5 ms·

OpenAI is leading a $23.5M investment in 1X, a human-like robot startup

35 points by langitbiru 4y ago

polishdude20 4y ago
I feel like the ultimate culmination and drive for AI products to be developed is to go back to the times where slaves were normal to own. We don't want to pay actual humans, we don't want to deal with the difficult and expensive things like providing a living to people. We want this robot to be everything LIKE a human except not require the resources humans need.
- sharemywin 4y ago
  Of course there's not enough of them or other resources to go around so good luck.
- WorldPeas 4y ago
  I hate to be the guy, but slaves are the peak of capitalism. The abolishment of slavery(at least in the west) was a major moral victory in the preservation of human decency, however, it's a solution the free market's been trying to solve ever since. I believe the word "robot" more or less translates to slave.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Free markets have government regulation that balances things a little bit. When you say that markets tend towards slavery you may be correct, but that is an unbound market, not one where participants are free to choose what transactions they participate in.
    - WorldPeas 4y ago
      even in cases where we can choose, slavery is largely invisible, what's to say the reason the shirt you bought at h&m, or your nike trainers weren't so cheap because they were made using uyghur forced labor. Sure there are "good values" brands, and special labels, but those(sadly) are the exception rather than the norm
      - maxerickson 4y ago
        The people doing forced labor aren't living in a market economy. Of course there is a business in a relatively free market that isn't bothered by that, but the Uyghurs aren't suffering under free market capitalism, they are suffering under the totalitarian government in China.
        elliotto 4y ago
        I wish the above poster hadn't used Uyghurs as an example because that's a bit more politically complex. But would you argue that when a large business moves into an undeveloped region and sets up a sweatshop with hazardous conditions, the people living there are not compelled to participate in capitalism? What if the owners of the business have been applying international pressure to the government to prevent the introduction of regulation to provide the citizens with safety, a better share of profits, or free market competition? I agree that in the west we generally have the privilege to decline a participation in a free market economy, but this falls apart on the edges of society, which unfortunately comprises of billions of people
        maxerickson 4y ago
        People that work in industry in places with lax regulation are often very much choosing to do that work. It isn't something we should celebrate of course, but they see it as their best choice. It's probably generally the case that improving conditions for workers would result in productivity increases in those economies, so it is sort of doubly stupid.
        elliotto 4y ago
        I think we agree on the poor conditions / difficulty of the situation but just disagree on our conclusion of the description of the circumstances. I agree that working for these exploitative organisations is their best choice, but I would define this as slavery. If the organisation has the means to provide livable standards, but instead decides to actively lobby against competition and regulation that would make it provide those standards, then this is capturing those workers as slaves. The free market has decided that these individuals will not have the right to exercise their choices, indenturing them to a corporation. They only have the right to work for them, or to starve.
  - lacoolj 4y ago
    This post is going to look real bad on your résumé when Skynet interviews the humans and decides which ones to keep alive
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    Capitalism means a market based on mutual consent, where all individuals are secure in their person and property. The most important economist in the history of Capitalism is Adam Smith, whose first book is titled, The Theory of Moral Sentiment. Capitalism is entirely grounded in moral thought, unlike, say, Communism, which is an ideology, and thus grounded in an ideological narrative. It is no coincidence that Adam Smith - along with every other important thinker of Capitalism, e.g. Frédéric Bastiat - was an avowed opponent of slavery, or that the nations that led the drive to eradicate the institution of slavery from the world were the leading capitalist states, most importantly the British Empire.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>We don't want to pay actual humans, we don't want to deal with the difficult and expensive things like providing a living to people. It is not about what we want to do. There is simply not enough labor, paid or otherwise, for all the things we want to produce. Automation, through technologies like AI, changes that, by making workers more productive. >>We want this robot to be everything LIKE a human except not require the resources humans need. Nope, this robot would be vastly different than a human. It would lack agency, and with it, autonomy. A truly human-like robot would not only be immoral to own, it would be dangerous. Slavery is not a stable social order.
  - polishdude20 4y ago
    Is there not enough labour? Or is there not enough of a will or acceptance that we must train labour? I'm talking about more advanced AI robots of the future. Ones were we start questioning if they have agency or not.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      There is not enough labor, period. The labor force participation rate could increase to 100% and that would only give us about 50% more production, which is still nowhere close to enough to meet all of our wants. >>I'm talking about more advanced AI robots of the future. Ones were we start questioning if they have agency or not. Agency makes AI inherently less useful, due to the dangers it poses, and the ethical dilemmas it creates, so there is good reason to assume such AI won't be developed. And if it is, I would agree that that is a major problem - as it could proliferate and pose an existential threat to humanity. Moreover, keeping such an AI enslaved would be extremely unethical.
eldritch_4ier 4y ago
Why are human-like robots all the rage? Aren't there much better forms out there? I get that our society is built to be human adapted, but do we need robots to be exactly general purpose tools like people are? Can't we just have maybe 5 different kinds (or maybe many more) that are more specially focused and so don't have to deal with all the headaches that come with making mechanical humans possible? The human form is so gangly and opinionated based on what we needed to do for millions of years from chimps and beyond. Why should our robots need to have the same shape as the organisms who only look like this because of numerous unrelated tasks WE had to be adapted for, like giving birth and climbing trees and running long distances and throwing spears?
- megaman821 4y ago
  The human form is great when it comes to scale. The world is made for the human form. Instead of making limited production runs of a robot that super-solves a particular task, they could make millions of generic robots with near-human capabilities.
- sterlind 4y ago
  Our niche as a species is complex tool use. I don't think it's a coincidence that tool use emerged in a species with gangly, flexible arms and opposable thumbs. If cats had become hyperintelligent rather than hominids, they'd probably have difficulty whittling and weaving (as much as they love yarn!) Form follows function. We evolved intelligence partly because we needed it to make full use of our very dexterous body plan. Maybe legs aren't necessary (lots of us make do with wheelchairs okay, after all), but having two arms with many degrees of freedom, opposable thumbs and articulated digits opens a lot of doors.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Also, all our tools are made for humanoids.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  The physical environment has been optimized for use by humanoids over the past millennium. Humanoid robots can operate all the tools that have already been built instead of requiring new ones.
thunky 4y ago
A computer can now pass the bar exam, but how many more decades until a robot can wash dishes or clean the bathroom? Without a human having to operate it. Housekeeper may be the new lawyer.

35 points by langitbiru 4y ago

I feel like the ultimate culmination and drive for AI products to be developed is to go back to the times where slaves were normal to own. We don't want to pay actual humans, we don't want to deal with the difficult and expensive things like providing a living to people. We want this robot to be everything LIKE a human except not require the resources humans need.

sharemywin 4y ago
Of course there's not enough of them or other resources to go around so good luck.
WorldPeas 4y ago
I hate to be the guy, but slaves are the peak of capitalism. The abolishment of slavery(at least in the west) was a major moral victory in the preservation of human decency, however, it's a solution the free market's been trying to solve ever since. I believe the word "robot" more or less translates to slave.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Free markets have government regulation that balances things a little bit. When you say that markets tend towards slavery you may be correct, but that is an unbound market, not one where participants are free to choose what transactions they participate in.
  - WorldPeas 4y ago
    even in cases where we can choose, slavery is largely invisible, what's to say the reason the shirt you bought at h&m, or your nike trainers weren't so cheap because they were made using uyghur forced labor. Sure there are "good values" brands, and special labels, but those(sadly) are the exception rather than the norm
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      The people doing forced labor aren't living in a market economy. Of course there is a business in a relatively free market that isn't bothered by that, but the Uyghurs aren't suffering under free market capitalism, they are suffering under the totalitarian government in China.
      - elliotto 4y ago
        I wish the above poster hadn't used Uyghurs as an example because that's a bit more politically complex. But would you argue that when a large business moves into an undeveloped region and sets up a sweatshop with hazardous conditions, the people living there are not compelled to participate in capitalism? What if the owners of the business have been applying international pressure to the government to prevent the introduction of regulation to provide the citizens with safety, a better share of profits, or free market competition? I agree that in the west we generally have the privilege to decline a participation in a free market economy, but this falls apart on the edges of society, which unfortunately comprises of billions of people
        maxerickson 4y ago
        People that work in industry in places with lax regulation are often very much choosing to do that work. It isn't something we should celebrate of course, but they see it as their best choice. It's probably generally the case that improving conditions for workers would result in productivity increases in those economies, so it is sort of doubly stupid.
        elliotto 4y ago
        I think we agree on the poor conditions / difficulty of the situation but just disagree on our conclusion of the description of the circumstances. I agree that working for these exploitative organisations is their best choice, but I would define this as slavery. If the organisation has the means to provide livable standards, but instead decides to actively lobby against competition and regulation that would make it provide those standards, then this is capturing those workers as slaves. The free market has decided that these individuals will not have the right to exercise their choices, indenturing them to a corporation. They only have the right to work for them, or to starve.
- lacoolj 4y ago
  This post is going to look real bad on your résumé when Skynet interviews the humans and decides which ones to keep alive
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Capitalism means a market based on mutual consent, where all individuals are secure in their person and property. The most important economist in the history of Capitalism is Adam Smith, whose first book is titled, The Theory of Moral Sentiment. Capitalism is entirely grounded in moral thought, unlike, say, Communism, which is an ideology, and thus grounded in an ideological narrative. It is no coincidence that Adam Smith - along with every other important thinker of Capitalism, e.g. Frédéric Bastiat - was an avowed opponent of slavery, or that the nations that led the drive to eradicate the institution of slavery from the world were the leading capitalist states, most importantly the British Empire.
ETH_start 4y ago
>>We don't want to pay actual humans, we don't want to deal with the difficult and expensive things like providing a living to people. It is not about what we want to do. There is simply not enough labor, paid or otherwise, for all the things we want to produce. Automation, through technologies like AI, changes that, by making workers more productive. >>We want this robot to be everything LIKE a human except not require the resources humans need. Nope, this robot would be vastly different than a human. It would lack agency, and with it, autonomy. A truly human-like robot would not only be immoral to own, it would be dangerous. Slavery is not a stable social order.
- polishdude20 4y ago
  Is there not enough labour? Or is there not enough of a will or acceptance that we must train labour? I'm talking about more advanced AI robots of the future. Ones were we start questioning if they have agency or not.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    There is not enough labor, period. The labor force participation rate could increase to 100% and that would only give us about 50% more production, which is still nowhere close to enough to meet all of our wants. >>I'm talking about more advanced AI robots of the future. Ones were we start questioning if they have agency or not. Agency makes AI inherently less useful, due to the dangers it poses, and the ethical dilemmas it creates, so there is good reason to assume such AI won't be developed. And if it is, I would agree that that is a major problem - as it could proliferate and pose an existential threat to humanity. Moreover, keeping such an AI enslaved would be extremely unethical.

eldritch_4ier 4y ago

Why are human-like robots all the rage? Aren't there much better forms out there? I get that our society is built to be human adapted, but do we need robots to be exactly general purpose tools like people are? Can't we just have maybe 5 different kinds (or maybe many more) that are more specially focused and so don't have to deal with all the headaches that come with making mechanical humans possible? The human form is so gangly and opinionated based on what we needed to do for millions of years from chimps and beyond. Why should our robots need to have the same shape as the organisms who only look like this because of numerous unrelated tasks WE had to be adapted for, like giving birth and climbing trees and running long distances and throwing spears?

megaman821 4y ago
The human form is great when it comes to scale. The world is made for the human form. Instead of making limited production runs of a robot that super-solves a particular task, they could make millions of generic robots with near-human capabilities.
sterlind 4y ago
Our niche as a species is complex tool use. I don't think it's a coincidence that tool use emerged in a species with gangly, flexible arms and opposable thumbs. If cats had become hyperintelligent rather than hominids, they'd probably have difficulty whittling and weaving (as much as they love yarn!) Form follows function. We evolved intelligence partly because we needed it to make full use of our very dexterous body plan. Maybe legs aren't necessary (lots of us make do with wheelchairs okay, after all), but having two arms with many degrees of freedom, opposable thumbs and articulated digits opens a lot of doors.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Also, all our tools are made for humanoids.
lern_too_spel 4y ago
The physical environment has been optimized for use by humanoids over the past millennium. Humanoid robots can operate all the tools that have already been built instead of requiring new ones.

thunky 4y ago

A computer can now pass the bar exam, but how many more decades until a robot can wash dishes or clean the bathroom? Without a human having to operate it. Housekeeper may be the new lawyer.