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Where are the robotic bricklayers?

constructionphysics.substack.com

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Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#241

Post by morpheos137 »

egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

Actually it really reflects poorly on their intelligence when they fail to conceptualise the complexity of the real world.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#242

Post by h0l0cube »

ehnto wrote: post #159
h0l0cube wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are already starting to see automated programming moving out of the research lab and into the commercial realm, e.g. GitHub copilot. As soon as GitHub was acquired by Microsoft I knew their intentions were for automated coding tools. I wasn't concerned about this affecting my livelihood in the short to medium term, because state-of-the-art ANNs won't be able to grasp the context of business requirements without…

I started thinking about how you might automate game development, and I think it's a pretty good thought excercise on the topic. I feel like the end result is just what we already have, game engines with visual programming and drag and drop editors. You don't add much value by automating the programming since you still have to define the input and outcome. The real win was building the complex logic and state editor…

And this is where I think of the game-side of games programming to be more an art form (I say this as an ex-professional game developer). GPT-3 could be used for narrative generation, environment generation, and adaptive AI, and these are all exciting areas for research and experimentation. But as you say, underneath is a solid engine, and one day an AI could feasibly build an engine from scratch, but I think that day is decades away. The AI that we have today are just toys.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#243

Post by whateveracct »

ALittleLight wrote: post #189
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code has been getting automated since basically day one of programming. The funny thing about automation in programming - it has always opened up more doors - and led to more employment in programming. We are so far from anything that resembles real automated coding - that coding automation should continue to be celebrated by engineers for a long time. GitHub Co-Pilot and VS Code aren't going to replace you - they're…

Automated tools will lower the difficulty of coding to the point where it'll be easy to pick up and be massively productive. Developers will be replaced by domain experts becoming productive developers easily with automated tools.

Haskell automates a lot of programming but it sure isn't easy

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#244

Post by pessimizer »

robotresearcher wrote: post #17
yarg wrote: post #8

There's no need for robotic brick layers - it's requires significantly less dexterity to just 3D print a house, and it allows for shapes and contours that are simply impossible to construct from bricks.

And yet, almost no houses at all are 3D printed. People are very good at bricklaying, and are paid a reasonable rate by the hour. No one has made a machine that can beat that feature set. edit: more great features of human brickies that robots are terrible at: very small working volume; very small and agile footprint; safe for other humans to work near; half-day built-in power supply.

> And yet, almost no houses at all are 3D printed.

It's brand new, give it a minute.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#245

Post by morpheos137 »

colordrops wrote: post #62
egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

Having respect for the skills of a worker and also believing that they are possible to automate are not mutually exclusive. It's no different from people saying the same thing about chess and chess players, or go and go players, before the problem was solved. And it's not just blue collar workers that are a target of this idea. We are already starting to see automated programming moving out of the research lab and in…

Actually it is realy different since games like chess or go are closed problems, i.e. they are deterministic. The number of parameters necessary to integrate to turn an ostensibly open real world problem like "driving" into a deterministic game like computer chess or go is far greater.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#246

Post by h0l0cube »

ALittleLight wrote: post #192
ehnto wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started thinking about how you might automate game development, and I think it's a pretty good thought excercise on the topic. I feel like the end result is just what we already have, game engines with visual programming and drag and drop editors. You don't add much value by automating the programming since you still have to define the input and outcome. The real win was building the complex logic and state editor…

This video really amazed me in terms of automated game development. My fantasies are something like this and GPT-3 plus a couple decades of progress. I think we'll get to genuinely open ended sand box games. https://youtu.be/udPY5rQVoW0

Predicting the next frame from previous frames and learnt sequences is a neat trick, but I think automated game development is already very possible with simple techniques like genetic algorithms, or even a PRNG. I mean Rogue and it's descendants are very much automated game development, but GPT-3 could be useful for something like dynamic quest generation, world-building, narrative, adaptive NPCs (including dialogue) etc.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#247

Post by BurningFrog »

egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

There is great contempt for "computer people" in this post.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#248

Post by meowkit »

bumby wrote: post #223
sudosysgen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of ML in robotics is actually making nearly 1:1 simulations of the world and the actuators. It's fairly sucessful. We can simulate for example driving a car really well. Simulating human behaviour is harder, but simulating brick laying is not that hard, we have the technology to do so already.

> We can simulate for example driving a car really well. Can you qualify this more specifically? In many domains (particularly safety critical ones) “reasonably well” may not be sufficient

Self driving hours having a lower incident rate than human drivers. That’s the minimum. Having a 99.9x% success rate (put as many 9s as you desire) is your qualifier and that’s a standard measure in operational uptime.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#249

Post by [deleted] »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #195
egh wrote: post #28

The great contempt that computer people have for the skills that every human brings to the jobs that the do is always on display here. We haven't automated driving; we haven't automated picking tomatoes; we haven't automated bricklaying; we can't automate cooking a fucking hamburger. But they are completely convinced that it's just around the corner, because they are full of contempt for the skill and intelligence of…

These jobs are usually slow torture for humans to do. Do them long enough, and your body will break under the sun or you will look like a prune, get back pain or a hump and possibly skin cancer. Let the robots do them as soon as possible.

[deleted]

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#250

Post by NoPicklez »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #235
NoPicklez wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sitting in an office chair in front of a computer all day doesn't bring its own health problems? Weight gain due to limited daily movement, forward posture due to sitting and looking forward all day, RSI due to typing and mouse movement.

Some Suggestions if I was having this problem: 1. Get a standing desk, so you can alternate between sitting and standing. 2. Learn to use a mouse with both left and right hand. And/or ball wheel mouse. 3. Try Speech to text software 4. Try an Ergo keyboard. Logitech makes an ergonomic keyboard (Ergo k860) 5. Get up and Stretch every hour 6. Go the the bathroom as much as you're allowed to 7. Go for a Walk during your…

My point being duke is that physically intensive jobs such as carpentry, bricklaying and other labor intensive jobs also have their own safeguards to prevent these injuries you mentioned. Not completely remove but prevent, the same way that office jobs still impact people's health. They're required to use hats, hard hats, safety glasses, long sleeved clothing, sun screen, steel capped boots, lifting belts etc.

The things you mention do not particularly happen to everyone and even less so since safety standards have improved.

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