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I can tell you there is a huge market for something that works well in the 40-50k range. You are vastly, vastly underestimating this market. Hotels have a vari

I can tell you there is a huge market for something that works well in the 40-50k range. You are vastly, vastly underestimating this market. Hotels have a variety of tasks they would love to replace a host of low cost labor with robots with. Someone in a higher income bracket wouldn’t think twice about that cost if it did significant work. On the other hand, the bar is high (cleaning, folding, picking up -- all are still fairly challenging AI problems, to say nothing of the "business" logic that would go into it). Then you've got that quality servos are expensive. Some of that can resolved with volume, but not all of it.

jvanderbot 6y ago
Your statement and previous do not contradict. Multiplying the hours required to do the job in a larger environment like a hotel (4/week becomes 80 person hours / week) would produce a break-even cost higher than what you suggest.
- espadrine 6y ago
  Indeed. To give further figures, in France the minimum wage is around €10, and employees cannot work more than 35h/week, which yields a price point of €72k below which a 4-year-lifetime machine with human performance becomes cost-effective for a hotel. In fact, France would probably be a very attractive country for this technology because of this.
deegles 6y ago
A hotel is a great application for robots since the rooms could be designed for their capabilities.
- gibolt 6y ago
  And they are consistent. Make it work in the few distinct layout configurations and specific hotel appliances, and then it can repeat on all the rooms.
skratlo 6y ago
yadayada, you're all robots, artificial humans, walking calculators. tell me what those low income workers will do when you take away their jobs?
- Osiris 6y ago
  What happened to gas lighters when street lights were replaced with electric lights?
  - iancmceachern 6y ago
    Or midnight soil rakers
  - notJim 6y ago
    Well, what did happen to them? The implication of your statement was that they were obviously totally fine, but is that a given? It's possible they were miserable and then died. Switching careers is not always easy and smooth.
    - orestarod 6y ago
      I believe cost cuts to maximize profit consistently cause an enormous number of people to lose their jobs, yet no one addresses that.
      - zaroth 6y ago
        I mean this is absolutely true in the sense that 99.9% of the hours that humans used to spend doing things across history have already been automated away. The amount of time we used to spend making a single yard of cloth, or creating 10 pounds of flour is almost unfathomable today. The prevailing economic theory was that we would automate away so much work that leisure time would prevail. Instead our massive increases in output have just driven greater consumption. But the difference made by housecleaning robots isn’t the straw the breaks the camels back. It would take a massive breakthrough in AI to eliminate the majority of knowledge workers at the scale that agriculture and textiles have already been transformed.

jvanderbot 6y ago

Your statement and previous do not contradict. Multiplying the hours required to do the job in a larger environment like a hotel (4/week becomes 80 person hours / week) would produce a break-even cost higher than what you suggest.

espadrine 6y ago
Indeed. To give further figures, in France the minimum wage is around €10, and employees cannot work more than 35h/week, which yields a price point of €72k below which a 4-year-lifetime machine with human performance becomes cost-effective for a hotel. In fact, France would probably be a very attractive country for this technology because of this.

deegles 6y ago

A hotel is a great application for robots since the rooms could be designed for their capabilities.

gibolt 6y ago
And they are consistent. Make it work in the few distinct layout configurations and specific hotel appliances, and then it can repeat on all the rooms.

skratlo 6y ago

yadayada, you're all robots, artificial humans, walking calculators. tell me what those low income workers will do when you take away their jobs?

Osiris 6y ago
What happened to gas lighters when street lights were replaced with electric lights?
- iancmceachern 6y ago
  Or midnight soil rakers
- notJim 6y ago
  Well, what did happen to them? The implication of your statement was that they were obviously totally fine, but is that a given? It's possible they were miserable and then died. Switching careers is not always easy and smooth.
  - orestarod 6y ago
    I believe cost cuts to maximize profit consistently cause an enormous number of people to lose their jobs, yet no one addresses that.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      I mean this is absolutely true in the sense that 99.9% of the hours that humans used to spend doing things across history have already been automated away. The amount of time we used to spend making a single yard of cloth, or creating 10 pounds of flour is almost unfathomable today. The prevailing economic theory was that we would automate away so much work that leisure time would prevail. Instead our massive increases in output have just driven greater consumption. But the difference made by housecleaning robots isn’t the straw the breaks the camels back. It would take a massive breakthrough in AI to eliminate the majority of knowledge workers at the scale that agriculture and textiles have already been transformed.