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Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

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Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#271

Post by calebio »

browsingonly wrote: post #181
SoftTalker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a mistake. AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. Not something I would pay for to use outside of work. But a household robot that could clean, wash and fold the laundry, do the dishes, maybe even be a chauffeur... that would be huge. I think a lot of people would pay new-car money for something like that.

> AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. That's not what I'm seeing. My mom always wanted Google to just answer questions, and now ChatGPT can. She uses it enough in her daily life that she bought a subscription. Yes, she knows it hallucinates and you have to double check everything, but so far she finds a ton of use for it even with those caveats. Now, I agree that a personal servant robot wo…

> That's not what I'm seeing. My mom always wanted Google to just answer questions, and now ChatGPT can. She uses it enough in her daily life that she bought a subscription.

Reminds me a lot of AskJeeves :)

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#272

Post by spockz »

browsingonly wrote: post #181
SoftTalker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a mistake. AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. Not something I would pay for to use outside of work. But a household robot that could clean, wash and fold the laundry, do the dishes, maybe even be a chauffeur... that would be huge. I think a lot of people would pay new-car money for something like that.

> AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. That's not what I'm seeing. My mom always wanted Google to just answer questions, and now ChatGPT can. She uses it enough in her daily life that she bought a subscription. Yes, she knows it hallucinates and you have to double check everything, but so far she finds a ton of use for it even with those caveats. Now, I agree that a personal servant robot wo…

We already have robot grass trimmers and they work pretty well. Why would you want a crude, inefficient, facsimile of a human push or power an inefficient form of mowing the lawn?

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#274

Post by kulahan »

FireBeyond wrote: post #179
kulahan wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“One of the largest automakers in the world” makes me think of very low-tech companies like Ford or whatever. I can’t imagine this would bring much actual experience with this new generation of robotics.

This gives me vibes of "... but they're dinosaurs" that pervades Tesla-type discussions. I've watched several extensive discussions here with some Tesla fans breathlessly announce "really cool", "futuristic" "new thinking" functionality or features for their cars that "the dinosaurs just aren't even considering"... except to their initial skepticism, disbelief, actually, the dinosaurs often do have those things (exam…

My point isn't that they're dinosaurs, it's that they don't really develop robots. Some automakers do, rarely, but they mostly buy them from specialized robotics companies. It's not knowledge-gathering to buy a sander, nor even really to use one. Not on the same way it is to develop that sander. If they were all making their own robots and competing in that way, maybe my response would be different.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#275

Post by vips7L »

bayindirh wrote: post #96
nativeit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…who have quite conveniently already stolen and trained on all the copyrighted images. Thanks AI!

Please. It's all fair use. Otherwise AI companies can't repackage and sell what's out there for free. On a relevant note: https://www.theverge.com/news/674366/nick-clegg-uk-ai-artist...

It might be "fair use" on the way out, but AI companies certainly didn't pay for a copy of every book in existence to train on. It's also straddling a super fine line between legality and morality.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#276

Post by mastazi »

spockz wrote: post #272
browsingonly wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. That's not what I'm seeing. My mom always wanted Google to just answer questions, and now ChatGPT can. She uses it enough in her daily life that she bought a subscription. Yes, she knows it hallucinates and you have to double check everything, but so far she finds a ton of use for it even with those caveats. Now, I agree that a personal servant robot wo…

We already have robot grass trimmers and they work pretty well. Why would you want a crude, inefficient, facsimile of a human push or power an inefficient form of mowing the lawn?

Cameras worked pretty well, but most people take photos with their phones nowadays. Pro photographers still mostly use cameras though.

I can envision a future where people have a humanoid trimming a small backyard but at the same time the maintenance of e.g. a golf course would be done by dedicated robots.

EDIT: my point is that just like smartphones replaced a number of specialised devices for most people, a humanoid robot could do the same, by virtue of being a general purpose machine

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#277

Post by krapp »

SecretDreams wrote: post #195
ACCount37 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how many times this has to be restated. It's car manufacturing. Everything that could be done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor is already done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor. What remains unautomated, then? The long tail of tasks that are too minor, too finicky, too open-ended or too reliant on manual dexterity to be offloaded onto traditi…

So we want to replace a lot of cheap human labour with expensive robots? Even if I think this has legs, where do the cheap humans go to work after? Where/what are the remaining jobs for all of this displaced labour in both white collar and blue collar worlds? It basically screams UBI. And in a UBI world, the economy looks pretty different and humanoid esque robots start to look either very altruistic or very dystopia…

>Like, what's the end game for humans in this path we're embarking?

The market becomes more efficient as fewer human beings are needed to create value and move capital. A lot of them are going to die, surplus to requirements. A lot more will be stuck in lives of grinding and meager poverty, probably doing gig work acting as "flesh AI" for less expensive robots or "blood boys" for the rich. But the rich will be very rich indeed.

It won't just be end-stage capitalism killing people, either. The collapse of the knowledge economy, scientific and research institutions and the mass adoption of AI to fill the gap will kill tons of people too, as will the return of diseases like polio and smallpox, and mass starvation as climate change destroys global agriculture, and the normalization of christofascism.

We're almost certainly not getting UBI, at least not in the US. It would help too many black people and immigrants, half the country would secede. We might get something called UBI but only so long as it isn't universal, and has tons of racially biased and religiously motivated means testing and plenty of carve-outs that keep that money flowing to the top, and out of the hand of the "useless eaters."

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#279

Post by jen20 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #232
addaon wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s costs are only likely to decrease over time What is this based on? We're well past a 50-ish year deflationary period in the cost of major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc). We're pretty clearly at or near the end of the deflationary era for computers and computation. Automotive... speaks for itself. We're still there for televisions, surprisingly; but it looks like these technologies tend to ha…

The computer of 10 years ago is still a lot cheaper than a modern model. Deflation stops basically only if hardware advancement stops. EVs are a great example: they keep getting cheaper for what they provide, even if the price stays the same. 200 miles of range 5 years ago is now 400+ miles of range today. Compared to ICEs, where advancement has stalled for the last 20 years, which seem like a worse deal every year.

> Compared to ICEs, where advancement has stalled for the last 20 years,

It hasn't really stalled: VVT, VCR, Cylinder deactivation that works properly, and start-stop becoming commonplace are all meaningful improvements (though smaller than the ones seen in EVs over the same time frame, which makes sense given the relative maturity).

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#280

Post by jayd16 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #143
Animats wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. It's Softbank exiting humanoid robotics at Softbank's discretion. That's a lot different than " Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics". Hyundai bought them years ago. This is just the last 8%.

Seems like a mistake. AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. Not something I would pay for to use outside of work. But a household robot that could clean, wash and fold the laundry, do the dishes, maybe even be a chauffeur... that would be huge. I think a lot of people would pay new-car money for something like that.

Ok but that is pure fantasy.
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