Anthony Paustian, Ph.D.
Each year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada offers a chance to see the most promising and impactful technologies on the on the horizon, and to reflect on past shows to understand the trajectories technology has followed. It is at once inspiring and overwhelming. When I attended CES in 2000, many of the technologies we take for granted today—flash drives, Internet gaming, Bluetooth wireless technology, smartphones, and even cell phones with built-in cameras—didn’t exist.
Many products on display now incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), automation, and robotics. This year’s line-up included voice-activated automatic frying pans, “bionic” floor cleaning machines that simultaneously sweep, mop, and dry floors, golf balls with Bluetooth trackers to make them easier to find, baby beds that monitor an infant’s vitals while rocking it to sleep, and wearable technology to monitor and quantify just about every metric of health.
The most obvious message is that of rapid change. Advances in computing power have made devices smarter and more connected, and the rise in AI and automation is making technology increasingly invisible to the user. Advances in consumer electronics aren’t so different from those in space exploration, and I saw plenty of consumer applications for robotics and AI. I watched people lose at ping-pong against an AI-driven robotic opponent and autonomous vehicles and robots performing functions once exclusive to humans. But as I marveled at the ingenuity, I thought about how these technologies might change the way people experience space travel and exploration.