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These kind of stories always make me chuckle. The Boston Dynamics videos always show the humanoid robots running through debris, dancing to the latest music, regaining balance after being assaulted, ever at the ready, ever the obedient servant. Sort of "join the army see the world" kind of stuff. The reality is however, pushing a parts cart to the other side of the factory, returning and doing it again. 12 hours a da…
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> 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…
> ”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…
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.
What are you talking about?
Go outside, look around! The whole word was created by and for humans.
Just a note for the thread Hyundai Motor Group makes cars and a lot of other heavy industry things - trains, defense, plant. Rolling robotics fully into their motor group makes complete sense.
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Yesterday I read about Cursor being sold for $60bn. Cursor being worth more than 50x Boston Dynamics seems insane.
$325M for 9.65% implies a valuation of around $3.4 billion, so it's more like 18x. Regardless, Boston Dynamics has been burning cash for 35 years and all they have to show for it are some fancy demos and trial deployments. Eventually you have to wonder what their future prospects are.
Boston Dynamics is a defense contractor, their future prospects are designing and manufacturing war machines, the same thing they’ve always done.
The dog robots are meant to carry stuff/support combat troops.
The humanoid robots are designed to rescue injured soldiers and possibly other risky tasks.
They may have plans to commercialize these robots, but I’m not sure where the consumer/commercial market for robotic dogs is. Jobs that need machines to carry heavy stuff already have solutions and have had them for a long time, and they’re safe to operate as long as you’re not in a combat zone. I guess it would be nice to have a robot dog portage my packs and canoe for me in the BWCA but I’m not spending new car money for that.
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.
We have a world built for humans, designed for humans to walk around and get things done. How, exactly, would it not be useful to have a robot that looks, walks, runs, jumps, lifts, carriers, pushes, pulls, twists, bends, steers, and labors like a human? It would obviously be incredibly useful.
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> ”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…
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> 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…
I have a feeling that humanoid robots will have other, more intimate, tasks first. Our most primal drives seem to drive the advancement of technology. Also, mowing the lawn on a very hot day is pretty bad for the grass.