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Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

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Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#231

Post by edm0nd »

downrightmike wrote: post #135
giwook wrote: post #52

Back in December 2020, Hyundai purchased an 80% controlling interest in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank for $880 million, part of a transaction that valued the robotics company at $1.1 billion. That agreement included a put option allowing SoftBank to sell its remaining stake to Hyundai at a later date. SoftBank has now exercised that option.

Softbank is bleeding money and they need cash, AI isn't shaping up to what they thought it would be

didnt they get absolutely rekt on WeWork?

How are they still able to be a thing

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#232

Post by seanmcdirmid »

addaon wrote: post #224
Reason077 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”it’s surely cost competitive to just hire a human to do all those things.” The cost of labour varies hugely in different parts of the world. The cost of hiring someone in Switzerland is on the order of 100X more expensive compared to Bangladesh, for example. With many countries currently in an anti-immigration political mindset and with birth rates declining globally, labour costs are likely to continue to increas…

> it’s costs are only likely to decrease over time What is this based on? We're well past a 50-ish year deflationary period in the cost of major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc). We're pretty clearly at or near the end of the deflationary era for computers and computation. Automotive... speaks for itself. We're still there for televisions, surprisingly; but it looks like these technologies tend to ha…

The computer of 10 years ago is still a lot cheaper than a modern model. Deflation stops basically only if hardware advancement stops.

EVs are a great example: they keep getting cheaper for what they provide, even if the price stays the same. 200 miles of range 5 years ago is now 400+ miles of range today. Compared to ICEs, where advancement has stalled for the last 20 years, which seem like a worse deal every year.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#233

Post by seanmcdirmid »

RussianCow wrote: post #178
Forgeties79 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're paying cash/under the table, then maybe. But even then a twice a week household cleaning hire is going to cost upwards of $1500/mo unless you're being particularly exploitative. If you're not under the table, you're paying payroll taxes, probably paying for a payroll service, etc. so you're talking $2000+. At best you can maybe stay under $20k a year. When you really look at the economics of it, a robot tha…

> But even then a twice a week household cleaning hire is going to cost upwards of $1500/mo unless you're being particularly exploitative. Sorry, what? Unless you're doing a deep clean of your house twice a week or you live in a particularly HCOL area, those numbers don't add up. You shouldn't be spending more than $1k/month on household chores, and even that seems high. Source: A client of ours runs a "personal help…

$1k/month in an HCOL like here in Seattle doesn't give you much:

> In Seattle, hiring a house cleaner typically costs $150 to $500+ per visit, with most recurring standard cleanings for an average-sized home landing between $180 and $300. If you pay by the hour, rates generally range from $45 to $65 per hour for self-employed independent cleaners and $75 to $125 per hour for professional cleaning companies.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#234

Post by gastonmorixe »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #161
OtherShrezzing wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> robot maid that could clean, wash and fold the laundry, do the dishes, etc. would be huge. I think a lot of people would pay new-car money for something like that. Once you take maintenance of a machine with price-parity to a new car into consideration, it’s surely cost competitive to just hire a human to do all those things. The price needs to fall drastically below new-car territory before it’s competitive with m…

maintenance cost of machines is largely driven by human labor cost

unless you need rare earths (or any short supply / scarse resource)

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#235

Post by to11mtm »

kulahan wrote: post #141
ckemere wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon warehouses still have a huge number of ununionized workers doing manual labor

Pretty different tasks, environments, outcomes, metrics, goals, and other things in a warehouse vs. a factory… really have no clue how this is supposed to be relevant. Why not mention farms or libraries?

Well, Farms have the UFW...

Libraries are typically either governed by a municipality's rules around employment and treatment of employees, or part of a school/etc where there are again additional guidelines about these things to be sensible and not leading people into unsafe behavior.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#236

Post by Graziano_M »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #123
Hugsbox wrote: post #31

I don't understand why they would implement humanoid robots instead of purpose-built robots. The human form is not the most optimal way to do most tasks, especially as it relates to manufacturing. Robots don't need to look like humans, they need to be useful . Seems like putting in an awful lot of extra unnecessary work to end up with a worse result.

Two things: 1) we have abundant training data for humanoid embodiments (watch humans do things), and 2) the world is already designed for humans.

#1 is the main reason. There is basically unlimited data of things being done with human bodies, and it's also the easiest data to collect (tell a human to do something).

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#237

Post by szundi »

Benlovescnn wrote: post #217
browsingonly wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI in its current form has limited usefulness for most people. That's not what I'm seeing. My mom always wanted Google to just answer questions, and now ChatGPT can. She uses it enough in her daily life that she bought a subscription. Yes, she knows it hallucinates and you have to double check everything, but so far she finds a ton of use for it even with those caveats. Now, I agree that a personal servant robot wo…

You're honestly comparing a computer that can poorly answer questions to a fully functioning robot that does chores?

[dead]

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#239

Post by mlmonkey »

sahila wrote: post #25
mlmonkey wrote: post #19

I still think dumping BD was one of the biggest mistakes of Sundar's career. And that's saying something.

Per this sale, BD is worth $3.25B. Just recently, Google paid $2.7B for two years of Noam Shazeer through the Character.ai deal. This seems like a small correction if they wanted to reacquire and clearly the market isn't valuing BD all that high. Why do you think it's one of Sundar's biggest mistake?

Not capitalizing on LLMs until OpenAI came out with ChatGPT, and then suddenly everybody was running around like headless chickens is bigger. And then there was Fitbit. Motorola. and more recently, Noam and Character.AI.

But imagine: robotics cred of BD combined with AI chops of GDM. It would have been something. Turns out, internally, GDM has robots they're training, experimenting on, etc even today. So why dump BD and lose that platform?

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#240

Post by szundi »

addaon wrote: post #224
Reason077 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”it’s surely cost competitive to just hire a human to do all those things.” The cost of labour varies hugely in different parts of the world. The cost of hiring someone in Switzerland is on the order of 100X more expensive compared to Bangladesh, for example. With many countries currently in an anti-immigration political mindset and with birth rates declining globally, labour costs are likely to continue to increas…

> it’s costs are only likely to decrease over time What is this based on? We're well past a 50-ish year deflationary period in the cost of major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc). We're pretty clearly at or near the end of the deflationary era for computers and computation. Automotive... speaks for itself. We're still there for televisions, surprisingly; but it looks like these technologies tend to ha…

[dead]
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