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Robotics is significantly harder and more expensive than algorithms, both in development and deployment.
by ronsor 3y ago
Robotics is significantly harder and more expensive than algorithms, both in development and deployment.
- SoftTalker 3y agoAnd you still need people to maintain and repair the robots, at least for now. Software doesn't need maintenance in that sense; it doesn't have moving parts that need lubrication, adjustments, and that eventually wear out.
- slashdev 3y agoAs anyone who’s ever maintained software can tell you, software does suffer bitrot over time. Dependencies need updating and replacing. Deprecated functions have to be replaced. Systems and software change over time, breaking your software. It’s not as high maintenance as most physical things with moving parts though.
- LeonB 3y agoAgreed. It’s really astounding how much maintenance “modern” software needs. A lot of the maintenance is to do with the dependencies, and/or with the discovery of vulnerabilities, but also with obsolescence in the tool chain used for building the software, or the APIs that the software depends upon, or simply the continual replacement of tokens/certificate and so on that have built in expiry. It’s not glamorous work, but it is absolutely relentless, endless, tedious stuff.
- Ekaros 3y agoAlso it doesn't murder itself and what is around it in case of bad inputs or failure. The failure modes of software are pretty tame, specially in cloud. With proper sized robots killing someone or damaging itself and other things is entirely real possibility.
- brewdad 3y agoA few self driving cars would beg to differ. Software absolutely can kill in the meatspace world.
- Ekaros 3y agoThose are robots... By any reasonable definition.
- krisoft 3y agoSelf driving cars are robots. There is a more academical definition: a robot is a computer with sensors and actuators attached. Self driving cars certanly fit that criteria. There is a more practical definition too: a robot is a machine with a computer which does not work yet. Because once it starts working people stop calling it a robot. For example a modern washing machine certainly fits the academic definition of being a robot, but most people wouldn’t call it one.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoOn embedded system software can murder itself relatively easily. * Wrong EEPROM emulation routine is using data flash (100k of writes) as EEPROM (10M of writes). * If you make a mistake during bootloader setup, bootloader can delete whole flash memory, including bootloader, or write over the bootloader. * You can unpack program into RAM (i.e. Compressed file on flash -> Unpack into RAM), so if you will screw up pointers, you can overwrite your own program on the fly without even noticing it.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoIn hindsight it seems that way, but until recently, getting a robot to generate a movie or act as a creative therapist seemed impossible, not a matter of engineering resources.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoYeap. The VA commissioned Dean Kamen to build the Luke Arm, a practical prosthetic arm for disabled vets. It took years, million$, determination, and extensive testing to achieve. Not impossible, but it's not something that can be thrown together in a weekend hackathon. https://mobiusbionics.com/luke-arm/ https://mobiusbionics.com/luke-arm/