191–200 of 223 posts
What's the run-up time on a RAM fab? 5-10 years?
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Most initial work for them would be in familiar, well-controlled environments - replacing humans in existing factories. I think whether they'd be cost effective for that will remain unknown even after a few years in service though.
Factory work that can be straightforwardly automated by robots generally already is, by special-purpose factory robots. The remaining tasks are generally: * Tasks where poorly-paid humans are cheaper than expensive factory robots. Humanoid robots are more complex / fiddly so will be more expensive than existing factory robots. No help here. * Tasks where human dexterity has an advantage over state-of-the-art robot ac…
I'd also point out that what makes this whole thing smell of being a grift is the fact that what's being chased is humanoid.
Humans are not the pinnacle of dexterity or stability. And freed from biological constraints, it makes no sense why we'd use the human form as a reference.
Making a humanoid robot is a hard thing to do, for sure, but it's also not particularly useful. The routines needed to balance a robot or correct for a slip are interesting to solve, but don't really make for a better robot which is more capable of doing the dishes or folding the laundry.
If I'm amazon, for example, then the most useful form factor for a general purpose robot is 2 arms on a 4 wheel omnidirectional rolling platform.
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We’re experiencing gpt-2 moment in robotics now. This means in about 2-3 years they will do useful work (cooking, repairs, cleaning, etc).
So far all humanoid robot demos have either been either known tasks in a tightly-controlled environment, teleportation, or so poorly-functioning as to be obviously not fit for purpose. It's possible throwing more compute at the problem will work and they'll be useful in a few years. Or maybe we're actually experiencing a Markov-chain / ELIZA moment and are multiple decades away from anything actually useful.
Self driving cars is far from a solved problem. It's something we've been working on for the last 20 years at least. We are getting closer, some solutions are impressive (like waymo). But even those ultimately need operators in the area of the cars to solve the problem of the car getting stuck.
Self driving cars are an infinitely simpler problem to solve vs a general purpose humanoid robot. You have basically 2 outputs, acceleration and steering. You have rules simple enough that I was driving at 14. With enough input, you'd think self driving could be completed in a snap. But it's not there yet.
Humanoid robots which are useful will come after widespread deployment of L5 self driving cars. Since we don't have that, I have no faith that we are close to useful humanoids.
What's incredible is how much resistance there is in the U.S. to do what for other countries is the obvious strategy forward. The U.S. — after decades of seeing manufacturing being outsourced — suddenly has an incredible advantage in data centers that is producing onshore facilities that are adding hundreds of billions of dollars in annual export revenue, and instead of there being a united front to maximize that adv…
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Autonomous (non-teleoperated) humanoid robots that can do useful work in an unfamiliar environment do not exist. And nobody's close enough to making them to understand if they're possible with our current level of technology, let alone how.
We’re experiencing gpt-2 moment in robotics now. This means in about 2-3 years they will do useful work (cooking, repairs, cleaning, etc).
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$585B on new fabs, $357B on AI data centers, and $5.8B on humanoid robots. One of those numbers is not like the others
Androids (humanoid robots) will require loads of ram, and loads of model training under the current paradigm. So it sort of makes sense. At least, I see robots as the top of the pyramid.
I see... tech giants and R & D at the top of the pyramid, and I have seen Gumee, the fab that started all this Korean ram prodution.
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Factory work that can be straightforwardly automated by robots generally already is, by special-purpose factory robots. The remaining tasks are generally: * Tasks where poorly-paid humans are cheaper than expensive factory robots. Humanoid robots are more complex / fiddly so will be more expensive than existing factory robots. No help here. * Tasks where human dexterity has an advantage over state-of-the-art robot ac…
Totally agree. I'd also point out that what makes this whole thing smell of being a grift is the fact that what's being chased is humanoid. Humans are not the pinnacle of dexterity or stability. And freed from biological constraints, it makes no sense why we'd use the human form as a reference. Making a humanoid robot is a hard thing to do, for sure, but it's also not particularly useful. The routines needed to balan…
but personally, I would welcome our cyper-coon overlords.
"Double"
I was wondering about that $585B number only to read they plan to Double the capacity. The two firm together is nearly 70% of the current DRAM market supply. I guess we are really going into an era where future Phone and PC will have 16GB as minimum, possibly more.
Even if the market are back to normal, that is doubling the revenue. The current AI scale and Cloud infrastructure buildout is simply beyond what I could comprehend.
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So far all humanoid robot demos have either been either known tasks in a tightly-controlled environment, teleportation, or so poorly-functioning as to be obviously not fit for purpose. It's possible throwing more compute at the problem will work and they'll be useful in a few years. Or maybe we're actually experiencing a Markov-chain / ELIZA moment and are multiple decades away from anything actually useful.
I'll do you one further. Self driving cars is far from a solved problem. It's something we've been working on for the last 20 years at least. We are getting closer, some solutions are impressive (like waymo). But even those ultimately need operators in the area of the cars to solve the problem of the car getting stuck. Self driving cars are an infinitely simpler problem to solve vs a general purpose humanoid robot. Y…
"I have no faith that we are close to useful humanoids." I agree completely. We still have competitions about having robots walk up stairs and open doors, and balance while doing those things...
What would be the top uses of humanoid robots?
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I'll do you one further. Self driving cars is far from a solved problem. It's something we've been working on for the last 20 years at least. We are getting closer, some solutions are impressive (like waymo). But even those ultimately need operators in the area of the cars to solve the problem of the car getting stuck. Self driving cars are an infinitely simpler problem to solve vs a general purpose humanoid robot. Y…
However, self driving vacuums are a done deal. "I have no faith that we are close to useful humanoids." I agree completely. We still have competitions about having robots walk up stairs and open doors, and balance while doing those things... What would be the top uses of humanoid robots?
To replace humans for general tasks. McDonalds would like to use them to flip burgers, take orders, and deliver meals. Amazon would like to use them to pick items from their warehouses for delivery.
I'd argue, though, in both cases the "humanoid" part isn't what they really want or need. Even in the mcdonalds case, so long as the robot is "cute" enough to interact with customers, then it can be a box with an arm.
Of course, a major problem with using robots in the food industry is cleaning and hygiene. Robots tend to have lots of hard to clean cracks that will happily carry around germs. Even in medicine, we are finding that things like laparoscopic devices are beasts that are almost impossible to fully clean.