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Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

understandingai.org

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Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#21

Post by dawnerd »

seydor wrote: post #18

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids. These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that…

And not to mention those robots will require an expensive subscription and maintenance contract which I’d imagine wouldn’t actually save money vs traditional labor. Any company that can optimize labor costs pretty much already has to the point of diminishing returns.

The only sector I see any of these selling in any meaningful number is military and police.

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#22

Post by C06aka »

My first job out of high school was in a factory. Every aspect of production was automated by a machine with extremely high (five 9s) reliability. Despite that, things went wrong constantly because there was so much going on, usually in novel ways that couldn't be optimized away by tweaking or enhancing the machines. Something with human level dexterity and human level intelligence is necessary to fix the machines when things go wrong. On top of that, so many production tasks need that dexterity. I'd love to see a robot that can crochet. This is a good article about where we're at and where we need to be, but I do get frustrated with commenters who say "we don't need humanoids".

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#23

Post by dawnerd »

troupo wrote: post #10
vessenes wrote: post #3

This is a recent essay on robotic workers that does not mention Figure’s 24+ hour livestream of a robot doing package management on a live assembly line. The real reason it’s hard to assess where we’re at with industrial robots is that some of the people who’ve gone hardest at it are secretive, and also believe in power law scaling. So, the first 1,000 robots will only be used to build the next robot factory, which a…

> When we see humanoid robots actually out in the wild for sale at retail, they are going to come very very quickly, at scale. Building factories and other robots is trivial . Just go and watch videos of any modern factory. What's nigh impossible is doing complex interactions requiring finesse, "human touch", and at speed. Even if you build a million robot-building robots, not a single one of them will be able to fol…

Re: folding clothes, there’s machines that can do that already at the industrial scale.

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#24

Post by treis »

seydor wrote: post #18

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids. These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that…

Housework is the obvious use case.

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#25

Post by troupo »

dawnerd wrote: post #23
troupo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we see humanoid robots actually out in the wild for sale at retail, they are going to come very very quickly, at scale. Building factories and other robots is trivial . Just go and watch videos of any modern factory. What's nigh impossible is doing complex interactions requiring finesse, "human touch", and at speed. Even if you build a million robot-building robots, not a single one of them will be able to fol…

Re: folding clothes, there’s machines that can do that already at the industrial scale.

But probably not when those clothes come out if the dryer, or (in the retail) when someone just throws a shirt on a shelf

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#26

Post by unethical_ban »

seydor wrote: post #18

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids. These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that…

Literally crawl, walk, run... fight?

The physical world is currently designed for human interaction, and people who want to make money see the potential to replace humans with property. They'll get there.

"Your scientists were thinking so much about whether they could, they didn't stop to ask if they should".

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#27

Post by relevant_stats »

seydor wrote: post #18

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids. These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that…

> I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again.

Our entire world is heavily adjusted towards bipedal humanoid creatures. Having a moving humanoid tool who could replace some of our physical tasks without the need to build additional infrastructure in proximity around it is BIG. Noting your reservation about fragility, even the possibility of cheap construction and agriculture work is VERY BIG.

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#29

Post by magicmicah85 »

tootie wrote: post #9

I have a few thoughts. Number one is that humanoid robots are probably a dead end. It's movie stuff. It makes me think of Henry Ford saying customers want "faster horses". It is the fault of evolution that we don't have wheels but we don't have to repeat that mistake. Secondly I think robot butlers are a bridge too far. The article explains pretty well why the spatial reasoning is problematic but so would things like…

The evolutionary mistake that allowed us to walk on our feet and use our hands enabled us to build tools, conquer our environment and tackle hard problems. A humanoid robot provides a good blueprint for creating a robot that can do anything.

A solar field robot can only do one thing. A humanoid robot with a software model that allows it to install solar fields and then switch to a new model is a much more compelling use case. Eventually you're going to run out of solar fields to install, then you need a solar field repair bot, a solar field cleaning bot, etc. General purpose robots that can switch models to perform different tasks is not a dead end, but definitely a very hard problem.

Re: Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon

#30

Post by imglorp »

treis wrote: post #24
seydor wrote: post #18

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids. These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that…

Housework is the obvious use case.

Hands yes, for all the human actuated things. You don't need 2 legs to do that. Cantilevered wheels might be better for stair climbing around the house.

A better obvious use case for fully humanoid is vehicles. Jump into a forklift, combine, or golf cart and be immediately productive. Then jump out and a human can use the vehicle still.

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