Tea drones and robots: What do futurists think of the office’s future?

Of all the professions at risk from the rise of artificial intelligence, I’d suggest futurists have most to fear.

Until now it was easy to be a futurist. You look at a few trends, tap into your imagination and extrapolate. And 20 years down the line, when nothing you predicted comes to fruition, no one remembers what you said. How wonderful: a job where everyone is fascinated by what you’ve got to say but nobody cares when it turns out you’ve got it totally wrong.

Man has made some amazing leaps forward: it’s only 120 years since the first powered flight and 32 years since the arrival of the World Wide Web. But have we stalled? By now, most futurists would have predicted we’d be established on Mars considering we first reached the Moon 54 years ago; meanwhile the web – instead of turning us into multilingual polymaths – is awash with porn and Donald Trump.

Now ChatGPT is the next giant stride towards liberating us from drudgery at work. And what could be simpler than asking ChatGPT or an equivalent AI tool to predict the future rather than those fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants futurists? This is unfair of course; a human futurist, with all their fanciful notions and eccentric traits, is far more entertaining than a computer programme.

Wait, the office has a future?

Take futurists’ predictions for the future of the office. You may think the office has no future, having already been decimated by Covid. But no. Office furniture supplier Furniture at Work has consulted futurists who predict that holographic receptionists, tea drones, fingerprint-accessed fridges, remote controlled robots and napping beds will all be with us within 30 years.

Some of the predictions don’t rely on any tech breakthroughs. For example, Hila Harary from Tectonic Shift explains how workplace naps could be beneficial: “Napping beds could be introduced to offices to help employees cope with stress and a lack of sleep. These beds would be designed for either sitting or napping, offering a place to quietly recharge and refresh throughout the working day.”

Such innovations, she says, will allow people, to bring babies and young children into future offices. So far so good, but then: “Businesses will employ babysitters to support parents with childcare.” Will they indeed?

Connor Harbision, founder of Urban Atlas Farms, really has been doing some green-sky thinking. He says businesses will soon be growing their own food: “Businesses will use wall space for growing their own plants and fresh food. These living walls will make the office more attractive, eco-friendly, and improve mental health.” But aren’t lunch breaks and going outside good for your mental health too?

Enter the robots

And now, in case you were getting impatient, we come to robots. Hooray! Richard Nolan, CPO at Epsonow expects offices to be operated by robots: “Many of the mundane tasks around the office will soon be carried out by robots. These robots will be controlled by people working from home, allowing them to be physically present in the office without the lengthy commute.” What could possibly go wrong? One can imagine Isaac Asimov, who created the three laws of robotics, stirring in his grave. But, hey, it’s nice for the robots to do some socialising while we’re stuck at home. (Actually wasn’t commuting supposed to be made easier by superfast robot trains or drones? Must have been a different futurist.)

Elements of the office of 2050. Illustration: Furniture at Work

Nolan adds that a holographic receptionist will greet workers when they arrive at the office. “This AI-operated virtual assistant will speak any language in the world and answer any questions employees have about their working week. Early developments of this are already popping up in cities around the world, including London and Tokyo.” Okaaaay.

Flying cups of tea

At Personnel Today, it was the notion of the “tea drone” that really grasped the collective imagination. Droning about the lack of tea has certainly been with us for some time, but flying gizmos delivering tea to our desks in our favourite mugs, without spilling a drop would be up there with the Wright Brothers as a technical breakthrough.

We just have to hope the remote-controlled robots populating the office enjoy their tea, and their naps. Perhaps the tea drones can be converted to take us to work, so we wouldn’t need robots to represent us? Looking outside at the incessant wind and rain I can see why that might be a problem. But I’m being pessimistic. I could never be a futurist.

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