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Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

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Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#391

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This reminds me of images from the 1900s depicting the future when there were humanoid robots with lots of arms cleaning lots of dishes at once. Of course, it turns out, we did invent a machine to wash dishes but its just called a dish washing machine and is way better at it than humans with arms. I can't imagine many tasks where a humanoid will be useful. I'm sure you could say that something like house construction…

I wouldn't say that dishwasher is _better_ at washing dishes than a human. More quantity? Sure. More quality? Not based on my experience. Lots of stains just don't come out in a dishwasher.

While there are a couple stains a dishwasher has trouble with (typically things that need a presoak, like dough or parmesan cheese), I find that the average quality of a dishwasher wash is way better than doing it by hand, where it's easy to miss a spot, etc. I've also broken several glasses/dishes washing by hand, whereas my dishwasher has never broken anything.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#392
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Yep. I bet there are plenty of programmers out there who would rather spend their evenings programming a robot to do their laundry than do it themselves. :)

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of images from the 1900s depicting the future when there were humanoid robots with lots of arms cleaning lots of dishes at once. Of course, it turns out, we did invent a machine to wash dishes but its just called a dish washing machine and is way better at it than humans with arms. I can't imagine many tasks where a humanoid will be useful. I'm sure you could say that something like house construction…

I wouldn't say that dishwasher is _better_ at washing dishes than a human. More quantity? Sure. More quality? Not based on my experience. Lots of stains just don't come out in a dishwasher.

Not even quantity. I can do dishes faster than my dishwasher if you compare end-to-end times. Now, some industrial machines are much faster, but for home use, if I had a humanoid robot that could do dishes, why would I waste space on a dish washing machine?

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#394
post #292
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla FSD might end up getting good enough after a hardware upgrade in 5 years or so. The humanoid seems at least a decade or two away. That said, I truly enjoy that he's investing time and money in these futuristic sci-fi projects rather than trying to optimize the next quarter earnings.

Most projects of his use government funds. I wonder if this will too.

The US government has something approaching a 100x return on R&D investment in the US economy…

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#395
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most projects of his use government funds. I wonder if this will too.

The US government has something approaching a 100x return on R&D investment in the US economy…

Exactly. We socialize the costs but unfortunately privatize the profits. Americans should get stock.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#396

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Haha, and then in 10 years when He announces X you will say: “since he’s had great success in pioneering self landing reusable rockets, starting a colony on Mars, pioneering the EV market, pioneering Robo taxis, making the first commercial humanoid robots, moving traffic underground, adding computers to people’s brains, he has now fallen for the idea that he can easily repeat that success in other areas like X” This…

I'm bookmarking this comment in my browser. Given how rarely I clean my bookmarks, I'm sure I'll still have it in 10 years to visit. Naming the bookmark "Open 8/19/2031"

See you in 2031!

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE I feel like a lot of factories are going to go in this direction. Lots of complex automation but ultimately very simple mechanisms with a strong framework to make sure nothing goes wrong.

What percentage of labor is factories? We're talking about all human physical labor.

Is a cashier/bagger physical labor? Is stocking the shelves of a grocery store? What about a truck driver or unloader?

I would say all these jobs would be automated but 0 of these would be automated by a humanoid. Driver/cashier/baggers will be computers with sensors and unlouder/shelfer will be robots more similar to that vid. Things like construction I think will be assembled ahead of time and brought to side with more automated cranes and sensors.

The number of jobs that seem like "this can be automated but can't be automated by a robot and isn't worth it to build specific robot for but IS expensive enough to use a robot that will always be more expensive than a car" seems small to me.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#398
post #315
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If solid state battery tech takes off, it's entirely possible within a decade.

> If solid state battery tech takes off, it's entirely possible within a decade. Your contention is that its power consumption that makes a general purpose humanoid robot impossible?

Yes. Great conversation.

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#399
Is it too much to ask for a humanoid robot to play ping pong with nunchucks as well as Bruce Lee ? Or as good as Tim with paddles ?

https://youtu.be/SncapPrTusA

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIJME8-au8

Or is this the best we can do in my lifetime : robotic soccer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bam9WzQbtfM

Re: Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you define the “required technology” for these problems?

We have actuators, sensors, and computers to build humanoid robots, isn’t it “just” a software problem like flipping rockets was?

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