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South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 223 posts

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#31
South Korea is facing a serious demographic crisis, in the not too distant future it'll be a country of mostly elderly folk. I'd be interested to know if this investment has anything to do with this, since robots may be needed in the absence of young able bodied folk.

More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#32
post #25

Why is the whole world jumping on to humanoid robots? What am I not seeing that requires this level of investment in it?

They can sell “employees” who don’t require salaries, onboarding, healthcare, 401k, benefits, etc and then leave after two years of being lazy and try to sue you. (This is how it will be marketed)

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#34
post #25

Why is the whole world jumping on to humanoid robots? What am I not seeing that requires this level of investment in it?

Sex bots and disposable police. This is basically the future in every dystopian SciFi these politicians and oligarchs grew up watching. This is just living out fantasy.

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#36

I wonder how Germany missed the semi manufacturing train? They had literally everything: universities, manufacturing culture, expertise and supporting supply chains, cash. I forgot, they also had ASML, freaking next door!

Siemens?

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#37
post #19

Why humanoid? Surely there must be a superior physical form factor than one mimicking human anatomy. Is it just supposed to be more psychologically acceptable?

There are just a few reasons - humanoid make sense, mostly for multi purpose tasks - where if you want a robot to be multi-job, do almost everything a human can do at work -- If you want a weld you need a 1 arm robot, if a robot to weld, then stack, then push parts on a cart across the factory - then sweep up, then etc.. etc.. perhaps a humanoid is alright. There will definitely be too many people comfortable with ow…

I understand the argument but its honestly ridiculous in my eyes. How about a set of arms that can reach into dishwasher and stack dishes and a washer/dryer to fold laundry... Except even without solving the bipedal movement, that doesn't exist at a consumer price point.

Why are we pretending the hardest version of this is close to existing?

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those now need memory to function. At some point it becomes a national security issue.

That's not really a gotcha, because my train doesn't need a TB of dram.

Heavy machinery is starting to. Computer vision for robots is a big deal, and takes quite a bit of processing power. Robotic mining, earthmoving, and even construction equipment is exactly where Germany will innovate. Not to mention drones - Rheinmetall needs DRAM...

Re: South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

#40
post #17

The title sounds to me like: I am going to spend $1000 in groceries and dance lessons. That is, two very different things lumped together. Memory chips are like groceries, essential commodity parts, a no-nonsense investment. Humanoid robots are like dance lessons, it is cool, it is sexy, and it may pay off in the future, but the value is much less certain.

Humanoid robots that can do manual labor are going to be make or break for wealthy economies in the next two decades. Aging populations need help, and most successful nations do not have enough young people to do half the work they need done.
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