Humanoid robots coming soon, initially under remote control The first telephone call in 1876 was marked by Alexander Graham Bell's request to his assistant, Thomas, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." The first message over the internet in 1969, then known as ARPANET, was "LO" – which would have been "LOGIN" had the system not crashed. And the first robotic foundation model …
Are you thinking of the Philip K. Dick story Autofac, which was broadcast in the Electric Dreams telly series?
> Reminds me of a Black Mirror episode where humans had long perished
The joy of Black Mirror is usually not that humans have perished but that, if we have to live like that, maybe we'd be better off perished! At least "San Junipero" had a happy ending.
Maybe, I'm not sure. I think there were some humans still around but they were trying to shut down the automated processes as factories were laying waste to the land while automatically excavating ever more resources and dumping boxes of products in them. There was a final twist that the people trying to stop this, were themselves cyborgs, unaware that they were also being churned out from similar factories.
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If you want the tech to be pursued, it needs to be trained and tested out in the real world with real people.
I'd happily have one in my home for testing, within certain boundaries - remote kill-switch, and the absolute ability to limit it to certain rooms or floors of the house, as a basic minimum. I'm sure I could think of others given time.
GJC
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All you are referring to there is the results of affordability, not whether the tech had been "ironed out" well enough to be deployed in greater numbers, either in business/military or in domestic settings. They were always being targeted at "The Home of The Future", with your Telex in the corner of the living room and a chair that allowed the dozens of underskirts to fit.
> PCs were in businesses for (call it) 20 years before they became prevalent in the home
That wasn't anything to do with (general use within) business ironing out anything - I'd even argue the opposite, computers used for playing games at home, or before that just in arcades, giving the wider early exposure to many more people than using them in their work lives (purely mechanical tills stayed around a long time).
Mass home computer adoption stems from availability of networking, the Web, monetising the games etc etc. These were pushed by, exploited by, specific businesses (exploiting the work of non-business types, as per usual) - well, ok, because many businesses could afford networking before there was any *point* in domestic installations, they did have their staff testing out online games, downloading porn etc before it hit the suburban home.
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> data was gleaned and fed back beneficially improving the products
Only in the same loose way that any random products might be: the number of angry returns due to power supplies burning out or more people bought the beige cases than the puce. Anyone buying lots of kit in a fit of "management" and then simply dumping the lot in a back room because the typing pool was better off just getting new balls to replace the worn out ones in the Selectrics? That just gets buried in the financials and nobody every finds out; it certainly doesn't get fed back as useful intelligence to improve the products.
I mean, "fed back beneficially improving the products" - no more (and no less) than in developing a new kettle. Product development was driven by (attmempts at) product "unique selling points" (aka throwing stuff at the wall to see what will stick). nothing special, nothing worth crowing over. Once we were past the point that systems were hand-crafted from the mechanics up for a specific user (e.g. Lyons Tea Rooms) and had entered mass-production (as is required for mass adoption) you no longer get high-quality feedback on how things are doing.
Finally, I refer you back to my earlier dispute of your claim that computers in business paved the way for computers in the home: no, they did not. Computers outside of the office were subject to exactly the same level of "data gleaning" and feedback as as those within the office. More so, in fact, as there was so much more variety and hence so much more data to be gleaned - and so much more willingness to make changes and release new product that incorporated them.
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All the computers had OSes. People certainly seemed to get along with them.
Unless you are going with the thesis that only the Microsoft OS is the One True OS.
PS
> PCs are modular, but not to the general home use
I would argue that, aside from those in tech businesses, PCs were never treated as being modular, any more than a home user might. They were bought in one configuration and stayed that way until out the door they went. The prevalence of ready-built, non- or barely- expandable PCs from Dell, HP etc would attest that that is still the case. Even more so now, that the laptop is so popular: if the business world really prized modularity then why has that gone so far away? Heck, even when I was programming on the Genuine Article IBM PC XT and more than willing to crack the case and plug stuff in
You may counter that nowadays it is USB/Bluetooth/WiFi that provides the modularity and laptops/fixed-build cases all take advantage of that - but I'd counter by having a look at the products that are available to plug into the USB port or connect via BT and see which ones are *purely* aimed at business and not domestic use - let alone those that, I hope, really are not intended for use at the office!
Indeed, I'd argue that home computer setups have always been more susceptible to being built up over time, making use of modularity at all points in their history: you got the computer for Christmas and the memory pack for your birthday, then Dad bought a floppy disk to speed up balancing the chequebook and Mum got a dot matrix to print out the calendar (or vice versa, sorry about the '80s sexism there). The selling points for various home computers, before they were washed away by the tide of Wintel, was that they had all sorts of interesting modular expandability options, even ones that the business machines never bothered with (built-in MIDI was - still is - dang useful to those professional musicians who use that sort of thing; also to non-pros, of course, but just want to point out that "professional" and "business" are not synonyms).
Nowadays, the ENTIRE modularity and pick your own pieces seems[1] to be ENTIRELY about the home user, blinging up their game playing experience, whilst the IT department buys another black square thing and swaps it in its entirety for the older black square thing on your desk.
[1] there are always outliers, of course.
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>> All the computers had OSes. People certainly seemed to get along with them.
> Yes, I do keep specifically referring to "en masse".
Ok, now I'm lost - you don't get much more "en masse" usage of OSes than - every single machine having an OS. 'Cos I will admit that my first personal microcomputer was lacking in that department.
Unless you are going for the idea that there is - or should be - only One True OS, and it is that OS needing to be adopted en masse that is the special sauce that business taught us. 'Cos that leads to - well, I don't want you to feel any more ill, so let's not say the words. But even then, business has a long history of *not* doing that: sure, the the disposable drones that we are forced to employ to because we've not automated them away, they will bang away at their happy little OS all day long. Meanwhile the real big bucks are being made by the airline booking system, the logistics database, the automatic trading systems, the online sales and Web shopfronts - all on a variety of other OSes. Some tried to use - the OS we dare not name - for these tasks, especially later in the day as less experienced businesses jumped onto the online bandwagon, but they learnt better.
"PCs were in businesses for (call it) 20 years before they became prevalent in the homeW
Home computers became fairly common in the mid 80s. 20 years would imply business PCs were common in the 60s. I am pretty sure they were not. Mainframe terminals were pretty common, I believe, but that is an entirely different technology.
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> I did specify PCs. I considered mentioning home computers and consoles, but omitted them as "limited functionality devices"
Sorry, what?
So, you are now shifting from the common use of "PC" meaning just "Personal Computer" (as in, "Personal Computer World" and other venerable organs) to literally just meaning "IBM PC(tm)" and its immediate derivatives?
So your entire argument is based upon the fact that one particular style of computer happened to overtake and dominate the market?
> home computers ... "limited functionality devices"
You mean, the home computers that could (and still can, once you replace the worn out capacitors) word process, run spreadsheets[1], collate your data, lay out parish magazines - and play a much better Space Invaders than the IBM PC of the same vintage?
In fact, considering that IBM itself lost the hardware advantage, you aren't even arguing for the dominance of the "IBM PC" at all - at root, you entire thesis boils down to "Microsoft is the bestest"!
[1] You do know that the ubiquitous spreadsheet program was first created for the Apple II, don't you?
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> there was a 60 year period (split hairs as you will) of growth before general computing devices were adopted in the home en masse.
And before general computing devices were adopted en masse in businesses of all shapes and sizes. Hence the need, in the mid-80's, for the UK governernment to run an advertising campaign and seminars to try to get businesses to take up IT.
> It doesn't matter how or why - it happened.
True. It happened. Once. Just don't go around ascribing anything special or meaningful to a single datum.
> "Microsoft is the bestest"! -- Fucking hilarious!
Exactly. But that is what you are (whether you mean to or not) pushing. That is The One That Won. It Came From Business And Ate The World. You are banging the drum for that process - but you can not separate the two. MS didn't win because it was the best, because it was the recipient of all the cleverness that came from business use and trickled down to the domestic. Nothing came from such trickle down, it just isn't as important as you want to make it.
Unless, unless, you are championing MS.
> Create a alternate time line and test the CP/M in the home works theory if you like.
You *do* know the history of the MS OS, don't you? The role CP/M played in that, and vice versa? That you are talking about something that was balanced on the roll of a dice, CP/M or QDOS? Unless - and here is a key point - unless you are presenting MS as the One True...
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> CP/M playing a role in the history of MS OSes is not the same as deploying CP/M as-is. Which is what I suggested would not have been successful in the home.
CP/M is just as (un)usable as MSDOS/PCDOS. And *neither* of those was particularly prevalent in the older home computers, as the interesting variety of home computers had OSes that were a lot more useful to the home users than either of them.
When home - and teeny tiny business - users bought more "grown up" computers, I'd claim that CP/M was actually way *MORE* successful those markets than MSDOS ever was: I give you the Amstrad PCW and LocoScript just for starters. Whilst the big business world pretended their 8-bit IBM XT's were really 16-bit or more, you could do all the useful stuff on a stout, non-pretentious Z80.
By the time that home users started getting IBM compatibles in greater numbers than the specifically "home" computers, we had all moved on from *BOTH* raw MSDOS and CP/M, so any question about whether CP/M (well, CP/M86) would have been successful in the home is totally irrelevant. Domestic users were well used to WIMPs (and then GUIs!) and the fact that we techies all knew that - that thing from those people - was actually just hiding MSDOS from us was of utter disinterest to the home user. Irritating, but not interesting.
If CP/M had won the coin toss, been *the* command-line OS of choice for business, and reached the percentage penetration in that arena as it did in the home market (albeit hidden under such as the Locomotion menu), then the WIMP that captured the final market share could have been built on top of CP/M just as easily as it actually was on top of MSDOS. Marketing, not ability, was in play.
What business users *did* do for the domestic market was just simply play the game of providing a market into which more and more CPUs could be sold, so they got cheaper and cheaper. The machines from the desks of the drones, the least interesting computers in the business arsenal, became packaged and marketed for the home. Because business went down the PCDOS trouser leg of time (due to marketing, not merit) CP/M lost. Nothing more dramatic than that. Going down the other leg would not have made any difference to the domestic market at all.
Actually, no, I take that back: the domestic market would have been better served had CP/M kept its place, as we already had MP/M and sharing the home computer would have been more secure. And there was more software available for CP/M, as it was a mature product compared to PCDOS, so we'd be just a few years further down the road instead of having to have waited for PCDOS to catch up.
"PCs were in businesses for (call it) 20 years before they became prevalent in the home. The wrinkles were ironed out to a great degree by then (honest!). Those preceding live tests were undertaken by [orgs] with the capacity to support/fix/develop/mitigate any glitches. They paved the way for domestic/public utility."
And then what happened? Because all the wrinkles had been ironed out it was decided that new stuff could now continue to be rolled out without further testing
> I'd rather wait until it's fully autonomous thanks.
>> "It will have some tasks that will be done by AI," explained Jorge Milburn, VP of sales for 1X. "Navigation, for sure, pick-and-place, and other stuff will come out of the box."
So it already *can* be fully autonomous - it'll just be rather limited in what it can do. But if that was all your Use Case called for, job done. The same as for many, if not all, systems, robotic or otherwise.
Now, being able to perform absolutely *any* task (within its physical limitations) without external guidance or control (such as being teleoperated with its "learn this" switched on)? That is going beyond even human abilities and into the god-like: personally, I'm glad to have received training, even down to the level of "here, let me place your hands, now I'll move your hips and push your foot over there - good, now eye on the ball and try a swing".
Unless you are happy having your mechanical pal who is fun to be with being limited to the role as an overpriced roomba, coping with the messiest human environment, a home with kinder, teens, dotty old aunts and other agents of entropy, is going to require supervision of the android.
Now, whether you do all that extra supervision yourself (whilst the big birthday for the five year old is still going on) or hand the duties over to a paid professional (or to an external Corporate Master AI - does that make you feel safer?) - hmm, choices, choices. You've paid for the damn thing, gonna let it just stand there and rust?
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> ...species have undergone millions of years of evolution...
Fascinating diversion away from the subject - expensive mechanical devices being used in the home.
Unless, unless - your willingness to wait until humanoid robots are ready to be deployed in the domestic setting means you are going to wait for millions of years for the androids to naturally evolve?
Not sure how the VCs will react to that long a wait for ROI.
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No, the point was that your android will grind to a halt in unusual circumstances, unless it is given guidance - otherwise it has to have greater-than-human abilities, as even we need to have guidance.
And if you need guidance, you need a guider.
And will you, the consumer, do all the guiding in those unusual circumstances, or leave that to a third-party? Who has now been invited (by proxy) into your home.
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> Great, we're converging back on the original point.
> Which is, IMHO, the gear is not mature enough to be deployed in the home at this time
Not going to disagree with that.
> en masse.
Strangely, not even the manufacturers are arguing that; well, not the ones that are explicitly asking for testers, as per TFA.
> It didn't happen with IT.
Takes deep breath, lunges for keyboard...
> You raised the point "I'm glad to have received training, even down to the level of "here, let me place your hands, now I'll move your hips and push your foot over there - good, now eye on the ball and try a swing".
Just as a late aside - that particular example is a good one of where the whole "evolution over millions of years" as a source of learning failed. Badly[0]. The whole reason that the hands, hips and feet had to be repositioned, going entirely against "what felt natural", was that the club *is* utterly unnatural and has to be used in a weird way in order to get the best out of it. And it isn't even a transferrable skill - the multiple other ball hitting devices had[1] their own, incompatible, methods[2]. So the need for training is ever ongoing, never completed - unless/until stasis is reached, as it sadly will be
[0] Oooooh, that looks like it hurt. I did yell. Everyone yelled!
[1] and presumably still do, these days I rarely partake in most of these applications
[2] Keep your hands apart! Keep your hands together! Use your foot! Don't use you foot! Apply chalk to your hands! Apply chalk to the cue! Do the hokey-cokey!
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> well served by imbuing them with the ability to observe and mimic, rather than by following instructions from the ground up
Um, ah, how to put this...
What you are asking for is 99.9% what these machines are doing! They are not being programmed with instructions from the ground up; as TFA indicates, they are being built on top of the Machine Learning models that are AI-du-jour, doing little else *other* than observing and mimicking.:
>> "It's pre-trained on internet-scale data that gives an understanding of the vision and language. And it can then be prompted to perform tasks or fine-tuned to particular application domains with a lot less data or a lot less effort to take a spin off those applications from scratch."
When they talk about guiding them, they are not giving "instructions from the ground up" but giving examples to - observe and mimic. Take the example from earlier of "put your hands here, move your hip to here..." - doing that to a humanoid robot you are, at the literal physical level, only going to present it with "ground up instructions" along the lines of "apply offset K to servo A, put 0.2 Volts extra oomph into motor Q at time T". Not terribly useful, particularly when it tries to repeat the action and reality is not 100% identical to last time: you just sliced it. But let that be inputs into the Marvellous Magical Neural Net, and do it a few more times, then it will abstract something more useful from the physical data: observing and then, hopefully, mimicking.
Of course, you are then left with every single one of the normal caveats about relying on Machine Learning with Neural Nets and whether your game of robo-tennis will end up like Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days".
"[2] Keep your hands apart! Keep your hands together! Use your foot! Don't use you foot! Apply chalk to your hands! Apply chalk to the cue! Do the hokey-cokey!"
Bunt, swing for the fences, knock it for 6, make a soft pass, put it right on net for a favorable second chance rebound, drop it just over the net, aim for the back line.... It's not just teaching the bot to hit something with a stick for maximum distance/momentum, but how to vary that to fit the situation.
"We don't put our toddlers in their own apartment, we wait until they're a bit better equipped."
Our "big brains" have come at a cost and that's being born with a lot of growing to do so we nominally fit through the birth canal. Other animals have a much more accelerated childhood but don't grow crops or build mud huts.
Remote human operator!! Okay, it's not field ready, but as I say with cars: don't live test this shite on the public! FFS, you'd allow a complete stranger in to your home (albeit by proxy). What could go wrong indeed.
Any hired help within the home usually start as a stranger, albeit with references etc. Some folk have live-in staff. Others have housekeepers that visit. Most of us have hired some kind of trades-person to fix broken heating etc.
This could be the turning point. To date, AIs have had little or no control over what happens after they spit something out. Robots which learn basic motor skills like a baby have been fundamentally unintelligent. A generative AI controlling a robot will spit out purposeful movements, and suddenly gets the chance to learn from its mistakes in a far more meaningful way.
However, the next couple of years will likely reveal yet another layer of sophistication to be missing - but what?
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> These things will not be used for "good"
Well, the first thing I thought about after reading Neo will be paired with a human teleoperator capable of directing the robot from afar was space exploration, EVAs and maybe even putting those robots on the Moon. If the AI can be trained to account for the light speed delay.
Maybe after that someone will have to consider whether AIs dream of electric sheep.
Could be said for AI in general.
I also find the trend to humanise machines a bit tragic. Why do we want the tech we use to display human characteristics? Why can't we treat them as what they are, "machines"?
I know there is a tendency for us to form emotional attachments to the non-living things around us (cars are a prime example) but we should resist it. Only the marketing people trying to flog this stuff to us think this is a good idea.
Same question I had -- why humanoid? Bipedal works for us humans, but it's not a very stable platform. Four or six "legs" might work better. And why only two arms, three or four might be better for some tasks? Can't count the number of times I've wished I had at least one more arm. And a tentacle or three perhaps with with eyes on the end might be handy for many jobs around the house.
Would I want one around the house? If I were temporarily or permanently incapacitated, perhaps. Otherwise, no, I don't think so. And in any case, odds are that household robots that aren't more problem than solution are likely several decades and many billions of dollars away from realization.
Some future generation's problem one hopes.
Actually, there's a rationale for six legs. When walking, a critter or device with six legs can plant 3 forming a stable tripod while stepping ahead or back with the other three. Then, once those 3 are planted, move the other three. No need to worry about balance which, one suspects, is a non-trivial problem for a 2 legged or even 4 legged machine.
Go for seven or nine.
Allows you to have the stable tripod and move some others to form the next stable tripod, but with the added ability to plonk them all down and have an even stabler platform, especially if the feet have to be planted close in to the body for whatever reason (e.g to fit into the corridors of your house!)
Even numbers give you more chance of wobbling first this way, then that way, back and forth, gaining momentum until they tip over and out the upstairs window, if the feet are arranged evenly to, well, even out the load. Try an office chair with 4, 5, 6, 7 feet - which ones can you rock back and forth?
Plus, the odd number looks really freaky when your Electric Friend opens the door as the JWs knock.
"Four or six "legs" might work better."
For traversing rough terrain, legs work very well but you don't see that on the Mars rovers. The reason is that it's much more computing intensive and there's a vast amount of work that can be done before there's any need for something with legs. Something with two wheels and one leg could be useful. A Segway with an articulated kick stand.
If I were incapacitated, I'd want a human around. How do you explain to a robot how you want a pillow arranged behind your back to prop you up comfortably. A human would know what's comfortable and could make adjustments more accurately.
Same question I had -- why humanoid? Bipedal works for us humans, but it's not a very stable platform.
The robotics people in the engineering department I where I worked used to say "Because we live in a world designed for human, so if we want robots to take over some tasks from humans it makes sense for them to have similar physical attributes." Of course that doesn't apply to all robots, but it makes sense for some applications.
So, how much is this going to cost? The teleoperator will have to be trained to operate the machine competently, which if it is to be in any way useful, will be quite complex. How many hours a day will the robot operate for? 24 hour operation would require 3 shifts of full time workers. They will require breaks - the robot won't be able to make your lunch if the operator is on their lunch break. Frankly, it would be more useful to send the operator round to your house to do stuff for you rather than trying to control the robot, as they would be able to do far more than moving aubergines small distances. As for having to lug a VR headset around with you everywhere, so you can "look" through it's cameras - who's going to do that?
Finally, it's LLM powered. The chances of it mishearing or misinterpreting an order are decidedly non-zero, and you wouldn't want to come home to find that it's turned your pet cat into a fluffy hat.
"The battery only lasts 4 hours."
Maybe. Battery life is just a guess and will vary a lot depending on what the bot is doing. It might be generous to place battery life at 2 hours and only if there's a computing box somewhere that does much of its thinking.
Allowing for weekends, vacation, illnesses, and emergencies, you'll likely need 4 operators per device to provide 24/7 coverage. If the operators need to be familiar with the specific home environment as in, for example, where stuff is stored, where the trash containers are, where the fire extinguisher is, etc, etc, etc. You may need more.
"Allowing for weekends, vacation, illnesses, and emergencies, you'll likely need 4 operators per device to provide 24/7 coverage."
Or, you could live someplace with an annex and have a person or couple living there that take care of you as required. Once you've reached a point where you need somebody on call 24/7 for even basic needs, you can either afford that or need to live in a facility that can provide that level of attention.
"The teleoperator will have to be trained to operate the machine competently, which if it is to be in any way useful, will be quite complex."
The cost of the liability insurance to cover that teleoperator will be hella expensive. Even if it doesn't do somebody an injury, a fall down the stairs requiring a load people showing up in white vans with lots of hi-vis on ain't cheap.
"I think you ought to know I am feeling very depressed.
Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper
Call that job satisfaction? Cos' I don't."
Sorry, couldn't resist. Is it that time already? I'd better be heading home.
What could possibly go wrong you ask?
Share and enjoy
Share and enjoy
Journey through life with a plastic boy
Or girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
‘Cause it’s eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on your wall
Or ripped off your door
And you get to the point you can’t stand anymore
Bring it us, we won’t give a fig.
We’ll tell you…go stick your head in a pig.
"Why is it a selling point that the damn thing can kick your head off?"
It's just like marketing for cars that can go 0-100kph in 2 seconds and have a top speed well over twice the legal limit. Doing either can lead to a ban, but the video looks great (closed course, professional driver).
And I bet it'd look great in leather too, or with a leather seat ("more flexible and more comfortable!") ... then again, Unitree's G1 doesn't quite sport the mesmerizing lavender-shaded love handles of the Fourier GR-1 and GR-2 models in TFA ... win some, lose some, I guess!
Older/disabled people who need at home at bathing, dressing, eating or so forth. They don't need such help 24x7, so that would be perfect for a "remote control by human" robot. They indicate they need help (or the robot observes that they do) and a human operator operates them via remote control to perform the tasks they need, or calls for an EMT it is a health emergency. As time goes on some simple tasks can be automated to run "in the background" like doing the dishes or laundry.
Currently the only options for this are to pay someone to be physically present in the home for part or all of the day depending on the amount of care required, which is very expensive and only going to get more expensive. Those who can't afford that have no option other than a nursing house, which is basically the same model as the remote control robots (people standing by to help the residents when they need it) but they have to give up the autonomy of being in their own home, and around their own friends and neighbors.
With aging populations in pretty much the entire developing world, this is going to become a bigger and bigger need. The company that makes this happen is going to make a lot more money than the company who replaces fry cooks in fast food restaurants or the workers in an Amazon shipping facility.
"Those who can't afford that have no option other than a nursing house"
There are senior living flats that have varying levels of assistance available. If you can't drive anymore, they have somebody for that. House cleaning, no problem. Where my mom lives her monthly fee covers all appliances, HVAC, hot water and grounds maintenance. She owns her condo and has the basic assistance package. If she winds up needing more help, it's available either on a regular basis or as needed.
At the point where somebody needs help bathing, dressing and getting fed, that's beyond robots until the state of the art is much much further along.
love the idea of robots...
Just think of how much money they could save in wages not having to pay unreliable meatbags to work for them.
Call centers... factories...warehouses, shipping etc etc etc the places you could stick a humaniod robot to replace the meatbag are almost endless thus making even more money for the the likes of musky, bezos et al.
Of course all the out of work meatbags wont be able to buy tat off amazon etc but thats their fault, I'm sure they could spare an organ or 2 for the more deserving in society.....
Wheres the soylent green icon?
"Call centers... "
The best thing with that would be somebody you can understand. I generally get an Indian person that learned English from a Pakistani teacher. The system would be able to adapt to language and dialect as soon as you state your issue. Of course, I'd be calling to work on my language skills in "foreign" languages and tying up the line for ages.
Yeah, Laura wrote about Toyota bots that can learn to flip yummy pancakes in October, but it's hard to say if they could be as autonomous as the gas pedal in a 2004 Camry ... YMMV I think.
"Has any progress in autonomous android robots been made this century?"
Boston Dynamics to some extent, but the issue is that the form isn't optimum for the tasks that make the most sense for them to do. Anchor a one-armed beast to the floor and it can swing a pretty massive spot welder around with excellent precision. Building a bipedal robot to do chores based on how squishy humans do it isn't thinking creatively enough. It's like building a robot to flip burgers. Why not cook both sides of the patty at the same time? Even better is to come up with new forms of "food" that lend themselves to being manufactured by robots. Louis Wu would dial for a "hand meal", not a classic taco. McSwiney's fast food stores are completely automated and have your meal sitting behind an armored door faster than you can make payment.
There were inventors trying to make flying machines that flapped their wings, but mimicking how a bird flies isn't a good way to build an airplane. Ornithopters in Dune are cool, but OMG, the mechanics to do that and the amount of wear would be daunting. Something like a hummingbird has to feed quite often during the day since it can't take on enough "fuel" to support it's metabolism for a whole day. Some birds eat fewer but bigger meals and are vulnerable for some time until they can process some of their food. To cross the Atlantic, an aircraft has to stack enough JET-A in its tanks to make the whole journey so it can't be modeled completely on birds for that application. On a smaller scale, a CM-170 Fouga will take a number of stops to cross the US and doesn't have much room for taking spare clothes along.
It's great to see the state of humanoid robots from this first Silicon Valley Summit. The potential for automated folding of clothing is one of the interesting prospects for the tech imho, along with other chores. I couldn't help to notice however that in Physical Intelligence's π0 video on this topic, starting at 2:51 in the 10x speed unedited portion, the machine hesitates for 12 seconds (2 minutes of wall clock time) when initiating the folding of a lilac-colored garment. This may highlight the issue of the "form factor of those making robots", and a need to diversify it a bit from "dudes" (as stated in TFA), for entirely practical reasons.
"The potential for automated folding of clothing is one of the interesting prospects for the tech imho, along with other chores. "
Before I had my own home and would wash my clothes at a laundry, I had enough socks and skids to last a couple of weeks so when it was time, I'd use the big machines and have a nice big table to use for folding. While my clothes were going round and round, I would either listen to an audiobook or watch a movie on my portable DVD player. This made it a roughly 2 hour task every couple of weeks. I direct your attention to this: https://xkcd.com/1205/ . I'm not sure if there is one for money instead of time, but maybe that's a good exercise for the student. I'm still convinced that it might be better to go out to a laundry to wash my clothes in big batches. The downside now is the place around the corner from me now doesn't have the nice big tables. The cost of a new washer and dryer is off the peg and if they break, it's on you to have them fixed/replaced. Even second hand, good quality kit isn't cheap unless you luck out.
Now I can wash my clothes in my own home and leave things in the dryer until I have a mo, if I'm using the dryer. It's been ages since I've folded a t-shirt since I just turn them right side out and stack them up. Undies fit in a drawer flat. Socks just get oriented in one direction and stacked in another drawer. It helps that I built my own storage with an eye towards not folding my clothes rather than buying stock furniture that's sized for folded clothes.
Instead of a high tech approach to a recurring issue, just make it unnecessary in the first place.
"Robots with more advertising plastered on them than a football (soccer) player and spouting spam adverts based on your movements and interests."
It would also hum advertising jingles all day too. When it was done with a task, it might play the Nokia tune or the startup sound of Windows when it begins a task.
I'm getting flashbacks of "Eat or Be Eaten" by Firesign Theatre.
The Big-tech/Greedy one percenter billionaire bashing is fully understandable.
But one could imagine being willing to pay half the price of a mid sized car for a robot that would be in the house, cleaning, cooking, and does the checking of the beer levels in the fridge.
For at least 40% of the men, 40% is average divorce rate in the US, such a bot is much cheaper than a woman and it mitigates the risk of losing half of everything one worked for.
If they manage to get it half way right, robot industry will overtake car industry within a decade.
"What is "bus tables"????"
Another Left/Right saying that doesn't cross the Atlantic intact.
I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about a "function" band and it took me a while to figure out that it was a musical group that hires out for functions such as weddings. I've spent a good chunk of my life in the music business in one way or another and never heard that term. It's been a while so maybe it's new.
""fold laundry, bus tables, and assemble boxes.""
I'll be impressed when the list includes "replace CEO's". An expensive product aimed at displacing the least paid people seems a bit off-key. The aspirational price touted by Elon of $30,000 will be at least $60k going by Elon past price guessing. It will also need new batteries every year which will have a DRM chip that makes them impossible to clone by a third party on pain of US Federal penalties (translate for your country). There will be a software subscription for <insert need here> or several if they can get away with it. Let's not forget interest on the financing, an extended warranty and no right to repair.
I keep track of my car expenses since I use the car for business and even though it's long since been paid off, the cost every year isn't negligible. As it gets older, there's more service. The difference is that I can get third party parts and service, I have manuals to DIY anything I like and I can even buy used parts from a salvage yard. A Tesla bot is going to be built so it can only be serviced by Tesla. Hmmm, I'm reminded of the movie "Runaway" with Tom Selleck. I'll have to hook up the VCR and watch that one again. Also stars Gene Simmons of Kiss.
Why purchase/rent/lease an expensive inarticulate robot?
The US minimum wage policy makes humans 1.0 perfectly affordable.
These human functionaries are well versed in moving about, handling items and staying out of the way.
They even do their own maintenance, on their own time.
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