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1. You are imagining current technologies at scale, but future technologies are likely to get cheaper and better. Robotics is still a newborn field. Cars have a

1. You are imagining current technologies at scale, but future technologies are likely to get cheaper and better. Robotics is still a newborn field. Cars have also gotten cheaper and better; the Model T started out around 20k in today's dollars for a 20hp car that went 45mph. 2. You're comparing an in-home robot to a contract cleaner. Robots would be cheaper for the customer on a contract basis, just as a live-in maid costs more than a contract cleaning service. I do agree that the Jetsons-esque conception of a humanoid service robot is not how things will likely shake out as domestic robotics matures; IMO the humanoid is a simplistic image that demonstrates a lack of imagination.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
Sure. Forever is a long time. But don't confuse hardware with microprocessors. There aren't many fields, maybe not any, whee you see exponential growth in capability and exponential improvement in price sustained over decades. Cars may be a good model here. But I would argue that current generation robots aren't Model T's. 1960'-era industrial robots were the Model T. Current generation KUKA's are 1950's Cadillacs. Cars of today aren't exponentially better than a 1955 Caddy. The period of rapid growth in robotics (on the hardware side) started a while ago, and it's probably approximately linear. Robonaut is the Lunar Rover. It's awesome, but it isn't at all clear whether any of that tech addresses a commercial market.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  There aren't many fields, maybe not any, whee you see exponential growth in capability and exponential improvement in price sustained over decades. Obviously, the field where exponential growth is/was sustained over a significant period is chips/microprocessors. Miniaturization is well-know as the key to this. Information processing so-far is all that has benefited here. But existence of biological organisms, constructed from cells existing on a tiny scale, shows that miniaturization could be applied to other functionalities. There's no reason to think we're near that now but the situation does invite us to imagine it in theory.
  - robocat 8y ago
    I recall seeing something about agriculture productivity improving at 1% per year over many many decades - maybe that wasn't compounding though. The first search result I found had this: "we track four key global crops—maize, rice, wheat, and soybean—that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates"* Another example is fuel efficiency of cars? Although that has hard limits. Sure, nothing like electronics, but over decades slow compounding of small amounts does matter to us all. * https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066428 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- cbames89 8y ago
  A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter. Now Rethink's dead, but it did start the whole cobots sector. In many respects the cobots from UR are closer to the model T then 60s era robotics. 60s era robotics is more like the tracked steam shovel.
  - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
    >A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter. Well, not exactly. Both Robonaut and Baxter used series-elastic actuators. But Robonaut didn't invent them. This is kind of like saying that a lot of the tech from the lunar rover ended up in Tesla's. Sure, they both used electric motors and batteries. But Tesla's existence is in no way dependent on the lunar rover.
    - cbames89 8y ago
      Sure, my statement was based on rumors that I heard about Rethink taking a look at Robonaut with the covers off and the actuators looking eerily similar. But yes, Series elastic actuators weren't invented at NASA.
- totalZero 8y ago
  > Cars of today aren't exponentially better than a 1955 Caddy. You're talking about cars that cost around $70k in today's dollars with 6.0L V8 carburetted pushrod engines that go 0-60 in 15 seconds, no standard AC, 4 speed transmissions....they looked cool, but you can buy a $30k Infiniti nowadays that is lighter, has just 60% the engine displacement, has fuel injection and variable valve timing/lift, goes 0-60 in 5 seconds, has 4 wheel disc brakes, a 7 speed transmission...the list goes on. Oh, and standard A/C. I'd say that getting 3x the acceleration at half the price, with multiple times more reliability (try driving a 1955 Cadillac 300k miles without rebuilding the engine or heads), traction control, airbags, intelligent cruise control, and all the modern comforts is indicative of rapid growth. And it keeps going! Now we are seeing electric production cars and autonomous street legal vehicles. Exponential? Maybe not. But aside from computers, it's hard to think of technological developments as exponential. They tend to be intermittent, with advances coming in fits and starts.
  - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
    And both will get you to work at exactly the same speed. They even get approximately the same gas mileage. All of the other stuff - better acceleration, air bags, automatic transmissions, A/C - those are refinements on a capability that fundamentally didn't change. They both drive on roads at around 60 mph at approximately 25 mpg.
    - totalZero 8y ago
      A '55 Caddy Eldorado will get 10.5mpg highway according to these folks: http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1955/326075/cadillac_eldorado_hydra-matic.html http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1955/326075/cadillac_e... They're cool cars but today's $70k luxury cars are faster, stronger, more reliable, and functionally better. The old Caddies do look damn good, but I'll take a DOHC versus an OHV any day. My point is that the technology has clearly progressed. To your point, maybe not exponentially, true. But there has definitely been a whole heap of engineering work over 60+ years that has resulted in unequivocally better, more reliable, markedly different vehicles.
Pharmakon 8y ago
1. That car massively outperformed its competition, the horse. It didn’t buck you off or startle, didn’t get sick and die, didn’t shit all over the roads. It was able to go faster, longer, and more comfortably than a horse. That sounds like the opposite of current robots, which tend to underperform their current competition, as the OP was trying to explain. 2. He also compared them to just people doing their housework. He also pointed out that this would be a toy for the wealthy, and we have to consider what they want. A friend of mine is half Filipino and very wealthy, and her relatives all have live-in maids. The maids cook, clean, do laundry, basic maintenance, and can even drive kids to school. They’re not particularly expensive either (compared to a robot) and you’d need quite a few different robots to accomplish all of those tasks. Yes, robotics will improve, but I’m not seeing the horizon past which a single affordable robot can do everything from laundry to dusting for cobwebs. It goes back to the original point of the OP, which is that for people who could afford a robot, these are already solved problems and human labor is relatively cheap compared to half a million dollars of machine.
- wyattpeak 8y ago
  While I certainly tend more on your side of this discussion, I wonder to what degree your first point demonstrates a modern bias rather than an objective comparison. Cars could only travel on roads, you couldn't go wherever you liked as on a horse. Narrow passages you could previously have ridden down were now inaccessible. You need to put fuel in your car, which was probably even harder then than finding an electric car charger at the start of their existence. Providing food and drink for a horse was comparatively trivial. Horses could easily be tied up outside of whatever store or destination you were visiting. What were the social costs of parking a great big machine outside of your local? To say nothing of parking as a town- or city-wide logistical problem.
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    Horses can in theory, go anywhere, but in practice it’s not advisable, at least at more than a trot. If you’re going at a canter, or god help you a gallop and the horse’s foot finds an unseen and unexpected hole, stone, etc... you’re going to be in serious trouble and so is the horse. Generally you only ride horses at high speeds on well worn and known trails, or roads. So yeah, a horse is better off-road than a Model T, but I’d rather walk unless I know the trail. Trotting for long periods is an athletic thing if you’re riding English, and torment on the groin otherwise. All in all, riding a horse for long periods is not easy unless you’re very used to it, and physically fit. Remember that at the time most horses weren’t being ridden, they were pulling carts or carriages, and they’re not exactly off-roaders either. Fuel was definitely an issue, but you could just carry tins of fuel and the car wouldn’t mind carrying them. Carrying food and water for a horse is no joke, and horses also need to rest. You also don’t have to take the saddle and bridle off a car, wash the car and brush it down. Horses really are a lot of work, especially if you’re working them hard. Remember that work also comes at the end of a long day in the saddle, which is hard work for you, especially if you’re beating a trail at a trot. Parking... I have no idea about the logistics of parking at that time, so I can’t say.
dagw 8y ago
Cars have also gotten cheaper and better; Not by much. Sure a modern car is faster, more efficient and more reliable than a Model T, but at the end of the day it still does exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. Also $20k is roughly what you pay for a new entry level Ford today so it's not like prices have come down dramatically.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  A today's car that could be compared to the Model T can be bought for less than $1000 in China. There is no demand for these in the USA but it exists.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago

Sure. Forever is a long time. But don't confuse hardware with microprocessors. There aren't many fields, maybe not any, whee you see exponential growth in capability and exponential improvement in price sustained over decades. Cars may be a good model here. But I would argue that current generation robots aren't Model T's. 1960'-era industrial robots were the Model T. Current generation KUKA's are 1950's Cadillacs. Cars of today aren't exponentially better than a 1955 Caddy. The period of rapid growth in robotics (on the hardware side) started a while ago, and it's probably approximately linear. Robonaut is the Lunar Rover. It's awesome, but it isn't at all clear whether any of that tech addresses a commercial market.

joe_the_user 8y ago
There aren't many fields, maybe not any, whee you see exponential growth in capability and exponential improvement in price sustained over decades. Obviously, the field where exponential growth is/was sustained over a significant period is chips/microprocessors. Miniaturization is well-know as the key to this. Information processing so-far is all that has benefited here. But existence of biological organisms, constructed from cells existing on a tiny scale, shows that miniaturization could be applied to other functionalities. There's no reason to think we're near that now but the situation does invite us to imagine it in theory.
- robocat 8y ago
  I recall seeing something about agriculture productivity improving at 1% per year over many many decades - maybe that wasn't compounding though. The first search result I found had this: "we track four key global crops—maize, rice, wheat, and soybean—that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates"* Another example is fuel efficiency of cars? Although that has hard limits. Sure, nothing like electronics, but over decades slow compounding of small amounts does matter to us all. * https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066428 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
cbames89 8y ago
A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter. Now Rethink's dead, but it did start the whole cobots sector. In many respects the cobots from UR are closer to the model T then 60s era robotics. 60s era robotics is more like the tracked steam shovel.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  >A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter. Well, not exactly. Both Robonaut and Baxter used series-elastic actuators. But Robonaut didn't invent them. This is kind of like saying that a lot of the tech from the lunar rover ended up in Tesla's. Sure, they both used electric motors and batteries. But Tesla's existence is in no way dependent on the lunar rover.
  - cbames89 8y ago
    Sure, my statement was based on rumors that I heard about Rethink taking a look at Robonaut with the covers off and the actuators looking eerily similar. But yes, Series elastic actuators weren't invented at NASA.
totalZero 8y ago
> Cars of today aren't exponentially better than a 1955 Caddy. You're talking about cars that cost around $70k in today's dollars with 6.0L V8 carburetted pushrod engines that go 0-60 in 15 seconds, no standard AC, 4 speed transmissions....they looked cool, but you can buy a $30k Infiniti nowadays that is lighter, has just 60% the engine displacement, has fuel injection and variable valve timing/lift, goes 0-60 in 5 seconds, has 4 wheel disc brakes, a 7 speed transmission...the list goes on. Oh, and standard A/C. I'd say that getting 3x the acceleration at half the price, with multiple times more reliability (try driving a 1955 Cadillac 300k miles without rebuilding the engine or heads), traction control, airbags, intelligent cruise control, and all the modern comforts is indicative of rapid growth. And it keeps going! Now we are seeing electric production cars and autonomous street legal vehicles. Exponential? Maybe not. But aside from computers, it's hard to think of technological developments as exponential. They tend to be intermittent, with advances coming in fits and starts.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  And both will get you to work at exactly the same speed. They even get approximately the same gas mileage. All of the other stuff - better acceleration, air bags, automatic transmissions, A/C - those are refinements on a capability that fundamentally didn't change. They both drive on roads at around 60 mph at approximately 25 mpg.
  - totalZero 8y ago
    A '55 Caddy Eldorado will get 10.5mpg highway according to these folks: http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1955/326075/cadillac_eldorado_hydra-matic.html http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1955/326075/cadillac_e... They're cool cars but today's $70k luxury cars are faster, stronger, more reliable, and functionally better. The old Caddies do look damn good, but I'll take a DOHC versus an OHV any day. My point is that the technology has clearly progressed. To your point, maybe not exponentially, true. But there has definitely been a whole heap of engineering work over 60+ years that has resulted in unequivocally better, more reliable, markedly different vehicles.

Pharmakon 8y ago

1. That car massively outperformed its competition, the horse. It didn’t buck you off or startle, didn’t get sick and die, didn’t shit all over the roads. It was able to go faster, longer, and more comfortably than a horse. That sounds like the opposite of current robots, which tend to underperform their current competition, as the OP was trying to explain. 2. He also compared them to just people doing their housework. He also pointed out that this would be a toy for the wealthy, and we have to consider what they want. A friend of mine is half Filipino and very wealthy, and her relatives all have live-in maids. The maids cook, clean, do laundry, basic maintenance, and can even drive kids to school. They’re not particularly expensive either (compared to a robot) and you’d need quite a few different robots to accomplish all of those tasks. Yes, robotics will improve, but I’m not seeing the horizon past which a single affordable robot can do everything from laundry to dusting for cobwebs. It goes back to the original point of the OP, which is that for people who could afford a robot, these are already solved problems and human labor is relatively cheap compared to half a million dollars of machine.

wyattpeak 8y ago
While I certainly tend more on your side of this discussion, I wonder to what degree your first point demonstrates a modern bias rather than an objective comparison. Cars could only travel on roads, you couldn't go wherever you liked as on a horse. Narrow passages you could previously have ridden down were now inaccessible. You need to put fuel in your car, which was probably even harder then than finding an electric car charger at the start of their existence. Providing food and drink for a horse was comparatively trivial. Horses could easily be tied up outside of whatever store or destination you were visiting. What were the social costs of parking a great big machine outside of your local? To say nothing of parking as a town- or city-wide logistical problem.
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  Horses can in theory, go anywhere, but in practice it’s not advisable, at least at more than a trot. If you’re going at a canter, or god help you a gallop and the horse’s foot finds an unseen and unexpected hole, stone, etc... you’re going to be in serious trouble and so is the horse. Generally you only ride horses at high speeds on well worn and known trails, or roads. So yeah, a horse is better off-road than a Model T, but I’d rather walk unless I know the trail. Trotting for long periods is an athletic thing if you’re riding English, and torment on the groin otherwise. All in all, riding a horse for long periods is not easy unless you’re very used to it, and physically fit. Remember that at the time most horses weren’t being ridden, they were pulling carts or carriages, and they’re not exactly off-roaders either. Fuel was definitely an issue, but you could just carry tins of fuel and the car wouldn’t mind carrying them. Carrying food and water for a horse is no joke, and horses also need to rest. You also don’t have to take the saddle and bridle off a car, wash the car and brush it down. Horses really are a lot of work, especially if you’re working them hard. Remember that work also comes at the end of a long day in the saddle, which is hard work for you, especially if you’re beating a trail at a trot. Parking... I have no idea about the logistics of parking at that time, so I can’t say.

dagw 8y ago

Cars have also gotten cheaper and better; Not by much. Sure a modern car is faster, more efficient and more reliable than a Model T, but at the end of the day it still does exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. Also $20k is roughly what you pay for a new entry level Ford today so it's not like prices have come down dramatically.

TomMarius 8y ago
A today's car that could be compared to the Model T can be bought for less than $1000 in China. There is no demand for these in the USA but it exists.