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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

#71

Post by seydor »

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?

China has cheaper energy, why wouldn't companies go there to produce even cheaper?

US is expensive compared to what?

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

#72

Post by troupo »

vessenes wrote: post #51
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…

Weave robotics (no affiliation) claims they are folding over 1,000 lbs of laundry a week in homes right now: https://www.weaverobotics.com . I have no idea how well these work.

It's strange that there are no videos on the site of their robots doing what they claim they are doing (or they are not playing on mobile safari?)

And existin videos elsewhere don't inspire confidence: https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1reacvq/weave_rob... (though it is impressive in a way)

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

#73

Post by hobofan »

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?

Even with just teleoperation, the first robotics companies are poised to have some of the most efficient in-field technician operations, as long as there are at least two robots on site.

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

#74

Post by jillesvangurp »

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…

Obviously. But I don't think there are many documented cases of these things being dangerous despite obviously a lot of factories trialing these things now.

I expect if you ever buy one for use at home, there will be some clear terms of use limiting liability in case users do misguided, silly and/or wildly inappropriate shit with their robots. Which of course people will probably end up doing regardless. And quite a bit of that will probably end up being shared via social media.

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