3 ms·

Seems pessimistic. I already have an oven that can burn the house down, a dishwasher that might flood out my kitchen, a refrigerator that can fail and ruin a fo

Seems pessimistic. I already have an oven that can burn the house down, a dishwasher that might flood out my kitchen, a refrigerator that can fail and ruin a fortune in perishable foods. Hell, my lawn mower might remove a foot! Why is a robot that might step on the cat, somehow inconceivably more hazardous?

FrojoS 2y ago
Those examples are unlikely to kill you. A humanoid robot can. Let's say it quickly moves its arm on a collision course with your head. The arm can weigh around 10 kg. The impact can easily kill an adult. I'm a bit less pessimistic than OP. It's possible to run safety checks (e.g. collision avoidance) on a lower, deterministic level, and use generative, black box, 'AI' for higher-level planning.
- postalrat 2y ago
  Like animals the robot arm should also be compliment and not always be moving with full force because it is going to hit things even with active collision avoidance.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    A lead filled baseball bat flying through space is always moving at full force unless some external force is applied.
- rapsey 2y ago
  Why would it move quickly? There is zero reason for a humanoid home robot to move quickly.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    The definition of "quickly" for roboticists are different from how it's usually interpreted. I'm not a real one, but to me it seems this tree of comments contain couple more such definition disagreements.
    - rapsey 2y ago
      Well in this case move quickly enough to hit and injure a person.
usrnm 2y ago
None of those appliances are autonomous
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  Plainly false. They operate without my direct supervision, mostly.
nradov 2y ago
Static home appliances don't move around and the space of possible dangerous failure modes is limited. This stuff is easy to test for safety. And a refrigerator failure isn't a potential safety issue. LLMs tend to fail in novel ways that are impossible to reason about. What is the expected failure rate for mistaking a human infant sleeping on the floor for a large doll that needs to be picked up and put away? You can't prove that the rate will be zero. We don't have good ways to model and estimate those failures rates in such complex systems.
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  Hell, the family dog has some of the same issues. My point is, robots are not essentially new in their home-environment risks. We accept some level of risk now. The pessimistic view that home robots are impossible to deploy until their risks are reduced to zero, is nonsense. My theory: we'll have home robots as soon as they're affordable and have a market demographic. Like any other technology.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    We have higher standards for designed devices than sentient ones, especially ones that have a long history like dogs. I love my dog, but appliance with the QA tolerances of dogs would not sell well. Some dogs were bred for helping you work, others were bred as guard dogs. If I went around selling something like a 75% toaster, 25% gun device, and we don’t know which parts come from which, I think I would go to jail.

FrojoS 2y ago

Those examples are unlikely to kill you. A humanoid robot can. Let's say it quickly moves its arm on a collision course with your head. The arm can weigh around 10 kg. The impact can easily kill an adult. I'm a bit less pessimistic than OP. It's possible to run safety checks (e.g. collision avoidance) on a lower, deterministic level, and use generative, black box, 'AI' for higher-level planning.

postalrat 2y ago
Like animals the robot arm should also be compliment and not always be moving with full force because it is going to hit things even with active collision avoidance.
- numpad0 2y ago
  A lead filled baseball bat flying through space is always moving at full force unless some external force is applied.
rapsey 2y ago
Why would it move quickly? There is zero reason for a humanoid home robot to move quickly.
- numpad0 2y ago
  The definition of "quickly" for roboticists are different from how it's usually interpreted. I'm not a real one, but to me it seems this tree of comments contain couple more such definition disagreements.
  - rapsey 2y ago
    Well in this case move quickly enough to hit and injure a person.

usrnm 2y ago

None of those appliances are autonomous

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
Plainly false. They operate without my direct supervision, mostly.

nradov 2y ago

Static home appliances don't move around and the space of possible dangerous failure modes is limited. This stuff is easy to test for safety. And a refrigerator failure isn't a potential safety issue. LLMs tend to fail in novel ways that are impossible to reason about. What is the expected failure rate for mistaking a human infant sleeping on the floor for a large doll that needs to be picked up and put away? You can't prove that the rate will be zero. We don't have good ways to model and estimate those failures rates in such complex systems.

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
Hell, the family dog has some of the same issues. My point is, robots are not essentially new in their home-environment risks. We accept some level of risk now. The pessimistic view that home robots are impossible to deploy until their risks are reduced to zero, is nonsense. My theory: we'll have home robots as soon as they're affordable and have a market demographic. Like any other technology.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  We have higher standards for designed devices than sentient ones, especially ones that have a long history like dogs. I love my dog, but appliance with the QA tolerances of dogs would not sell well. Some dogs were bred for helping you work, others were bred as guard dogs. If I went around selling something like a 75% toaster, 25% gun device, and we don’t know which parts come from which, I think I would go to jail.