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Pure speculation here. I can't imagine that the "toothbrush test" is accurate here. There is a large market for robotic arms. And if Google's robot creates any

Pure speculation here. I can't imagine that the "toothbrush test" is accurate here. There is a large market for robotic arms. And if Google's robot creates any advantage over existing robots in manufacturing, Google could go up or down stream in the verticle. My guess is that it hasn't been tested enough and/or hasn't cleared the top level of safety in the market. One incorrect swing of a robotic arm could severely injure someone and that is a huge liability for Google's name.

beambot 10y ago
The comparison in the article was to Universal Robotics, whose arms are low-payload and compliant (ie. not big 'ole position controlled arms of yesteryear). Toothbrush test generally refers to daily use. But I'm not sure I understand that context outside of mass-market consumers. A well-designed arm for light-manufacturing has 90%+ uptime and is (in fact) used daily.
burkemw3 10y ago
From the article, the second half of the toothbrush test is 'used daily by billions of people'. Can you show the robotic arm market that large? With self driving cars, I believe Google is showing willingness to develop things that could severely injure someone. disclosure: I work for Google. I have not been involved in toothbrush test discussions and do not work on robotics nor cars.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  Yeah but what if there's one machine that makes billions of toothbrushes. Does google decide to not make that machine?
- edc117 10y ago
  Potentially, sure - as the article mentions at present, AI isn't able to be involved in moving the arm at all. How long until it isn't? What if you could have an arm and sensors installed in your kitchen that would cook dinner for you, or wash dishes? Sounds complicated...but more than a self driving car? There's a lot of people that would (and do) pay a lot of money to have someone else prepare and clean up their meals.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    Moley is trying to make a robot chef and release it in 2018 [0]. Personally, I think it will bomb because the AI isn't there yet. When a grip on a tool or bowl fails the whole thing fails. Robotic arms aren't "set and forget" when dealing with even the simplest failure modes. That said -- successful robots like this are why the potential market for robot arms is huge. The current market for robot arms is very small. The gap between the two is an AI problem. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDprrrEdomM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDprrrEdomM
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- modeless 10y ago
  Sure. In the future (~20 years) I expect that a robot around the price of a luxury car will be able to perform tasks such as laundry, cooking, and cleaning (not just vacuuming but nearly all types of cleaning). These robots will be used in workplaces and homes, and the eventual market size is definitely in the billions. These robots will need arms, of course. These arms will be sold by a company that releases a small-volume product early and iterates, not by a company that waits until they have a billion-person product before releasing anything.
  - bduerst 10y ago
    To be fair - this 20-year-prediction-to-home-robots has been happening since the Jetsons aired in the 1960's. If anything, the Roomba proved that there is small niche-market demand for robotic automation in the home, and economies of scale for goods follows the demand. Consumers simply aren't going to spend the equivalent of buying a new car for something that can be done by a minimum-wage maid service.
    - elsewhen 10y ago
      "Consumers simply aren't going to spend the equivalent of buying a new car for something that can be done by a minimum-wage maid service" a leased new car costs the consumer a few hundred dollars a month, which is the equivalent of say 30 or 40 hours of minimum wage labor. a robot that cleans floors, prepares food, washes clothes, folds laundry, cleans windows, serves meals, puts dishes away, feeds the dog, waters plants etc. could work 24/7 (with swappable batteries). i'm not convinced that consumers wouldn't pay that if the technology could get there. of course we are far from a robot that can do all of that, but in my opinion, the prize to the company that can deliver this is massive.
      - bduerst 10y ago
        Consumers don't lease appliances, and they're certainly not going to pay $500/mo + maintenance for something that they and/or a maid can do. It's an inferior service, the same reason the Roomba didn't put Dyson or Hoover out of business.
- Symmetry 10y ago
  Robots will be stocking shelves before they're in homes. And they'll be picking off of warehouse shelves before they're stocking. They're already moving stuff around in warehouses, like what Kiva is doing.
Animats 10y ago
"There is a large market for robotic arms." There is a small market for robotic arms. Total sales in 2014 were 229,000 units worldwide. Worse, from a Google perspective, robot arms require a substantial support infrastructure, with on-site installation, maintenance, and support. Google is terrible at support, let alone the kind of support where the customer wants a service tech on site right now because their production line is down. That's the norm in the industrial robot business. Rod Brooks' "Baxter" robot was supposed to change this. Introduced in 2012 with a lower price than competitors, enough AI to make it easier to "teach", and better safety around humans, it was going to be the industrial robot that sold like a mass market product. In 2015, only 400 "Baxter" units were sold.[1] The company's new "Sawyer" robot is said to be selling better, but hard sales numbers don't seem to be available. This just isn't a big industry. The first industrial robot, the Unimate, was sold in 1961, and there have been wildly optimistic projections for over half a century now. But the actual numbers aren't impressive. Google acquired all those robotics companies and accomplished nothing with them. Even the ones that were shipping a product, such as Bot and Dolly, stopped shipping. [1] https://robotenomics.com/2016/01/11/the-facts-about-co-bot-robot-sales/ https://robotenomics.com/2016/01/11/the-facts-about-co-bot-r...
- mrfusion 10y ago
  What went wrong with Baxter? I remember it being so revolutionary when it came out.
  - Animats 10y ago
    Baxter is supposed to be safe around humans, but to achieve this, they had to make it weak and slow. So it underperforms competing industrial robots. Compare: Baxter and Sawyer: [1] Festo: [2]. It's also not precise enough for precision assembly. Baxter videos show it stacking medium sized parts, not assembling cell phones. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPth0Q4apLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPth0Q4apLU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_t_1-tl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_t_1-tl40
    - Symmetry 10y ago

beambot 10y ago

The comparison in the article was to Universal Robotics, whose arms are low-payload and compliant (ie. not big 'ole position controlled arms of yesteryear). Toothbrush test generally refers to daily use. But I'm not sure I understand that context outside of mass-market consumers. A well-designed arm for light-manufacturing has 90%+ uptime and is (in fact) used daily.

burkemw3 10y ago

From the article, the second half of the toothbrush test is 'used daily by billions of people'. Can you show the robotic arm market that large? With self driving cars, I believe Google is showing willingness to develop things that could severely injure someone. disclosure: I work for Google. I have not been involved in toothbrush test discussions and do not work on robotics nor cars.

awesomerobot 10y ago
Yeah but what if there's one machine that makes billions of toothbrushes. Does google decide to not make that machine?
edc117 10y ago
Potentially, sure - as the article mentions at present, AI isn't able to be involved in moving the arm at all. How long until it isn't? What if you could have an arm and sensors installed in your kitchen that would cook dinner for you, or wash dishes? Sounds complicated...but more than a self driving car? There's a lot of people that would (and do) pay a lot of money to have someone else prepare and clean up their meals.
- daveguy 10y ago
  Moley is trying to make a robot chef and release it in 2018 [0]. Personally, I think it will bomb because the AI isn't there yet. When a grip on a tool or bowl fails the whole thing fails. Robotic arms aren't "set and forget" when dealing with even the simplest failure modes. That said -- successful robots like this are why the potential market for robot arms is huge. The current market for robot arms is very small. The gap between the two is an AI problem. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDprrrEdomM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDprrrEdomM
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
modeless 10y ago
Sure. In the future (~20 years) I expect that a robot around the price of a luxury car will be able to perform tasks such as laundry, cooking, and cleaning (not just vacuuming but nearly all types of cleaning). These robots will be used in workplaces and homes, and the eventual market size is definitely in the billions. These robots will need arms, of course. These arms will be sold by a company that releases a small-volume product early and iterates, not by a company that waits until they have a billion-person product before releasing anything.
- bduerst 10y ago
  To be fair - this 20-year-prediction-to-home-robots has been happening since the Jetsons aired in the 1960's. If anything, the Roomba proved that there is small niche-market demand for robotic automation in the home, and economies of scale for goods follows the demand. Consumers simply aren't going to spend the equivalent of buying a new car for something that can be done by a minimum-wage maid service.
  - elsewhen 10y ago
    "Consumers simply aren't going to spend the equivalent of buying a new car for something that can be done by a minimum-wage maid service" a leased new car costs the consumer a few hundred dollars a month, which is the equivalent of say 30 or 40 hours of minimum wage labor. a robot that cleans floors, prepares food, washes clothes, folds laundry, cleans windows, serves meals, puts dishes away, feeds the dog, waters plants etc. could work 24/7 (with swappable batteries). i'm not convinced that consumers wouldn't pay that if the technology could get there. of course we are far from a robot that can do all of that, but in my opinion, the prize to the company that can deliver this is massive.
    - bduerst 10y ago
      Consumers don't lease appliances, and they're certainly not going to pay $500/mo + maintenance for something that they and/or a maid can do. It's an inferior service, the same reason the Roomba didn't put Dyson or Hoover out of business.
Symmetry 10y ago
Robots will be stocking shelves before they're in homes. And they'll be picking off of warehouse shelves before they're stocking. They're already moving stuff around in warehouses, like what Kiva is doing.

Animats 10y ago

"There is a large market for robotic arms." There is a small market for robotic arms. Total sales in 2014 were 229,000 units worldwide. Worse, from a Google perspective, robot arms require a substantial support infrastructure, with on-site installation, maintenance, and support. Google is terrible at support, let alone the kind of support where the customer wants a service tech on site right now because their production line is down. That's the norm in the industrial robot business. Rod Brooks' "Baxter" robot was supposed to change this. Introduced in 2012 with a lower price than competitors, enough AI to make it easier to "teach", and better safety around humans, it was going to be the industrial robot that sold like a mass market product. In 2015, only 400 "Baxter" units were sold.[1] The company's new "Sawyer" robot is said to be selling better, but hard sales numbers don't seem to be available. This just isn't a big industry. The first industrial robot, the Unimate, was sold in 1961, and there have been wildly optimistic projections for over half a century now. But the actual numbers aren't impressive. Google acquired all those robotics companies and accomplished nothing with them. Even the ones that were shipping a product, such as Bot and Dolly, stopped shipping. [1] https://robotenomics.com/2016/01/11/the-facts-about-co-bot-robot-sales/ https://robotenomics.com/2016/01/11/the-facts-about-co-bot-r...

mrfusion 10y ago
What went wrong with Baxter? I remember it being so revolutionary when it came out.
- Animats 10y ago
  Baxter is supposed to be safe around humans, but to achieve this, they had to make it weak and slow. So it underperforms competing industrial robots. Compare: Baxter and Sawyer: [1] Festo: [2]. It's also not precise enough for precision assembly. Baxter videos show it stacking medium sized parts, not assembling cell phones. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPth0Q4apLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPth0Q4apLU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_t_1-tl40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_t_1-tl40
  - Symmetry 10y ago