Why do we even want humanoid robots?
Because remaking the world to suit what robots we can make is more work.
The same thing that made phones bigger, bandwidth wider, and probably one of the biggest uses of AI.
Horny people want sex without other people. In this case, sexbots.
Great, we have few resources, but they are used to create expensive robots, we really won’t live to see 2100.
yep. and if we have fewer resources, why not squander them by trying to cram all the electronics, batteries, motors and other shit into an upright biped frame. because wheels was a fad and centering the mass close to the ground just makes too much sense.
I believe that humanity simply needs to go through a reset, this is already madness of the highest degree.
There is no reset. All the easy to reach fossil fuels being gone may be an insurmountable obstacle to any reset being able to reach an industrial age
Well, okay, I was talking about this kind of reboot - people will live in poverty, valuing every resource in small communities after the collapse of civilization, how do you like that?
Imagine being the kid who uncovers a working gameboy from the trash
It’s like I found some ancient artifact.
Unfortunately for the reset argument, I’m really attached to:
- power
- clean water
- sewage
- communications
- hospitals
i’m an old man. I’ve seen, smelled! places where it all collapsed, and it always takes longer to rebuild than it does to just not destroy it all in the first place.
reset politics. leave the infrastructure please.
Reality unfortunately can be merciless, I myself am already preparing myself for the fact that I will be one of the first in line to die and I don’t care anymore.
I wanted to live in a civilization but not as a slave where even my thoughts are listened to while the world rots before my eyes. And where they can take everything away from me, even my soul, at any moment because someone in power wants it that way.
But in the short to medium term, there are much more reliable, efficient, and cost-effective platforms that can take over in these situations: robots with arms, but with wheels instead of legs.
I never understood why the first generation of robots can’t just be on wheels. Even if it needs to go up and down stairs often, it’s still easier to have legs just for stairs and resort to wheels all other times.
The article also thinks battery life is an issue. IMO too many things have batteries, why can’t it just rely on a power cord. Sure that won’t work in some situations, but damn it it can fold my laundry.
I mean, we’re hundreds if not thousands of iterations into robotics. Hell, we’ve probably had tens if not hundreds of attempts to create humanoid robots.
This is just the current iteration of humanoid robots getting beaten up for not delivering on its promises.
why can’t it just rely on a power cord
Think of it like grandma. She can fold your underwear for you but needs to go sit down every half hour
Yes, more specialized robots for now. When it’s harder to build for a human to do the job, build for a robot to do the job.
At some point in the future, it makes sense to combine the features of different types of robots into one form that can step in to human jobs
Can it hurry up and ruin the AI hype, too?
It is always cheaper to use human labor, where a humanoid form is best suited to do it. Automation is best implemented in situations where the human form doesn’t work best.
always
Currently
Yeah, no…“always”. Technology like humanoid robots, is never going to get cheap enough to replace low-paid manual labor. That’s a marketing lie that tech CEO’s like to use, in order to drum up more investment capital.
Considering that humanoid labor often works in tandem with actual automation…the idea of robots using machines to accomplish tasks that a human could just as easily do, with far less overhead…makes no sense.
The only way automation is effective, is when it exceeds the limitations of what the human body can accomplish. Designing it with the same basic limitations doesn’t improve on anything.
It’s kinda dumb to make predictions about limitations on future technologies. If history is any indicator, predictions of ‘impossibilities’ almost always turn out mistaken.
That’s not to mention that manual labour should not be low cost. But that’s an entirely different discussion.
No, man. History is the indicator here. They’ve been talking about automation replacing people for so long now, that the idea has become more myth than fact. In certain cases, for certain jobs, it works…but it costs enormous amounts of money. In almost every practical instance, that cost is prohibitive.
Most places will weigh their options, and simply decide to keep hiring people for those jobs, since they don’t have to rely on either a massive influx of investment, or take on the burden of securing enormous loans. In almost every way, it is cheaper to hire people to do the work that people are good at.
Did you know that elevator operator used to be a job that people had to be employed to do? No one says hiring a person to operate an elevator is more cost effective than installing a push button system for people to do it themselves. The cost really wasn’t prohibitive to move away from human labor here.
This is not the only case, I’m just bringing up an example. The thing is, when a job is replaced by technology, you don’t even think about it anymore. Yes, there are also jobs that CAN be replaced by technology, where the tech is more expensive… but that’s not the rule, that’s just the leading edge.
But did the elevator operator get replaced by a humanoid robot pulling the lever of a formerly human-operated elevator?
That’s what they person before you was referencing. In most situations a simple computer-controlled mechanism is enough. If that’s not enough, a non-humanoid robot trumps a humanoid robot. And in situations where a humanoid shape is really necessary, human labour is really cheap.
Humans don’t have their shape because it’s the perfectly ideal form, but because evolution always only iterates on what it has.
Btw: automatisation happens because either using a full human for a simple task is overkill (e.g. your elevator operator example) or because humans really aren’t the optimal shape (e.g. using a robot arm to lift a car during production). If a humanoid shape is required, humans will do the job.
Did they replace the elevator operator with a robot that looked just like an elevator operator? And did they make that robot stand inside the elevator, and pull the lever, just like the old elevator operator would?
No. Of course not.
Because that would be insane. Replacing a person with a robot that does the exact same thing that a human can do, is pointless. It doesn’t improve anything. It doesn’t save you money. It isn’t more efficient. It’s just a very expensive gimmick.
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