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Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

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121–130 of 416 posts

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#121
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe the manual labor field where 1% failure rate is acceptable? I am struggling to think of one. I suppose it depends on the magnitude of the failure.

I worked in a factory that was the distribution centre for all the cold and frozen food in every Safeway in the sate. There were a few hundred of us who had to pickup a heavy box from a conveyor belt, turn around, take a step or two and put the heavy box down on a pallet. When the pallet was full someone would come and take it away. Repeat. For 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Upstairs people were manually putting th…

This doesn't seem like the kind of problem that would require a humanoid robot to solve though? It's just that even with current state of the art robotics, things like grabbing cardboard boxes (easily crumpled or dropped, mass distribution within may be uneven or unstable, may already be broken or leaking etc) and stacking them into a stable 3D pallet is actually quite hard, so much so that Boston Dynamics managing to do some parts of this in optimal conditions with uniform, lightweight boxes was hailed as a breakthrough:

https://youtu.be/uuO6oeO0-ts

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#122
post #32

Reveals it with a person in a suit dancing to dubstep: https://twitter.com/TESLAcharts/status/1428540624203128837?s...

I assume this kind of behavior helps with the "Elon" brand surrounding his companies, but it just feels so overdone, unnecessary, and, as another person said in this thread, cringeworthy. I saw the iPod nano announcement clip this morning, where Steve Jobs has a camera zoom in on his jeans pocket, talks about how the Mini fit in you regular pocket, then pulled the Nano out of his coin pocket. It's a little silly and…

I mean I got a laugh. I like it

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#123

Musk seems to have fallen for the idea that since he's had great success in one or two areas, he can easily repeat that success in other areas, even if the difficulty is much higher and entirely different skills are required. SpaceX and Tesla are great achievements, but they are primarily stories of successfully implementing and improving existing technologies with innovative engineering and business practices (like…

> I don't see this happening in any useful form in the next 5-10 years.

The way it will get to a useful form after 5-10 years is projects like this.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#124

Musk seems to have fallen for the idea that since he's had great success in one or two areas, he can easily repeat that success in other areas, even if the difficulty is much higher and entirely different skills are required. SpaceX and Tesla are great achievements, but they are primarily stories of successfully implementing and improving existing technologies with innovative engineering and business practices (like…

I would like to see him run a hospital and maybe put a dent into the problem of the $200 aspirin.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#126
post #48

This won’t be vaporware forever. Seeing the latest from Boston Dynamics makes that abundantly clear. The utility for general purpose robots is immense in difficult environments like the surface of Mars, where O2 wouldn’t be needed. I anticipate a small number of companies making the hardware, and a large, diverse workforce training, supervising, and maintaining android fleets for a variety of tasks. The legal system…

General purpose field robots like this are further away than level 5 driving, by a long margin

I see bipedal robots as sort of a PC of robotics. They don’t need to have great AI, personalities, or any sci-fi jazz, just basic collision avoidance and programmability. Lots of spaces and tools are shaped for humans; this means a specialized robot is no linger needed for every task. It doesn’t mean, as Elon suggests, they will be shopping at the grocery store per se but it could mean they could load a laundry bin and carry it downstairs. With adequate programming, it could learn how to fold specific garments and identify flaws. Like video and spacial APIs, not goal seeking.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#127
post #19

Add it to the long list of Elon projects permanently in a state of releasing "next year".

Sure, you can say that, but name another person with a more impressive track record of actual accomplishments.

It's quite interesting how people keep betting against Elon. The HN crowd should consist of mostly risk-tolerant personalities, but the majority of comments are negative. Regardless of what one might think of the feasibility, no other company in the world today are as ambitions as SpaceX and Tesla (+ Neuralink). Feels like what Apple used to be during the "one more thing"-era.

Both Tesla and SpaceX has been discounted so many times before, and despite proving time and time again that they will and can deliver, they keep getting discounted.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#128
post #30

Tesla 201x -> LiDAR sucks. Humans don't use LiDAR to drive. Tesla 202x -> Yo guys, look at this vector map we've created with 8 cams and a PS4. But forget about this, you know what ROBOT, LOOK AT THIS ROBOT NOT THE 7K YOU'VE SPENT ON FSD, LOOK AT THIS ROBOT IS FANTASTIC. LOOK HOW THE ROBOT DANCES. ROBOT.

I think it’s an intentional distraction. The vector map stuff is a reply to last week’s news cycle where the FTC and the NHTSA are both probing the safety of the self-driving systems, but the robot announcement is to make sure no one discusses the “gosh we made the AI better” claims.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel people said the same thing about him for SpaceX and Tesla back when he was just the wacky PayPal guy. Remember SpaceX's first launch was in 2006 (before the iPhone existed!) and it's only started getting really serious traction in the past 5 years. Elon's no stranger to things that don't have any "useful form" for well over a decade. I'm quite certain he's aware of the realistic timelines, and he sells a diffe…

That is a good point; Musk does sometimes announce things that essentially serve as a placeholder for "we're going to do this thing once the technology improves enough to make it feasible", and this is likely more of the same. But "useful humanoid robot" is way more forward-looking than anything else he's done this with; the closest thing would be the whole "full self-driving without LIDAR" thing, which keeps getting…

> If I had to make a bet on when it was possible, I'd say 25 years. Maybe 10 if Tesla goes all-in on robots and spends tens of billions on it, Manhattan project style.

I have a decade of experience in robotics (including both humanoid robots and self-driving cars) and I think this is optimistic.

Robotics is a wonderful field if you like to work on hard research problems. It is a terrible field if you're trying to invent a profitable product.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#130
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my robot folds my laundry correctly for 99 days and on the 100th day shreds my wardrobe, I don't think that will print money (at least not for very long).

From what I’ve seen FSD makes minor mistakes that at high speeds lead to danger or death. I can’t see a minor mistake in folding laundry leading to the laundry being shredded. Musk said the robots would not be strong (only can lift 5lbs). So unless the robot picked up scissors it couldn’t shred the laundry. Unless I’m missing something?

FSD has not been rolled out yet, so you’re attributing to FSD some errors that are actually made by humans. Yeah maybe these humans were confused by marketing to think it was FSD, just as you think it was FSD, but that doesn’t make it FSD.
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