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While humanoid robots are neat, if not uncanny, I would love to see robots with forms optimized for their work. A large octopus with legs would be ideal for this sort of parts handling job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine you're working your 35-hour shift at the Fulfillment™ Center and all around you there's robotic eldritch horrors scurrying through the two-storey high shelves
Factory robots that move in general are kind of gimmicks, except for those roomba things for Amazon warehouses. An assembly line with robotic arms has been standard for a long time now. And having many such arms working at the same time is normal. And each robotic arm will be doing one extremely narrowly defined task. Anything involving autonomous judgment and mobility introduces uncertainty.
While humanoid robots are neat, if not uncanny, I would love to see robots with forms optimized for their work. A large octopus with legs would be ideal for this sort of parts handling job.
You actually end up running a warehouse with less robots because they can easily be repurposed for other duties.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Factory robots that move in general are kind of gimmicks, except for those roomba things for Amazon warehouses. An assembly line with robotic arms has been standard for a long time now. And having many such arms working at the same time is normal. And each robotic arm will be doing one extremely narrowly defined task. Anything involving autonomous judgment and mobility introduces uncertainty.
Neuralink-equipped wageslaves mind-projecting into robo-octopuses, traversing the storehouse-grid with the aid of their many-suckered appendages. Navigating via implicitly interfacing with the warehouse's AI overseer.
See, this is a real video. Compare it with the obvious cgi fake that was put out a few months ago by Figure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QZB5baNw I still can't believe how noone has called them out on that one.
While humanoid robots are neat, if not uncanny, I would love to see robots with forms optimized for their work. A large octopus with legs would be ideal for this sort of parts handling job.
I think the exact point they’re trying to make is that a humanoid robot can pick up one shift exactly where a human left off. No custom robotics, no workplace changes, etc. This is huge for the industry. Smarter Every Day visited a frisbee factory and they had automated a bunch of things. However, every automation point was extremely protected (fenced off) so that a bumbling human couldn’t walk somewhere and get a li…
The effort required to change a process shouldn't be underestimated.
Especially considered that industrial environments are already (a) automated for lowest-hanging fruit things (e.g. moving stuff around at human height) & (b) optimized around human capabilities for the remaining things. Substituting a not-humanlike robot would require reconfiguring a lot of existing automation around it.
If you have "like a human, but costs less" that can be plugged into any existing still-human process? You can literally swap them in.
Eventually we'll get to hyperoptimized machines, but an easier sales story to say "We automate your existing human processes."
Compare this to the human controlled puppets Tesla demonstrated. Tesla made a big show of something Disney could do years ago. While Boston Dynamics is quietly building the real thing and showing us footage of it actually working.