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

Post by vessenes » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #10

vessenes wrote: post #3

This is a recent essay on robotic workers that does not mention Figure’s 24+ hour livestream of a robot doing package management on a live assembly line. The real reason it’s hard to assess where we’re at with industrial robots is that some of the people who’ve gone hardest at it are secretive, and also believe in power law scaling. So, the first 1,000 robots will only be used to build the next robot factory, which a…

> 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…

Post by willmarch » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

runtime_terror wrote: post #46

Manglo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LOT of real humans still assemble machines across the globe. Probably also what you have at home. There are plenty of YouTube videos available were you can see how many hands a rice cooker is going through. And we talk about a real robot costing 5 figures being able to shown what it should do and then it just does it 24/7. It will fill the gap of no automatisation to full automatisation. Besides that, in theory it…

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…

Post by shanev » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:49 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…

Post by tootie » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:27 PM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #12

tootie wrote: post #9

I have a few thoughts. Number one is that humanoid robots are probably a dead end. It's movie stuff. It makes me think of Henry Ford saying customers want "faster horses". It is the fault of evolution that we don't have wheels but we don't have to repeat that mistake. Secondly I think robot butlers are a bridge too far. The article explains pretty well why the spatial reasoning is problematic but so would things like…

> It is the fault of evolution that we don't have wheels but we don't have to repeat that mistake. With wheels you can't climb up a steep mountain. Hands and feet allow to hold tight. With wheels you can't hold as much. Feet can be used as a replacement for an arm for some functions when arms are broken. If a wheel is partially broken it's close to impossible to use. If a foot is broken I can walk on heel or toes onl…

Post by tootie » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:35 PM UTC

dosisking wrote: post #14

tootie wrote: post #9

I have a few thoughts. Number one is that humanoid robots are probably a dead end. It's movie stuff. It makes me think of Henry Ford saying customers want "faster horses". It is the fault of evolution that we don't have wheels but we don't have to repeat that mistake. Secondly I think robot butlers are a bridge too far. The article explains pretty well why the spatial reasoning is problematic but so would things like…

> I think if we want to pilot autonomous robots it will be factory floors and other rote tasks. Maybe installing solar fields or something. Let them achieve a perfect safety record in someplace with more risk tolerance then take the next step. No, these autonomous robots will be used by the military as soldiers. There will be no attempt to achieve a "perfect safety record". These soldiers are already here, pay attent…