Still the best solution is to combine robotics with humans. Humans are still infinitely flexible and much easier to dispose off than an expensive robot /sarcasm.
This was famously learned by GM and then 20 years later by Tesla
Some companies find only humans can do the job
61–70 of 86 posts
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m super curious, what are HAL and Holmes? > algorithm costs $100k to run I almost choked on my coffee. They used this line on multiple companies??
Oblique references to IBM and their product Watson. I assume they're afraid IBM would otherwise find their comment and sue them for libel (implausible). For those that need further explanation, HAL is the killer computer in the movie 2001, the name was picked for the movie because the letters are shifted by one from "IBM." IBM's product Watson is named after Sherlock Holmes's sidekick, Dr. Watson. Edit: the product w…
Oh, of course! Thanks for the explanation about HAL and IBM, I actually had no idea that's where the name comes from. Very clever stuff.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#63>I have not seen good examples of companies successfully deploying robotic systems in low-margin, public-facing settings.
— Matt Beane, University of California, Santa Barbara
Me neither, which has kept me at the opposite end of the spectrum for decades.
To this day, good apps linger where it's still cheaper to use a human operator.
Going to build me a robot anyway, as soon as it's complete it'll be doing an invoiceable job.
That's a key.
So it starts making money right away, admittedly not as much as having a human performing its tasks.
Human's going to have to fill in when the robot is down anyway, plus serve the robot instead at intervals when it is running, just to keep it fully supplied and maintained.
So it's going to require a higher-skilled human than before.
That won't be cheap but I can then sell the higher skilled output for a better premium to clients most interested in the robot.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#64Automation is capital intensive to set up, so it may take years for it to pay for itself. This delays adoption considerably for smaller businesses. Hair cutting is one of those jobs that resists automation. Same for burger flipping. It's not as if salons and restaurants can afford expensive robots to automate those tasks. Customer support automation may mean lost business due to angry customers.
Hah! Never mind the capital overhead, it might be a while before customers trust a scissors-wielding robot with their head!
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Robots are too expensive; that is to say; humans are (a lot) cheaper. If you want to buy a Spot robot to pick up garbage, you are out 70k for the base model, 100k+ with some plugins, they need to charge every hour so you need multiple and there are maintenance costs (it’s not like you buy one of these and have no other costs outside electric for 10 years). In many countries humans are a lot cheaper than that for thos…
> If you want to buy a Spot robot to pick up garbage All of the things you say are true. There is one additional thing you don’t mention: You can drum up people on minimal wage, you give them a roll of bin bags and point at a street and tell them (verbally with words) “pick up the litter on that street, once the bags are full put it in the truck. At the end of the day drive to for disposal” And it will with high prob…
Yes exactly. Jobs that are labelled "low wage" are often incredibly subtle and complex. And people doing them actually can get better at them with time, and more efficient, too. I remember the story of a lady whose job was to dispose cakes in boxes, and make assortments (boxes of 4, 6, 8 cakes, with 10 or 12 different type of cakes to choose from: cherry tarts, lemon pies, chocolate éclairs etc). No robot is able to do this, and it's already probably quite less complex than cleaning up a street taken at random.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#66Automation is capital intensive to set up, so it may take years for it to pay for itself. This delays adoption considerably for smaller businesses. Hair cutting is one of those jobs that resists automation. Same for burger flipping. It's not as if salons and restaurants can afford expensive robots to automate those tasks. Customer support automation may mean lost business due to angry customers.
It occurs to me that buying a robot arm to literally flip burgers is highly anthropomorphizing the solution space. You want a machine that gives you a burger at the end. This is a pretty easy thing to automate if you had a huge, constant demand for burgers at one single location using standard factory automation strategies. Might not be feasible at all for the typical franchises with spikey demand and relatively low volume.
I say we increase the minimum wage to about $20/hour, adjusted for productivity growth (per capita GDP) since the 1960s and see what happens.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#67Still the best solution is to combine robotics with humans. Humans are still infinitely flexible and much easier to dispose off than an expensive robot /sarcasm.
A new form a dystopian science fiction: one where robots have better labor rights than humans.
Ironically, that’s sort of drone for drones in aviation. Any person can just fly an ultralight. Without any kind of pilot’s license. And without nearly the kind of regulatory overhead of even smaller drones.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
A new form a dystopian science fiction: one where robots have better labor rights than humans.
There's a 1959 Asimov short story where a futuristic government overrelying on automation realizes they can replace expensive computers driving ships and missiles with humans to save on expenditures. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power
You laugh, but that was literally the strategy behind XCOR and Virgin Galactic picking non-automated, non-fly-by-wire guidance systems for their space vehicles. The regulatory overhead and avionics development costs of using uncrewed systems is far higher than for crewed systems with test pilots. Or at least, that was the argument in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you expect to be better in 30 years? We have NOW insane computing power, cool stuff like insane size FPGAs and super fast GPUs. Mechanical parts work with fraction of micron accuracy. And yet we have millions of workers picking simple shaped objects manually every day around the world.
Robots are too expensive; that is to say; humans are (a lot) cheaper. If you want to buy a Spot robot to pick up garbage, you are out 70k for the base model, 100k+ with some plugins, they need to charge every hour so you need multiple and there are maintenance costs (it’s not like you buy one of these and have no other costs outside electric for 10 years). In many countries humans are a lot cheaper than that for thos…
Acknowledging humans are more valuable is as simple as just adjusting the minimum wage to productivity growth since the 1960s. Would be over $20/hour.
Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job
#70...yet. I'm sure things will look very different 20-30 years from now.
What do you expect to be better in 30 years? We have NOW insane computing power, cool stuff like insane size FPGAs and super fast GPUs. Mechanical parts work with fraction of micron accuracy. And yet we have millions of workers picking simple shaped objects manually every day around the world.
We'd have 30 years of engineering time to properly utilize those things.