>My one hope for AI, robotics, self driving cars, is that they can enable more people in cities to migrate back to rural places

Ah, the perennial dream of the technologist. Here's a Le Corbusier quote on the same theme from 100 years ago

> The cities will be part of the country; I shall live 30 miles from my office in one direction, under a pine tree; my secretary will live 30 miles away from it too, in the other direction, under another pine tree. We shall both have our own car.