• @just_another_person
    link
    English
    301 day ago

    Two reasons why this is just another bullshit claim:

    1. Generalized robotics don’t have any autonomy yet. They require immense amount of power to be mobile, and charging takes a lot of time. You’d need fleets to replace fleets upon fleets. Maybe 20m of runtime, and then the same for charging.

    2. Everything needs to be trained for job-specific tasks. Repetitive work that does a single purpose is way easier than a robot with multiple jobs. Right now all these tech demos are simplistic at best, and only focus on single jobs.

    Tesla’s robot is a total scam, akin to a child’s toy that reacts to certain things, and requires internet connectivity (wonder why???).

    Boston Dynamics isn’t even trying this noise, they know what their purpose is…military use.

    Agility hasn’t even demonstrated autonomy yet.

    1X is maybe the closest, but again…single purpose.

    Honda is basically off the map right now, but actually have the most advanced articulation platform.

    It’s a mess. Stop worrying about this shit and ignore the headlines for 5 years maybe.

    • hendrik
      link
      fedilink
      English
      7
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      I think a lot of this boils down to cost, too. Especially since you made the point about Boston Dynamics. We could look up the price for Spot (the dog) or the estimates what Atlas cost. The military or some bomb defusal unit are logical target audience. They’re happy to pay that kind of money and might have some good use for it. It’ll take some time until it’s worth the price for a cost-optimized warehouse which absolutely needs humanoid robots and can’t do it with the tech that automates warehouses for decades already. And the androids need to become much more affordable (aka mass-produced) to be bought by regular consumers. So yeah. We need to invent them in the first place. And I’m pretty sure adoption will take quite some time. Just because inventing something, and mass-producing it and making it affordable are two very different things.

      (And I think currently we have neither. I saw a few videos about this year’s World Robot Conference in China… And the androids look great. But they’re all doing very limited tech-demos, if at all.)

      • @jordanlund
        link
        English
        31 day ago

        Last time I looked, the dog started at $75,000? So Atlas is going to be roughly the same as a mortgage?

        • hendrik
          link
          fedilink
          English
          3
          edit-2
          24 hours ago

          Yeah, seems right. And seems like I’m not up to date with the Altas models any more. Last time I checked that thing still had rollover bars, was made of aircraft-grade aluminum and titanium, and probably also cost a similar amount to build like a decent airplane… I don’t think they’re for sale, though. Those (Boston Dynamics) bipedal robots are prototypes for research.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            313 hours ago

            Issue with all those robots is energy! The Spot dog lasts for 2,5 hours. That’s why it isn’t in military use. Same for the Humanoids. Once the battery challenge is solved we‘ll see Humanoids at battle fields first. My guess.

            • hendrik
              link
              fedilink
              English
              1
              edit-2
              11 hours ago

              Sure. I mean it’s not 100% that, since the military also re-fuels fighter jets mid-flight before they even reach their target, or they’ll send a large aircraft carrier ship into proximity to mitigate for that. So they’ll do it, if it’s worth the effort. But yeah, battery capacity is a severely limiting factor. And I guess walking (slowly) on the ground also cuts down on military use-cases.

              I suppose a lot of people are waiting for better batteries. It’d also help electric cars, bicycles… The whole transition from fossil-fuel energy to renewables… We certainly have quite some demand for good batteries.

    • @cm0002
      link
      English
      21 day ago

      Damn. So a minimum of 5 years of chores I have to do still :/

      • @just_another_person
        link
        English
        41 day ago

        Most people wouldn’t be able to even afford these things anyway. Don’t worry about it.

        • @cm0002
          link
          English
          11 day ago

          I would 1000% take a 30 year “mortgage” for a robot that would truly be able to absolve me of household chores LMAO

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            136 minutes ago

            If you are willing to pay that much you can also just employ someone to clean and dust for you.

          • @just_another_person
            link
            English
            11 day ago

            Sweeping and dusting is one thing. Cooking is just fuckin stupid though.