Inventor who encouraged Elon Musk to make Optimus says most humanoid robots today are 'terrifying' Scott LaValley, founder and CEO of Cartwheel Robotics, suspects he may have helped encourage Elon Musk to get into the humanoid robot business. The pendulum is so pegged toward these robots as tools, and as a way of performing tasks and augmenting human labor in a lower-cost way that may or may not be more efficient – to be …
Maybe scary robots are an American thing. If it can’t carry an arsenal of high powered rifles, guns, armour piercing shells etc for “hunting and self-defense” then it’s rights as an American robot would be being violated /s
In terms of non threatening robots operating around humans, Honda beat them to it 25 years ago with Asimo.
Asimo was a non-threatening biped robot that Honda operated daily for 20 years. A long term R&D project into building and operating an autonomous biped robot to help people that would be accepted by people. Over the 25 years they have been performing research they learned a lot and while they stopped the Asimo project, everything they learnt from it is being used to further research in both biped and non-biped robots to help people
https://global.honda/en/robotics/asimo/
It is probably more useful for it to have more than two arms than for it to have more than two legs. If it had two extra arms at waist height and long enough they could operate as legs on unstable terrain. In more normal situations it would walk on two and have four arms/hands to compensate for the fact that it will be a long long time before robot hands/fingers are anywhere near as dexterous as a human's.
Why not just go Full Octopus and use whichever set of limbs are useful for the moment?
The drummer from Little Mermaid had a friendly smile and wouldn't be at all threatening as it scuttled up the bookcase and across the ceiling bosses, carrying a teacup and sugarbowl.
More interestingly, Robert L. Forward suggested a fractally bifurcating design, nicknamed The Christmas Bush, in his novel "The Flight of the Dragonfly" (renamed "Rocheworld", how dull). Trickier(!) to actually build, especially with the way it separated into multiple parts (although those were very human-friendly, including a hair comb that could, among more serious uses, move to tidy and keep unruly locks neat all day). Think TARS etc from "Interstellar" but a lot prettier and more cylindrical.
"a way of performing tasks and augmenting human labor in a lower-cost way"
I'm kinda convinced that the more you try to "lower the cost" by applying more technology, the more you discover that employ a human is still the cheapest and most effective way to perform... almost anything. There are edge case, as usual.
And regarding the robot being "terrifying"... that's a weird way to spell "pathetic".
It feels like the tech-bros in charge of these companies are either obsessed with recreating sci-fi movies, or are selling their products to venture capital that is obsessed with recreating sci-fi movies. They are out of good or original ideas, so they just do whatever already has pop-culture cache, because they know that will get some hype. This feels very similar to when they tried to force the 'metaverse' on us (from an incredibly bad dystopian novel) despite the fact that reading text on a page is faster and more efficient. I have trouble seeing much use for a humanoid robot like this over a human or a unitask robot. Is the idea that they think AGI is real, coming and everyone will have a slave robot in their house?
I went to a restaurant in China earlier this year where we sat ourselves, scanned a QR code to order our food on our phones and were brought everything by a robot (wheeled obviously). I know I am getting old, but... It sucked. It felt quiet, isolating and impersonal. Maybe people find the novelty fun today, but I really think that having the aspect of human interaction removed from the mundane parts of our lives makes things worse for us all. It certainly has when I am calling customer service. I know these rich investors and inventors think so to, because rich people stuff is all about having actual people do things for you. Sure, a lot of it is about the ego of having people serve you, but I also think the human element matters. When you go to a fancy restaurant the chef comes out to speak with you about your meal because that connection makes the meal more special for people. When you buy luxury goods, a sales attendant will personally reach out to you and maintain contact about new releases, try-on events, .etc. A mail list would work fine, but it comes from a person, because people like that.
It doesn't feel like any of this tech is about making our lives better, it feels like it is about converting labor costs into capital expenditures or utilities whose revenue that can be captured. The actual products we get aren't better than what we had, they are just enough that we can deal with it. I remember how excited I was for a flatscreen monitor, broadband internet, an iPhone. Humanoid robots should be more impressive than any of that, but I don't feel remotely excited. They weren't actually designed to improve my life. (Also, I am definitely getting older. Real "yelling at clouds" stuff.)
"It sucked. It felt quiet, isolating and impersonal. "
It's how younger people roll these days. They might sit in a group, but they all have their phones out and are twiddling away putting distance between themselves and everybody else. Maybe they'd prefer zero interaction when eating out and QR codes + robots are just the thing.
The last overnight train trip I had, the dining room staff brought me an extra roll and desert for a midnight snack since I was in the last seating and they had leftovers. A robot isn't going to do that. Of course, I'd not tip a robot either and the staff got a nice tip. I've often gone off menu and that takes wait staff that can accommodate that. A taxi driver can be a fount of information when visiting a new town. So can the front desk staff at a good hotel.
> "That is all very, very true, and I know that firsthand from experience," said LaValley. "I've worked at two companies now that have both been infiltrated by the CCP. They're stealing everything. It's just a matter of time before you're a victim."
He is talking about industrial espionage (I hope, because otherwise he's a complete nutter) which everybody does to everybody else. For a while, the Chinese were going about it in a particularly aggressive way. How they've reached the point where they're more worried about protecting their secrets than getting to yours.
