We have to equip machines with a model of the environment. If a machine does not have a model of reality, you cannot expect the machine to behave intelligently in that reality. The first step, one that will take place in maybe 10 years, is that conceptual models of reality will be programmed by humans.

The next step will be that machines will postulate such models on their own and will verify and refine them based on empirical evidence. That is what happened to science; we started with a geocentric model, with circles and epicycles, and ended up with a heliocentric model with its ellipses.

Robots, too, will communicate with each other and will translate this hypothetical world, this wild world, of metaphorical models.

More or less my conclusion. The nice part is that computers already have a nice model of resource scarcity, and discoverable rules that can form the basis of cause-and-effect reasoning.

BONUS: The Japanese may be on to something.