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Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

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Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#271

Post by majewsky »

runawaybottle wrote: post #160
piiswrong wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you really think about it, flipping rocket is a trivial toy problem in simulation. But useful humanoid robot is very hard even in simulation. Just look at some of the SOTA control theory research. Their simulated robots looks stupid.

Universal Healthcare is also a toy problem, but a true albatross concept beunricratically in the US. I say it’s a toy problem because we literally have copy and paste templates from most of the western world that we can use. Flipping that rocket and getting NASA contracts to go actually do it against Boeing/Lockheed/etc is not a toy problem. I don’t want to say it would never have happened without Spacex, but probabl…

Flipping rockets is a simpler problem in the sense that it the required technology already existed, there just wasn't anyone with enough incentive and resources to actually do it.

Human-level robotics, on the other hand, is not a problem of missing incentive. For all I know about the field (as a casual observer), we are still several breakthroughs away from achieving this goal.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#272

Post by Cthulhu_ »

rococode wrote: post #80
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 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…

It's a moonshot, I think; he's got enough money personally (hundreds of billions) to fund an R&D lab similar to Boston Dynamics, and since it's under Tesla's wing, there is more than enough money to fund R&D into this.

Of course, a lot of that money is all virtual, in owned stocks and market value.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#273

Post by marticode »

croddin wrote: post #176
CommieBobDole wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But "useful humanoid robot" is way more forward-looking than anything else he's done this with Other aspirational goals he has set include a colony of a million people on Mars and a neural lace. I think a humanoid robot is less ambitious than either of these two.

We already have the technology to send people to Mars. We sent people on round trips to the moon 50 years ago, so a one way ticket to Mars now isn't really that hard. What we don't have is cost effective technology to send enough people and equipment for a permanent colony there. But at this point it's really just working on getting cost down (which Musk has done beautifully so far), we have a pretty good idea of how we'll get there.

On the other hand we just do not have the technology for a full humanoid robot, neither now nor the near future. An AI that can do mundane tasks like ironing and folding clothes is way beyond our grasp, and then there are the issue of limbs and power too.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#274

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

The border between "improving existing technologies with innovative engineering" and "technological breakthroughs" is pretty murky, though.

For example, Raptor engines are the first Full Flow Staged Combustion engines to ever fly and they should be cheap to manufacture on top of that. Orders of magnitude cheaper than other rocket engines, with target price tag lower than a million USD per piece.

By my standards, this is a breakthrough. By your standards, this may just be innovative engineering. We can both argue our positions plausibly.

I can definitely see applications of having at least semireliable robots on Mars or Moon, though. For starters, they need not mind the vacuum and the radiation.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#275

Post by loceng »

loriverkutya wrote: post #239
smabie wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My guess is he probably figured it'd be cheaper to spend the money on development, especially since it'll be a redevelopment from the ground up following different design-engineering principles as new constraints; including designed to be mass produced which BD robots don't seem streamlined for and are arguably overkill for general use (and not needing to handle heavy loads nor do parkour etc).

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#276

Post by jollybean »

I will take on any wagers that this this thing will not be walking around making gin and tonics in 16 months or 5 years.

And neither will he have L5 self driving cars.

Surely, he knows it. So then you have to ask why is he knowingly duping?

I bet he feels he can get away wit some BS as long as there's some actual product traction.

Like the successful launch of a super-heavy or whatever gives him leeway to make a little fib.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#277

Post by jollybean »

ragebol wrote: post #212
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…

Im 100% sure Tesla can mass-produce the hardware for such robots. But the biggest challenge is in software, And then the FSD debacle comes to mind. There's major advances in AI needed to get to full self driving and even more advances for a useful autonomous humanoid robot. But then again, those will not come to fruition just by waiting, someone has to work on this and if Tesla advances the state of the art, I can on…

The hardware for such things doesn't exist yet, we don't know how to make it.

Have you seen Boston Dynmamics robots? And their clunky size and shape? And compared those to the life-like body of the Tesla demo?

We don't know how to make such robots yet.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#278

Post by jollybean »

klintcho wrote: post #127
sixQuarks wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discounte…

"It's quite interesting how people keep betting against Elon."

Because he doesn't have superpowers.

Making a car that runs on batteries is a feat, ramping up production of an automobile is a feat, but within reason.

Making a humanoid robot, something that nobody else in the world has any clue how to do, and which Tesla has no background in ... well that's more than a feat.

So a better question - why do people continue to believe this guy when he makes such claims?

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#279

Post by itsoktocry »

runawaybottle wrote: post #138
CommieBobDole wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But "useful humanoid robot" is way more forward-looking than anything else he's done this with I think flipping a giant rocket on its way back down to have it land upright sounded just as nutty as this awhile back, let alone a startup competing (successfully) against the military industrial complex. The entire car industry is also adopting electric. No, I think Musk has enough notable wins to get a pass here. It seem…

>I think flipping a giant rocket on its way back down to have it land upright

And herein lies the problem: landing the rocket is really cool, but normal people overestimate the difficulty. Because of this feat, "Elon can do anything!"

The reason we don't land rockets is half technical, half economic.

The list of things Elon has said they will achieve, and have not, far exceeds the list of exceptional tech his companies have produced.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#280

Post by itsoktocry »

runawaybottle wrote: post #160
piiswrong wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you really think about it, flipping rocket is a trivial toy problem in simulation. But useful humanoid robot is very hard even in simulation. Just look at some of the SOTA control theory research. Their simulated robots looks stupid.

Universal Healthcare is also a toy problem, but a true albatross concept beunricratically in the US. I say it’s a toy problem because we literally have copy and paste templates from most of the western world that we can use. Flipping that rocket and getting NASA contracts to go actually do it against Boeing/Lockheed/etc is not a toy problem. I don’t want to say it would never have happened without Spacex, but probabl…

You seem to be missing the point that landing the rocket is a cool trick that may or may not be useful right now.

There's a difference between not being able to do something, and not having a reason to.

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