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If a robot were to do the entire household, I think people would be willing to pay north of 2k per year for that. If you spend an hour a day doing laundry, clea

If a robot were to do the entire household, I think people would be willing to pay north of 2k per year for that. If you spend an hour a day doing laundry, cleaning dishes, emptying the washing machine, that's 365*8.5= 3k I don't think humanoid is a viable form factor. A mobile robotic arm is easier to build and has similar benefits. It has the benefit, that we already build plenty of them and they have proven their usability in industrial settings. Now we"just" need the brains to run one of these in the kitchen

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
Robots in industrial settings don't need anything like the capability (sensing, dexterity, etc.) that a useful household robot would need. And they need to be far more safe than an industrial robot, without the safety caging that industry relies on. The problem is at least an order of magnitude more difficult. It's harder than autonomous driving, both algorithmically and in terms of hardware.
- nielsole 8y ago
  There are already robotic arms without cages e.g. https://www.universal-robots.com/products/ur5-robot/ https://www.universal-robots.com/products/ur5-robot/ Yes, we currently don't have the technology, but nailing one or two use cases in a couple of years(e.g. being able to pick up and collect clothes onto a pile, maybe even emptying the dishwasher) may be enough for initial deployment. Also since you can make the hardware quite safe, you can have faster Software Innovation than in cars
  - ghaff 8y ago
    >being able to pick up and collect clothes onto a pile This is pretty much a textbook example of something that would be both very difficult for a robot and an almost trivial task for a human. A washer/dryer already does about 95% of the work of doing laundry. (Less, admittedly, if you iron but then that's another task. And one I assume there is machinery but just not worthwhile at home scale.) And, of course, there's always the option of taking your laundry into somewhere to have it done for you. There have been efforts at services that pickup to do this sort of thing but most people aren't willing to pay for it.
  - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
    >Also since you can make the hardware quite safe, you can have faster Software Innovation than in cars Probably not so. If these problems get solved, they will get solved by an intricate dance between hardware, sensing, and software. This is not like a car, where we mostly know what the hardware needs to look like and it's just a matter of nailing the algorithms. For humanoid robot we may need - will probably need - pervasive tactile sensing, and possibly smell, and certainly visible light sensing but maybe also infrared, or lidar, or sonar, or who knows? We're still arguing about inner position loop versus inner torque loop versus series-elastic-based compliance control schemes, for heaven's sake. And we don't know what the right kinematics for the hands will be, and on and on. One thing I am absolutely certain of is that no currently existing humanoid robot could be placed in a home and successfully clean it, no matter what software it has.
ALittleLight 8y ago
You may not have to pay for it all yourself. Imagine your neighbors or friends get together to buy or rent the robot. The robot is privileged by your home security system to enter if it is by itself or with individuals that have equal or higher privileges. Your home computer knows your schedule and when you're away. When it's convenient or needed your home schedules a visit from the cleaning robot, possibly transported by autonomous vehicles, and it arrives and performs appropriate cleaning. If the robot is humanoid or not is beside the point. It may be an expensive robot, but if it lasts years, and can service many households, it becomes affordable. A 500,000 dollar robot, if it lasts a decade, and can service ten or twenty households is between 2,500 and 5,000 a year, 200-400 dollars a month plus maintenance and travel? It's not inconceivable. If it has 100 operational hours a week it could spend 5-10 hours at your house cleaning a week. I'm not familiar enough with the price of house cleaning services to know if this a good deal or not. But if that first cost falls from 500,000 to 100,000 or 50,000 then surely this starts to be a great deal.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  Then you're still competing with Merry Maids. Which pays minimum wage. Sure, there's a point at which the robot works fast enough for long enough with a sufficiently high MTBF that it becomes cheaper than a minimum wage worker. But it's still a very hard price point to hit.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    I would more for a robot cleaning service than a human one. The rich stopped using servants in America more because of social reasons that cost ones, although that idea seems to be fading away as Silicon Valley tries to get people to pay to have everything done for them. Call it "single serving servants", for everything.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - neumann 8y ago

GlenTheMachine 8y ago

Robots in industrial settings don't need anything like the capability (sensing, dexterity, etc.) that a useful household robot would need. And they need to be far more safe than an industrial robot, without the safety caging that industry relies on. The problem is at least an order of magnitude more difficult. It's harder than autonomous driving, both algorithmically and in terms of hardware.

nielsole 8y ago
There are already robotic arms without cages e.g. https://www.universal-robots.com/products/ur5-robot/ https://www.universal-robots.com/products/ur5-robot/ Yes, we currently don't have the technology, but nailing one or two use cases in a couple of years(e.g. being able to pick up and collect clothes onto a pile, maybe even emptying the dishwasher) may be enough for initial deployment. Also since you can make the hardware quite safe, you can have faster Software Innovation than in cars
- ghaff 8y ago
  >being able to pick up and collect clothes onto a pile This is pretty much a textbook example of something that would be both very difficult for a robot and an almost trivial task for a human. A washer/dryer already does about 95% of the work of doing laundry. (Less, admittedly, if you iron but then that's another task. And one I assume there is machinery but just not worthwhile at home scale.) And, of course, there's always the option of taking your laundry into somewhere to have it done for you. There have been efforts at services that pickup to do this sort of thing but most people aren't willing to pay for it.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  >Also since you can make the hardware quite safe, you can have faster Software Innovation than in cars Probably not so. If these problems get solved, they will get solved by an intricate dance between hardware, sensing, and software. This is not like a car, where we mostly know what the hardware needs to look like and it's just a matter of nailing the algorithms. For humanoid robot we may need - will probably need - pervasive tactile sensing, and possibly smell, and certainly visible light sensing but maybe also infrared, or lidar, or sonar, or who knows? We're still arguing about inner position loop versus inner torque loop versus series-elastic-based compliance control schemes, for heaven's sake. And we don't know what the right kinematics for the hands will be, and on and on. One thing I am absolutely certain of is that no currently existing humanoid robot could be placed in a home and successfully clean it, no matter what software it has.

ALittleLight 8y ago

You may not have to pay for it all yourself. Imagine your neighbors or friends get together to buy or rent the robot. The robot is privileged by your home security system to enter if it is by itself or with individuals that have equal or higher privileges. Your home computer knows your schedule and when you're away. When it's convenient or needed your home schedules a visit from the cleaning robot, possibly transported by autonomous vehicles, and it arrives and performs appropriate cleaning. If the robot is humanoid or not is beside the point. It may be an expensive robot, but if it lasts years, and can service many households, it becomes affordable. A 500,000 dollar robot, if it lasts a decade, and can service ten or twenty households is between 2,500 and 5,000 a year, 200-400 dollars a month plus maintenance and travel? It's not inconceivable. If it has 100 operational hours a week it could spend 5-10 hours at your house cleaning a week. I'm not familiar enough with the price of house cleaning services to know if this a good deal or not. But if that first cost falls from 500,000 to 100,000 or 50,000 then surely this starts to be a great deal.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
Then you're still competing with Merry Maids. Which pays minimum wage. Sure, there's a point at which the robot works fast enough for long enough with a sufficiently high MTBF that it becomes cheaper than a minimum wage worker. But it's still a very hard price point to hit.
- njarboe 8y ago
  I would more for a robot cleaning service than a human one. The rich stopped using servants in America more because of social reasons that cost ones, although that idea seems to be fading away as Silicon Valley tries to get people to pay to have everything done for them. Call it "single serving servants", for everything.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- neumann 8y ago