Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot” • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#231

Post by alex_munroe » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

What's with all the cynicism and negativity in this thread?

Jeff Bezos launches a rocket - it's not impressive enough of a technological breakthrough for people who watch and judge from the sidelines. Jeff Bezos isn't using his money right.

Elon Musk spends his money taking moonshots and succeeding a lot of the time, announces that he's working on an extremely exciting science-fiction-level technology - it's not realistic enough, he's sure to fail this time.

It's like there's 1% of people who are trying to take advantage of the amazing time we're living in, working hard, often succeeding, making things and getting things done. And everyone else just watches, judges, complains, and tries to score some points by dismissing the achievements of others. Surely if THEY had the intelligence and discipline to spend decades building businesses and make billions of dollars, THEY would have spent all that hypothetical money better.

What does a person have to do to impress you people? What happened to the culture of respecting and encouraging human achievement in America, to optimism about the future?

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#232

Post by nixarn » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:16 AM UTC

joakleaf wrote: post #208

If Musk was really serious about this, he would start with smaller steps: 0) Finish the tentacle charging robot they demoed in 2015 (roll out to superchargers) 1) Build delivery robot on wheels using FSD (like the Starship Technology's robots). These could be used on hospitals, possibly warehouses, pizza delivery, cleaning streets, painting lanes on roads, ... 2) Build dog-like robot, like Boston Dynamics's spot with…

I don't see many wanting a tentacle arm, that's a waste of resources.

I'm also heavily invested in Tesla, have been for years I like this alot, it's an exciting future to work towards. Will it take longer than elon says? Probably. But as long as you're moving towards the goal, it's great, one day you'll be there.

I also think building a humanoid robot can interest a lot of talent, and while building this robot they'll learn a lot that can be applied elsewhere.

There's way too much negativity here and way too few exciting product announcements these days, so I loved every part of this.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#233

Post by tigershark » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

x-shadowban wrote: post #124

CommieBobDole wrote: post #53

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.

How on Earth you guys pay so much? Aspirin is 1£ for 16 caplets or less in every supermarket.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#234

Post by mlajtos » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #164

justicezyx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no-no This type of reasoning simply does not understand the market competition. Once there is a market, the goal is to win the competition, not to hit some technical bar. Is there a better player in the industry in building humanoid robot? I rarely see any that is better than Tesla. Modern cars are essentially a robot, or the closest thing in tech stack. Is Musk stretching himself? Of cuz, that's how new things ar…

Boston Dynamics? They've been working on such things for years and they're still very much in their infancy.

AFAIK they were avoiding deep learning like the plague for the locomotion. I don't know if something has changed, but that's why the progress was slow.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#235

Post by nabla9 » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:24 AM UTC

Classic Musk.

Full Autonomous driving is not in horizon, but Tesla can repurpose tooling, hardware and some software they designed.

Every time trouble ahead, do something completely new. Overpromise and underdeliver.

No, it will not do shopping for you like he promises in the presentation. Musk had a plan to fully robotize Tesla factories and it failed miserably and set Tesla back on their goals for several years. Making humanoid robot that can work in uncontrolled environment is task even harder.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#236

Post by jfoster » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

mrjangles wrote: post #146

rococode wrote: post #80

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…

I like Musk, and I've been following his progress since 2011. I always thought he seemed very intelligent and seemed to really understand what he was doing. However I have to agree with the person you are replying to. There has been the sort of myth going around that making rockets is hard. It used to be hard... 50 years ago. That is literally the technology Musk has been using for the last 20 years: 50 year old tech…

> There has been the sort of myth going around that making rockets is hard. It used to be hard... 50 years ago.

For something that used to be hard, the very well-funded companies in that area besides SpaceX seem to be having a hell of a time achieving anything even remotely near comparable performance.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#237

Post by jfoster » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

csmeder wrote: post #66

It is interesting that many of the top comments are as dismissive as: “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame,” When you look at Tesla’s talent in: AI + motors + batteries + manufacturing I can’t believe how negative and dismissive the comments are. Can we not have some appreciation for what Tesla HAS achieved vs only focusing on missed ship dates? The part that I think is going over peoples head is that for so m…

I am blown away by how many people repeatedly under-estimate Musk's companies despite him eventually proving them wrong basically every time.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#238

Post by josefx » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

tigershark wrote: post #233

x-shadowban wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How on Earth you guys pay so much? Aspirin is 1£ for 16 caplets or less in every supermarket.

Inflated Hospital bills that are usually dealt with by an insurance, so most people never see that $200 line.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#239

Post by loriverkutya » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #131

nacs wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Boston Dynamics is a large well-funded, dedicated operation with probably the best robotics people money can buy. Also, they've been it for years and even then their top end humanoid stuff is still super bulky compared to what Elon showed today in their concept. Also considering Tesla use all 3rd-party assembly-arms in their factories to build their cars, I'm having trouble seeing Tesla shipping anything this…

Boston robotics is valued at 1.1bn. That's nothing. Musk could easily buy them from Hyundai without even thinking about it.

If they are happy to sell it.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#240

Post by iloveluce » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 7:40 AM UTC

notJim wrote: post #200

mrjangles wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Musk, and I've been following his progress since 2011. I always thought he seemed very intelligent and seemed to really understand what he was doing. However I have to agree with the person you are replying to. There has been the sort of myth going around that making rockets is hard. It used to be hard... 50 years ago. That is literally the technology Musk has been using for the last 20 years: 50 year old tech…

> Furthermore, if you have been following closely, you would have seen the huge and humiliating mess ups he had with Tesla where he literally flushed billions and billions of dollars down the toilet. What is this in reference to?

All those manufacturing woes that happened after Elon tried to automate everything in the manufacturing process https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-admits-humans-are-...