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Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

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Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#51

Post by martythemaniak »

dgritsko wrote: post #5
blueflow wrote: post #4

I strongly feel like this is an insult to life itself. I do not wish to incorporate such technology into my daily life.

This feels a little hyperbolic - did we read the same article? I'm looking at a GIF of a robot pushing a chair a few inches, and fail to see how it could come across as "an insult to life itself." What provokes such a strong reaction for you? As someone who knows very little about this space, the concept of using a virtual world to rapidly train on various tasks seems fascinating. I had a similar reaction upon hearin…

People's opinions are in many circumstances driven primarily by the current zeitgeist. Less reasoning and more reflection and amplification of large scale moods.

GP mentions in a sibling comment that they've been working with computers for decade, as if that's a long time. Some of us have been at this for many decades, long enough to see the zeitgeist shift and things really change. The current tech backlash mood started sometime in the early 2010s and really kicked into high gear in the mid 2010s. GP has never really known a world that wasn't overtly negative towards tech.

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#52

Post by germinalphrase »

ModernMech wrote: post #31
TheBlight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI and full automation sounds nice but it leaves you with no leverage. You will end up relying completely on the compassion of your rulers.

This is why UBI is the capitalist solution to a post-scarcity world; it still places capitalists at the top of the pyramid as the owners and beneficiaries of capital. The solution we should be striving for in a post-scarcity world is democratic ownership of capital like robots, so that we may all share in the fruits of their labor.

And how does one argue for that future without immediately being labeled a communist/socialist seeking to nationalize the (robotic) means of production?

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#53

Post by yourapostasy »

lnsru wrote: post #22

I wish, we will not create world with robots as shown in movie Elysium. I wish we could create a world with universal basic income where warehouse slaves are replaced with robots and people can do something better than picking orders in constant fear of being too slow.

A current fully-automated restaurant uses 46 different types of robots [1], costs $29M USD [2] to deliver a 600 seat venue serving a 200 dish repertoire. The opex costs on that alone are going to draw out the capex payback quite a bit, before even getting into how the startup cost was around 5-10X conventional restaurants' startup costs. There isn't a Moore's Law for robots and their opex costs that lets us wait around for 10 years and then start innovating at 1/10th cost basis.

Someone please correct me where I'm going wrong here, because with my investor hat on, I can't make the numbers pencil out in these pop press robot-replacing-labor scenarios. In continuous manufacturing, high-risk environments, and all that sort of existing problem spaces, sure, but general Moravec's Workforce type activities, the numbers are nowhere near adding up for me.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoZ7lWzl6tk

[2] https://www.nspirement.com/2020/09/27/china-just-opened-the-...

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#54

Post by Gys »

guerrilla wrote: post #48
epberry wrote: post #6

How can you not think this is great? Freeing humans from menial tasks is the way forward. Remember when people (mostly women) would spend hours washing? Machines and automation freed them.

It really depends on who owns the robots. As it is now, the richer you are the more robots you'll be able to afford and the less labor you'll need. When labor isn't in demand anymore and most people don't have robots, then most people won't have income anymore, forcing them into poverty and revolution. Robot police and military could make successful revolution impossible.

I think robots will follow a pattern similar to cars, tv's, kitchen machines, computers and such. First only a few can afford them, but in time prices come down and functionality goes up.

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#55

Post by danpalmer »

amelius wrote: post #46
danpalmer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My washing machine does a lot better job than I could. My oven is much more reliable at heating than I am at building campfires. My computer is much quicker at maths than I am. My TV is cheaper than going to the theatre. Automation is great when it works well, we just forget about it when it does, so we generally only recognise the bad.

Perhaps, but your dishwasher is probably not be better than a person dedicated to washing dishes. My dishwasher often leaves dirty spots and stripes, which would easily be noticed and removed by a dedicated person.

It's orders of magnitude cheaper though, and most people would accept a >90% good enough job for Also I recommend the Technology Connections videos on how dishwashers work. Most people are probably not using them correctly for optimal results.

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#56

Post by nbardy »

ModernMech wrote: post #31
TheBlight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI and full automation sounds nice but it leaves you with no leverage. You will end up relying completely on the compassion of your rulers.

This is why UBI is the capitalist solution to a post-scarcity world; it still places capitalists at the top of the pyramid as the owners and beneficiaries of capital. The solution we should be striving for in a post-scarcity world is democratic ownership of capital like robots, so that we may all share in the fruits of their labor.

Someone is going to build the robots. You have gall to suggest seizing them all. It would require lots of violence and force.

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#57

Post by joey_bob »

deadbunny wrote: post #49
joey_bob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the quote, I read: "most people can end up miserably poor" == "ever-increasing inequality" Which begs the question - is the misery of poverty due to the lack of access to important goods or services, or because of the relative wealth standing?

Poor people can't afford to live. This leads to all kinds of shit we should have -as a species - eliminated decades ago; kids with Rickets, parents that skip meals so their kids can eat, foregoing heating so they can eat, working 3 jobs just to pay the rent, having zero healthcare. And that's just in developed countries. Poor people don't care that they will never own a Ferrari (or even a car newer than 15 years old,…

So if misery of the poor and inequality largely aren't the same, there might be a path where inequality increases while the quality of life of the poor also increases?

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#58

Post by dougmwne »

RationPhantoms wrote: post #9
epberry wrote: post #6

How can you not think this is great? Freeing humans from menial tasks is the way forward. Remember when people (mostly women) would spend hours washing? Machines and automation freed them.

I really want to shout out Maytag for pushing woman's rights forward. Without all that haphazard laundry out of the way, they never would've garnered equal pay or saw themselves as equal in the workplace. Please. To think there are only positives in this change is a naive approach of the future. Sure, there will be some benefits but we are in for a world of hurt if we maintain our current social structures (at least…

Two reductive takes do not a complex one make.

Labor saving home appliances, changes in family size, and convenience foods are a pretty big deal for how people of any gender spend their time. Time spent cleaning has decreased, and been replaced with other activities. Parenting has changed a lot and become much more intensive. One did not cause the other, but our modern lives absolutely co-evolved with appliances.

https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/hours-spent-homemaking-hav...

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#59

Post by willis936 »

falcolas wrote: post #15
willis936 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution isn't less robots. Automation isn't the enemy, poverty is.

Automation solves problems that can be addressed by people in poverty. Automation funnels that money away from people in poverty to property owners. There is no support today, nor is any on the horizon, for people poised to be displaced by automation (in the US). Combine all of these, and you're going to end up with a class of people with an inability to meet their basic needs, and with no support from the government…

Then those are problems to solve with social policy. Solving poverty by walking technology backwards isn't a solution. Technology is too powerful. Whichever society would be the first to renounce technology would also be the last because everyone else would say "Oh, that's why we like washing machines and self-driving cars".

And let's just say we lived in a unified society somehow. The net suffering of all peoples could only be alleviated by progressing technology forward and proper social policy. Removing one doesn't help solve the problem.

Re: Everyday robots are slowly leaving the lab

#60

Post by Riseed »

willis936 wrote: post #10
howaboutnope wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality. -- Stephen Ha…

The solution isn't less robots. Automation isn't the enemy, poverty is.

I don't think people are saying fewer robots are the solution. What I hear is words of warning, to be mindful of how the resulting gains and "freedom" are distributed. The goal of is (or at least should be) to reduce suffering, not merely reallocate it.
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