3 ms·

If you've ever tried to squeeze yourself under the kitchen sink, work one hand behind the 5" gap around the garbage disposal, work the other hand around the tin

If you've ever tried to squeeze yourself under the kitchen sink, work one hand behind the 5" gap around the garbage disposal, work the other hand around the tiny gap between the garbage disposal and the main sink, try to coordinate the 2 hands to tighten the faucet, then I'm sure you'll agree with OP. We don't even have a commercial robot to unload and store dishes from the dishwasher nor unload and store clothes from dryer. What makes you think robotics will be solved in a century, let alone ten years?

ben_w 3y ago
> If you've ever tried to squeeze yourself under the kitchen sink, work one hand behind the 5" gap around the garbage disposal, work the other hand around the tiny gap between the garbage disposal and the main sink, try to coordinate the 2 hands to tighten the faucet, then I'm sure you'll agree with OP. What's hard for me doesn't tell you anything about what's hard for a differently shaped body, and robots don't need to look like us — two left hands is easy, extra joints is easy. Most robots don't look like us, one way or another. Famously Spot, but there are as many sizes and shapes as there is commercial demand for them. Humanoid ones are popular right now, but I grew up hearing about how that was "actually a bad shape for a robot" (was the past just sour grapes, or are the current humanoid ones CEOs watching too much SciFi?) > We don't even have a commercial robot to unload and store dishes from the dishwasher nor unload and store clothes from dryer. Both dishwashers and clothes driers are special purpose robots designed to solve problems without having to first solve human-level sensation or dexterity. > What makes you think robotics will be solved in a century, let alone ten years? Have you seen demo videos from the last 12 months? The videos are sped up, indicating they're compute-bound; the accuracy of joint positioning, the strength, etc. is already superhuman whenever we want it to be. Quality of vision, that's the hard part. Cars can only lose their steering wheels[0] when that's solved in terms of quality, not before; a Moore-like exponential on reducing electrical power requirements for a fixed level of compute, would take 10 years to reduce power draw by a factor of 100, which seems about right given cars can afford to (regardless of what current hardware actually uses) burn a few kilowatts on an autopilot. [0] Until the Waymo etc. is available everywhere rather than geofenced to a few specific locations, this is still not sufficiently solved despite, yes, having no steering wheel: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2023/01/05/waymos-new-robotaxi-without-steering-wheel/ https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2023/01/05/waymos-new...

ben_w 3y ago

> If you've ever tried to squeeze yourself under the kitchen sink, work one hand behind the 5" gap around the garbage disposal, work the other hand around the tiny gap between the garbage disposal and the main sink, try to coordinate the 2 hands to tighten the faucet, then I'm sure you'll agree with OP. What's hard for me doesn't tell you anything about what's hard for a differently shaped body, and robots don't need to look like us — two left hands is easy, extra joints is easy. Most robots don't look like us, one way or another. Famously Spot, but there are as many sizes and shapes as there is commercial demand for them. Humanoid ones are popular right now, but I grew up hearing about how that was "actually a bad shape for a robot" (was the past just sour grapes, or are the current humanoid ones CEOs watching too much SciFi?) > We don't even have a commercial robot to unload and store dishes from the dishwasher nor unload and store clothes from dryer. Both dishwashers and clothes driers are special purpose robots designed to solve problems without having to first solve human-level sensation or dexterity. > What makes you think robotics will be solved in a century, let alone ten years? Have you seen demo videos from the last 12 months? The videos are sped up, indicating they're compute-bound; the accuracy of joint positioning, the strength, etc. is already superhuman whenever we want it to be. Quality of vision, that's the hard part. Cars can only lose their steering wheels[0] when that's solved in terms of quality, not before; a Moore-like exponential on reducing electrical power requirements for a fixed level of compute, would take 10 years to reduce power draw by a factor of 100, which seems about right given cars can afford to (regardless of what current hardware actually uses) burn a few kilowatts on an autopilot. [0] Until the Waymo etc. is available everywhere rather than geofenced to a few specific locations, this is still not sufficiently solved despite, yes, having no steering wheel: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2023/01/05/waymos-new-robotaxi-without-steering-wheel/ https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2023/01/05/waymos-new...