Starbucks...] >then have some other machine to fix all those things automatically >on the fly. Building self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines is very complex. So only do the first part of the automation: automate the garbage collection truck and have the truck pull over when it's sick... That captures 95% of the value; we can leave self-repairing for later. >So, where is my flying car? 1) waiting on a suitable power source; 2) waiting on automated driving. It'll probably still be waiting on (1) and not (2) in 10 years.