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

    Why, when you have the ability to build robots of any shape or size, would you want to build a humanoid robot in particular? Are they just lacking creativity? Or is being humanoid just hype, like dotcom or AI?

    • @IphtashuFitz
      link
      English
      32 hours ago

      Because the entire world is designed around the human body and the way it moves. It’s theoretically much easier to introduce a humanoid robot into an existing workspace than it is to retrofit all the doors, stairs, etc. to allow a wheeled robot to move around.

      • @IphtashuFitz
        link
        English
        22 hours ago

        But I want my own personal luxury car that I paid $100,000 for to go out on its own in the middle of the night while I’m asleep and have it earn money for me as a self-driving Uber…

  • @just_another_person
    link
    English
    291 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
      6
      edit-2
      24 hours 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
        317 hours 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
          17 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
            36 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
              4 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
      222 hours ago

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

      • @just_another_person
        link
        English
        322 hours ago

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

        • @cm0002
          link
          English
          122 hours ago

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

          • @just_another_person
            link
            English
            122 hours ago

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

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

    “There is a lot of optimism that ChatGPT-level models for robotics will soon be upon us,” says Ed Colgate, a professor at Northwestern University in Illinois.

    Uh… sure.

  • @DarkSpectrum
    link
    English
    216 hours ago

    Another reason why companies like Amazon treats it’s workforce like garbage. They are seen as replaceable in the near future.

  • @i_have_no_enemiesOP
    link
    English
    61 day ago

    are you guys hopeful for 2nd quarter of 21st century?

  • @devilish666
    link
    English
    324 hours ago

    Widespread use in industry not for personal use if you mean the right word. Robots for personal use still slow in movement because we expected robot can do multiple thing, it’s different to the robots for industrial use since it can only do one or two thing faster than human not many thing

    • SharkAttak
      link
      fedilink
      13 hours ago

      Exactly, my first thought was “define ‘widespread’” and of course it’s not like the Jetsons…