5 ms·

I’m optimistic about humanoid robotics, but I’m curious about the reliability issue. Biological limbs and hands are quite miraculous when you consider that they

I’m optimistic about humanoid robotics, but I’m curious about the reliability issue. Biological limbs and hands are quite miraculous when you consider that they are able to constantly interact with the world, which entails some natural wear and tear, but then constantly heal themselves.

marinmania 1y ago
It does either get very exciting or very spooky thinking of the possibilities in the near future. I had always assumed that such a robot would be very specific (like a cleaning robot) but it does seem like by the time they are ready they will be very generalizable. I know they would require quite a few sensors and motors, but compared to self-driving cars their liability would be less and they would use far less material.
- fragmede 1y ago
  The exciting part comes when two robots are able to do repairs on each other.
  - pryelluw 1y ago
    2 bots 1 bolt ?
  - marinmania 1y ago
    I think this is the spooky part. I feel dumb saying it, but is there a point where they are able to coordinate and build a factory to build chips/more of themselves? Or other things entirely?
    - bamboozled 1y ago
      Of course there is
  - ta988 1y ago
    But this still has a massive cost. Replacing or repairing an actuator isn't cheap, in material and in time of unavailability.
    - jacobaul 1y ago
      To maybe get a little carried away with the sci-fi for a minute, why does the Actuator need to cost anything? When the tree of costs that make up a product are traced, surely all the leaf nodes are human labour? As in, to make the actuator, I had to pay someone to assemble it and I had to buy the parts. Each part had a materials cost and a labour cost. So it goes for the factory that made the fasteners, the foundry that made the steel, the mine that extracted the ore. Shudder to think of how to regulate resource extraction in a future where AI humanoid robots are strip mining and logging for free.
      - david-gpu 1y ago
        > When the tree of costs that make up a product are traced, surely all the leaf nodes are human labour? What about energy, real estate and taxes? Even at the extreme end of automation, if you want iron ore, you need to buy a mine from somebody, pay taxes on it, and power the machines to extract the minerals and transport them elsewhere for processing.
        jacobaul 1y ago
        The same logic applies to energy I think. We don't have to pay money to a wind turbine, or to a coal mine. We only pay money to humans to build the power plants and the grid. If I were writing a sci-fi novel about this I don't know how I'd handle something real estate (or mineral rights or water rights). You already need permission from the government to extract resources. As for taxes, why does the government even want the money? What are they going to do with it?
        david-gpu 1y ago
        Energy, ultimately, requires real estate --and thus property taxes-- even at the logical extreme of automation. > As for taxes, why does the government even want the money? What are they going to do with it? There are websites that break down how e.g. different national/federal budgets are divvied up in the real world. Alternatively, I suggest a good book on macroeconomics; I am partial to Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics", but there are many others.
didip 1y ago
I think those problems can be solved with further research in material science, no? Combined that with very responsive but low torque servos, I think this is a solvable problem.
- michaelt 1y ago
  It's a simple matter of the number of motors you have. [1] Assume every motor has a 1% failure rate per year. A boring wheeled roomba has 3 motors. That's a 2.9% failure rate per year, and 8.6% failures over 3 years. Assume a humanoid robot has 43 motors. That gives you a 35% failure rate per year, and 73% over 3 years. That ain't good. And not only is the humanoid robot less reliable, it's also 14.3x the price - because it's got 14.3x as many motors in it. [1] And bearings and encoders and gearboxes and control boards and stuff... but they're largely proportional to the number of motors.
  - mewpmewp2 1y ago
    Would it be possible to reduce the failure rates?
    - michaelt 1y ago
      To an extent, yes. For example, an industrial robot arm with 6 motors achieves much higher reliability than a consumer roomba with 3 motors. They do this with more metal parts, more precision machining, much more generous design tolerances, and suchlike. Which they can afford by charging 100x as much per unit.
      - bamboozled 1y ago
        Also factory robots arms are probably operating in highly sterile, dry environments? How would working in a muddy / dusty / wet environment change this?
        Robelius 1y ago
UltraSane 1y ago
Consumable components could be automatically replaced by other robots.
bamboozled 1y ago
I'm interested how differences with robots work overtime, there are a lot of machines in this world that have been patched or "jimmied up" to continue working, let's say a mining robot, it would probably get quite heavily contaminated with dust, wear would occur in different places, rock falls might bend parts. So even though another robot could probably do the "jimmy up". it seems like overtime, the robots will "drift" into all being a bit different. Even commercial airlines seem to go through fairly unique repairs from things like collisions with objects, tail strikes etc. Maybe it's just easier to recycle robots?
gene-h 1y ago
Industrial robots at least are very reliable, MTBF is often upwards of 100,000 hours[0]. Industrial robots are optimized to be as reliable as possible because the longer they last and less often they need to be fixed, the more profitable they are. In fact, German and Japanese companies came to dominate the industrial robotics market because they focused on reliability. They developed rotary electric actuators that were more reliable. Cincinnati Millicron(US) was out competed in the industrial robot market because although their hydraulic robots were strong, they were less reliable. I am personally a bit skeptical of anthropormophic hands achieving similarly high reliability. There's just too many small parts that need to withstand high forces. [0]https://robotsdoneright.com/Articles/what-are-the-different-robot-hours.html https://robotsdoneright.com/Articles/what-are-the-different-...
- ragebol 1y ago
  If you E-stop an industrial robot, it stops immediately, all OK. If a humanoid were to freeze like that, it would fall over and hurt you and your stuff on the way down, when it'll damage itself. Mechanical reliability is not the main concern IMO

marinmania 1y ago

It does either get very exciting or very spooky thinking of the possibilities in the near future. I had always assumed that such a robot would be very specific (like a cleaning robot) but it does seem like by the time they are ready they will be very generalizable. I know they would require quite a few sensors and motors, but compared to self-driving cars their liability would be less and they would use far less material.

fragmede 1y ago
The exciting part comes when two robots are able to do repairs on each other.
- pryelluw 1y ago
  2 bots 1 bolt ?
- marinmania 1y ago
  I think this is the spooky part. I feel dumb saying it, but is there a point where they are able to coordinate and build a factory to build chips/more of themselves? Or other things entirely?
  - bamboozled 1y ago
    Of course there is
- ta988 1y ago
  But this still has a massive cost. Replacing or repairing an actuator isn't cheap, in material and in time of unavailability.
  - jacobaul 1y ago
    To maybe get a little carried away with the sci-fi for a minute, why does the Actuator need to cost anything? When the tree of costs that make up a product are traced, surely all the leaf nodes are human labour? As in, to make the actuator, I had to pay someone to assemble it and I had to buy the parts. Each part had a materials cost and a labour cost. So it goes for the factory that made the fasteners, the foundry that made the steel, the mine that extracted the ore. Shudder to think of how to regulate resource extraction in a future where AI humanoid robots are strip mining and logging for free.
    - david-gpu 1y ago
      > When the tree of costs that make up a product are traced, surely all the leaf nodes are human labour? What about energy, real estate and taxes? Even at the extreme end of automation, if you want iron ore, you need to buy a mine from somebody, pay taxes on it, and power the machines to extract the minerals and transport them elsewhere for processing.
      - jacobaul 1y ago
        The same logic applies to energy I think. We don't have to pay money to a wind turbine, or to a coal mine. We only pay money to humans to build the power plants and the grid. If I were writing a sci-fi novel about this I don't know how I'd handle something real estate (or mineral rights or water rights). You already need permission from the government to extract resources. As for taxes, why does the government even want the money? What are they going to do with it?
        david-gpu 1y ago
        Energy, ultimately, requires real estate --and thus property taxes-- even at the logical extreme of automation. > As for taxes, why does the government even want the money? What are they going to do with it? There are websites that break down how e.g. different national/federal budgets are divvied up in the real world. Alternatively, I suggest a good book on macroeconomics; I am partial to Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics", but there are many others.

didip 1y ago

I think those problems can be solved with further research in material science, no? Combined that with very responsive but low torque servos, I think this is a solvable problem.

michaelt 1y ago
It's a simple matter of the number of motors you have. [1] Assume every motor has a 1% failure rate per year. A boring wheeled roomba has 3 motors. That's a 2.9% failure rate per year, and 8.6% failures over 3 years. Assume a humanoid robot has 43 motors. That gives you a 35% failure rate per year, and 73% over 3 years. That ain't good. And not only is the humanoid robot less reliable, it's also 14.3x the price - because it's got 14.3x as many motors in it. [1] And bearings and encoders and gearboxes and control boards and stuff... but they're largely proportional to the number of motors.
- mewpmewp2 1y ago
  Would it be possible to reduce the failure rates?
  - michaelt 1y ago
    To an extent, yes. For example, an industrial robot arm with 6 motors achieves much higher reliability than a consumer roomba with 3 motors. They do this with more metal parts, more precision machining, much more generous design tolerances, and suchlike. Which they can afford by charging 100x as much per unit.
    - bamboozled 1y ago
      Also factory robots arms are probably operating in highly sterile, dry environments? How would working in a muddy / dusty / wet environment change this?
      - Robelius 1y ago

UltraSane 1y ago

Consumable components could be automatically replaced by other robots.

bamboozled 1y ago

I'm interested how differences with robots work overtime, there are a lot of machines in this world that have been patched or "jimmied up" to continue working, let's say a mining robot, it would probably get quite heavily contaminated with dust, wear would occur in different places, rock falls might bend parts. So even though another robot could probably do the "jimmy up". it seems like overtime, the robots will "drift" into all being a bit different. Even commercial airlines seem to go through fairly unique repairs from things like collisions with objects, tail strikes etc. Maybe it's just easier to recycle robots?

gene-h 1y ago

Industrial robots at least are very reliable, MTBF is often upwards of 100,000 hours[0]. Industrial robots are optimized to be as reliable as possible because the longer they last and less often they need to be fixed, the more profitable they are. In fact, German and Japanese companies came to dominate the industrial robotics market because they focused on reliability. They developed rotary electric actuators that were more reliable. Cincinnati Millicron(US) was out competed in the industrial robot market because although their hydraulic robots were strong, they were less reliable. I am personally a bit skeptical of anthropormophic hands achieving similarly high reliability. There's just too many small parts that need to withstand high forces. [0]https://robotsdoneright.com/Articles/what-are-the-different-robot-hours.html https://robotsdoneright.com/Articles/what-are-the-different-...

ragebol 1y ago
If you E-stop an industrial robot, it stops immediately, all OK. If a humanoid were to freeze like that, it would fall over and hurt you and your stuff on the way down, when it'll damage itself. Mechanical reliability is not the main concern IMO