Why humanoid robots won't catch up to human workers any time soon • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by seydor » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #35

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…

Sexbots. That's it, that's the whole thing. And slaves in general but yeah.

pretty much the closest thing to the case where a human form is required.

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

#62

Post by ModernMech » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #61

ModernMech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexbots. That's it, that's the whole thing. And slaves in general but yeah.

pretty much the closest thing to the case where a human form is required.

This came across my feed today so you can see where they are going with it: https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1w51b0a/yoga_robo...

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

#63

Post by m463 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

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…

In the united states, workers have traditionally been super expensive to the point that manual labor such as manufacturing has all been exported.

could any of this be reversed?

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

#64

Post by krapp » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #63

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…

In the united states, workers have traditionally been super expensive to the point that manual labor such as manufacturing has all been exported. could any of this be reversed?

>could any of this be reversed?

Unless Americans are willing to work for the same wages, the same hours and under the same conditions, no. Most of those jobs have already been replaced with automation anyway.

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

#65

Post by runtime_terror » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

willmarch wrote: post #53

runtime_terror wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works 24/7 till it breaks down or gets stuck in a situation it was trained for then the company that purchased it will likely have to wait at least days if not weeks for a repair tech to come down and fix it or adjust its training data. I feel so many people bullish on these robots has never worked on physical things so they have this rosy picture of the smooth sailing once they get their humanoid robots delivered…

Wouldn't they just send another robot to fix or replace it?

Can't imagine that going wrong /s

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

#66

Post by willmarch » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:15 AM UTC

runtime_terror wrote: post #65

willmarch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't they just send another robot to fix or replace it?

Can't imagine that going wrong /s

But can you imagine it going right?

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

#67

Post by m463 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:28 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #64

m463 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the united states, workers have traditionally been super expensive to the point that manual labor such as manufacturing has all been exported. could any of this be reversed?

>could any of this be reversed? Unless Americans are willing to work for the same wages, the same hours and under the same conditions, no. Most of those jobs have already been replaced with automation anyway.

But the point is, could the exported jobs be re-imported with easier automation.

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

#68

Post by somenameforme » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:33 AM UTC

jessetemp wrote: post #40

somenameforme wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine LLMs reach their potential and the general field of 'cognitive work' starts to be able to be largely automated. What happens then? I think there's some precedent with the Industrial Revolution. The increased productivity and the like did lead to some 'super farms' and the like, but the real change is that it left a vacuum in the economy. That vacuum was filled by industry such that even the 'super farms' star…

You're saying the vacuum in the economy (people without an income source) will be filled by something else that leaves people without an income source? Who's paying for the robots? If people find themselves with more time than money, they're not going to buy robots to free up more time

Take yourself back to agrarian society, and imagine hearing that in the future there'd be trillions of dollars being spent to try to force people to watch a video or look at a picture for a product - advertising in other words. It'd sound absurd - to some degree it still does when you think about in these terms.

I imagine the future will be similar. It's difficult to predict what will be valued in a world where cognitive work can be largely automated, and then after that we may even begin to see basic physical work (like service labor) start to be automated as well. All that's ultimately going to do is send the value of those industries to relatively near zero, exactly as happened with agricultural work. What will fill the vacuum? I think it's impossible to predict besides 'something.'

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

#69

Post by seydor » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:28 AM UTC

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.

But is it the most profitable

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

#70

Post by Gareth321 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 7:46 AM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #39

jillesvangurp wrote: post #37

They don't have to catch up, they just have to be good enough on a narrow set of tasks to be worth the trouble. Perfect is the enemy of good here. Everything I've seen suggests that the prototypes are already pretty good at simple tasks that involve recognizing, picking up, and putting things into/onto other things in some way. All the dancing, jumping, running, etc. is nice for marketing but not actually that urgent…

> they just have to be good enough on a narrow set of tasks to be worth the trouble Depends on the context. If they are to work around human beings, particularly in the home, then they must be safe... to work around humans. If a humanoid robot hits a human being, knocks one over, or even falls down on top of one -- especially a child, who is more fragile and whose movements are unpredictable -- then the industry as a…

As always I feel compelled to say that the bar is not "never hurts a human being." It's "hurts human beings less than the status quo." Home helpers, for example, also occasionally hurt human beings. Further, the elderly hurt themselves a lot doing chores around the house. If the sum of these incidents (in severity and frequently) is greater than the sum of accidents by robots, we should still use the robots.

I see similar arguments playing out in self driving. People point to the occasional accident and proclaim that the technology is useless. But the bar has never been "perfect." It has always been "better than humans.*The Danish and Dutch government transport departments recently ruled that the evidence is clear: Tesla self driving is now safer than humans.