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IMHO most people fantasize about robots solving general use problems, as in the case of a humanoid, but in reality they will probably be ridiculously impractica

IMHO most people fantasize about robots solving general use problems, as in the case of a humanoid, but in reality they will probably be ridiculously impractical compared to human labor. The problem is much like automation vs a manual process. Yes we can certainly automate this or that workflow just give us the specification of what to do, oh did you remember every quirk and nuance. Now to make this work without constant human interaction we actually need to know a lot about the problem, the problem space, the specific requirements of each task because the automation process does not have anything close to common sense reasoning capability. Without that every possible nuance must be explicitly detailed and our brains are not good at that. This is what much of software development is, even when given detailed specs, you find out that there are plenty of requirements yet to be discovered. This is a huge problem in AI. It's a complete non-starter of a design problem when making a robot. You really need to know what the hell the thing is going to be used for before you draw 1 line in the cad program. The fantasy of the humanoid model is to say look, humans can do a lot there's your design specs go make something that can do that. Good luck, first of all how much energy can you pack in a humanoid robot after affording for actuators and the support structures? How long will the thing last on a single charge? How much and what kind of work can it really do? How do you tell it to do some task? What can it really accomplish? Ok now look at the cost of an employee for one of the mundane jobs, their capabilities are greater, they have true intelligence so you don't need to specify arcane level of detail for requirements because they have common sense. Lets not even limit ourselves to humans, any general purpose robot will never be able to compete with a task specific robot and when you think about it, the mundane use cases are often the kind where you do the same thing over and over, aka a limited set of specialized tasks. Well design a robot to do just that and it will be cheaper and more effective than a humanoid robot. Carpet cleaning is one example, a roomba works just fine, no need for a cybernetic humanoid to accomplish that mundane task and the cost differential is huge.

liuliu 5y ago
My research notes does try to pose some of your concerns as challenges (rather than pose them as impossibility): > Yes we can certainly automate this or ... See "4. How does a humanoid robot operate?": https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#4-how-does-a-humanoid-robot-operate https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#4-... > Lets not even limit ourselves to humans, any general purpose robot will never be able to compete with a task specific robot ... See last two paragraphs of "Why": https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#why https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#wh... Otherwise: > Good luck, first of all how much energy can you pack in a humanoid robot after affording for actuators and the support structures? How long will the thing last on a single charge? Probably somewhere around 30 min to 1 hour on a single charge. If we can fast charge, this probably would be sufficient for home-use or in some commercial settings.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
In general I have been a huge proponent of the task-specific robot. Humanoids are hellishly complex. Or at least, they have been... I have been really impressed with Agility Robotics and their Digit robot (and Cassie before that). They make humanoids seem like a realistic thing. https://www.youtube.com/c/AgilityRobotics/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/AgilityRobotics/videos The problem with purpose-built robots is that every problem needs a team of engineers working for years to solve a single problem. Super hard! That approach is obviously going to be the best approach for a lot of problems. But recently I designed and built a robot arm. No real goal in mind I just wanted to experiment with a new planetary gear concept I had come up with so I designed a four axis robot arm with brushless motors. (no I am not looking for employment please do not ask thx) https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1455320442642714625 https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1455320442642714625 Once I realized I was actually going to have a robot arm of my own, I had to start thinking of what I could use it for. And you know what I realized? One robot arm can do a lot of different tasks! Maybe instead of designing a bunch of purpose built machines I should continue work on my arm and use a bunch of arms for stuff. I think over the next ten years, we will see a lot of those AI problems get solved. Probably not every AI problem, but previously difficult things will become solved problems as we saw in the last decade. I do really like Tesla's Dojo system for solving real world navigation and I think it would work well for a humanoid. We still need to solve the motivation problem, but I think we will make a lot of progress there. Companies already find lots of uses for $50k-200k robot arms, so if Tesla could produce a Digit-like Humanoid for $80k, we may find applications for them. Who thought robot dogs would have a market? In the end, you will have some classes of problems best solved by purpose built machines, and a lot of problems solved by general purpose machines like humanoids or dogs. I just think the tech is finally coming together that we've gone from "humanoids are overly complicated and can't do anything useful" to "humanoids are affordable and somewhat useful". Or rather, I think they can be somewhat useful in maybe 5 years time, in which case investing now and building the system early could potentially be smart (but still very risky) positioning for Tesla. We do know Musk likes audacious risky bets.

liuliu 5y ago

My research notes does try to pose some of your concerns as challenges (rather than pose them as impossibility): > Yes we can certainly automate this or ... See "4. How does a humanoid robot operate?": https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#4-how-does-a-humanoid-robot-operate https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#4-... > Lets not even limit ourselves to humans, any general purpose robot will never be able to compete with a task specific robot ... See last two paragraphs of "Why": https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#why https://liuliu.me/eyes/research-notes-on-humanoid-robots/#wh... Otherwise: > Good luck, first of all how much energy can you pack in a humanoid robot after affording for actuators and the support structures? How long will the thing last on a single charge? Probably somewhere around 30 min to 1 hour on a single charge. If we can fast charge, this probably would be sufficient for home-use or in some commercial settings.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

In general I have been a huge proponent of the task-specific robot. Humanoids are hellishly complex. Or at least, they have been... I have been really impressed with Agility Robotics and their Digit robot (and Cassie before that). They make humanoids seem like a realistic thing. https://www.youtube.com/c/AgilityRobotics/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/AgilityRobotics/videos The problem with purpose-built robots is that every problem needs a team of engineers working for years to solve a single problem. Super hard! That approach is obviously going to be the best approach for a lot of problems. But recently I designed and built a robot arm. No real goal in mind I just wanted to experiment with a new planetary gear concept I had come up with so I designed a four axis robot arm with brushless motors. (no I am not looking for employment please do not ask thx) https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1455320442642714625 https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1455320442642714625 Once I realized I was actually going to have a robot arm of my own, I had to start thinking of what I could use it for. And you know what I realized? One robot arm can do a lot of different tasks! Maybe instead of designing a bunch of purpose built machines I should continue work on my arm and use a bunch of arms for stuff. I think over the next ten years, we will see a lot of those AI problems get solved. Probably not every AI problem, but previously difficult things will become solved problems as we saw in the last decade. I do really like Tesla's Dojo system for solving real world navigation and I think it would work well for a humanoid. We still need to solve the motivation problem, but I think we will make a lot of progress there. Companies already find lots of uses for $50k-200k robot arms, so if Tesla could produce a Digit-like Humanoid for $80k, we may find applications for them. Who thought robot dogs would have a market? In the end, you will have some classes of problems best solved by purpose built machines, and a lot of problems solved by general purpose machines like humanoids or dogs. I just think the tech is finally coming together that we've gone from "humanoids are overly complicated and can't do anything useful" to "humanoids are affordable and somewhat useful". Or rather, I think they can be somewhat useful in maybe 5 years time, in which case investing now and building the system early could potentially be smart (but still very risky) positioning for Tesla. We do know Musk likes audacious risky bets.