4 ms·

If you can have one robot do multiple tasks at 80% of the capability of a special-purpose robot, then that’s a win. Buy a fleet of them and just repurpose them

If you can have one robot do multiple tasks at 80% of the capability of a special-purpose robot, then that’s a win. Buy a fleet of them and just repurpose them as necessary. If they’re humanoid then they can already use tools, equipment, and access methods we already use for ourselves. What part of the vision doesn’t make sense?

chmod775 1y ago
Then they're just a worse human on every metric: from capability to real cost. When these things can make a burger without help I'll change mind, but right now they're not even close to that. Everything I've seen so far makes them look like clumsy pieces of junk. I haven't even seen one make a sandwich without a human having to prepare every step for them so they could then perform "cutting motion" or "stack ingredients" (painfully slowly and shaking like a geriatric).
- TheDudeMan 1y ago
  You know they're getting better, right?
  - elzbardico 1y ago
    Like fusion power reactor are, and have been for a long time?
    - TheDudeMan 1y ago
      No, I never said that.
  - chmod775 1y ago
    Once they're good enough, I'm sure they will be used somewhere. These aren't. They're not even ten percent there. I don't get why you'd try to mass-produce and market them. Tesla is going to have proper autonomous driving in their consumer vehicles before they make one useful humanoid robot.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
      That's the part I find frustrating as well. The Optimus demos I've seen show a product that is far, far, far from ready for prime time while Musk and others act like it's amazingly capable. The recent clip posted by Marc Benioff was...painful. It took a few seconds to reply to a simple greeting. Its next bit of speech in response to a query of where to get a Coke has a weird moment where it seems like it interrupts itself. Optimus offers to take Benioff to the kitchen to get a Coke. Optimus acknowledges Benioff's affirmative response, but just stands there. Then you hear Musk in the background muttering that Optimus is "paranoid" about the space. Benioff backs up a few feet. Optimus slowly turns then begins shuffling forward. Is it headed to the kitchen? Who knows! The reaction to that should not be "OMG I cannot wait to pay you $200-$500k for one of these!" It should be "You want HOW MUCH for THIS? Are you nuts?"
    - TheDudeMan 1y ago
      OK, so you do get the vision.
- xandrius 1y ago
  Except: - No pain - No breaks - No protesting/strikes - No rises needed - No happiness to take care of All things business find annoying.
  - numpad0 1y ago
    They're going to have lots of downtimes and constant raises. Human joint longevity is insanely long by standards of robotics, and supplier costs only go up.
  - iamleppert 1y ago
    Instead of a large group of low power, easily manipulatable and controllable workforce, you will have traded for a small group of very powerful, wealthy and influential business and tech people who now fully control the production of your labor. I'd be very worried if I was that business, in terms of the control that company would now wield over me. They could release a software update and disable your entire workforce unless you agreed to pay more money. They could slow your workforce down to prop up a competitor, etc.
    - whiplash451 1y ago
      It will likely end like cloud computing. So, not amazing, but certainly not what you describe. Your current cloud provider can absolutely "release a software update and disable your entire workforce unless you agreed to pay more money". The reason why they don't is quite obvious (competition).
- sandworm101 1y ago
  Dont look at the robot making the sandwich at a restaurant. Look at the robots already being used at food processing facilities. The robots are already doing it, they just dont look like robots. My dishwasher also doesnt look anything like a hired dishwasher. https://youtu.be/U2sN5g6wOBU https://youtu.be/U2sN5g6wOBU
  - chmod775 1y ago
    I explicitly said they're going to get outperformed by specialist robots, just like the humans they poorly imitate sometimes are. That was my entire point!
- zerotolerance 1y ago
  Nobody is buying them today. But these shaky clumsy versions didn't exist even a few years ago. The hype promises these things tomorrow, which is obvious BS. But the better they look today the more investment will be poured into their R&D which accelerates real improvement, which accelerates investment, etc. Generalist robotics are all about minimizing or at least front loading some portion of retooling cost, minimizing overhead associated with safety and compliance, and being able to capitalize what would have otherwise been human opex. Those pressures aren't going anywhere.
- Daneel_ 1y ago
  Well sure, but you asked about the vision not the current state. I have very little doubt that they’ll be making burgers within 10 years. The hardware is already capable I think - it’s mostly just a software problem now.
  - chmod775 1y ago
    It's not remotely capable enough. There's a reason you never see one of these things cut something soft like a tomato into even slices (or at all). Their extremely clumsy fingers/hands can pretty much just open and close. I have doubts they could even fasten a screw using any kind of screwdriver, given the hardware's overall lack of precision and degrees of freedom in their digits. They have about enough degrees of freedom to grip most things, but not enough to manipulate (such as rotate) something like a screwdriver they are already holding. Some sources claim they can be precise to within around 1 newton with their grip force - this does not include the additional error introduced by the rest of the robot the hand is attached to. This is relevant if they're holding something that is also pressed against a cutting-board. Best case for them is simply holding an object without having to exert further control, since they have some sort of clutch mechanism that decouples the motors and essentially locks their fingers in place. That gets rid of the shaking you'd otherwise see when they have to exert continuous motor effort. You do not have that luxury when you are manipulating something soft, such as when cutting a tomato, or when you're trying to turn a screwdriver in your hands. We can deduce they are at least an order of magnitude off human precision, likely multiple. These things are not going to cut tomatoes into something you'd put onto a sandwich or burger, then sell to customers, any time soon.
    - Daneel_ 1y ago
      The gen 3 hand from Optimus (Tesla) has 22 degrees of freedom in the hand and 3 in the wrist - it's more than capable of twisting a screwdriver or holding a knife well enough to cut a tomato. Like I said, it's a software problem - there's a reason the optimus robots are being tele-operated at their demos. The hardware is capable enough, it's just that the control software isn't up to the task yet.
schwartzworld 1y ago
> If you can have one robot do multiple tasks at 80% of the capability of a special-purpose robot What does them being humanoid have to do with this? There are other form factors that could get to 80% but might be simpler to implement.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  The whole point of humaniod robots is that they can work in environments designed for humans. And the world is already full of those! If that ends up being a dominant or niche part of the robot market is way too early to predict.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  And what would that "other form factor" be? Can that "other form factor" climb stairs? Or operate existing power tools? Or get into a generic car to get transported to a new workplace? Or get teleoperated by a human with mocap gloves? Non-humanoid robots don't get simplicity for free. They have to trade off capabilities to get there.
  - schwartzworld 1y ago
    OP mentioned a standard of being able to do 80% of human activities. You might need human legs to climb stairs, but then again, if you work in a building with elevators, that might be a pretty simple tradeoff to make. > Or operate existing power tools? Or get teleoperated by a human with mocap gloves? Requires grippers that can hold in a similar way to human hands. > Or get into a generic car to get transported to a new workplace? My dog can do this and traverse a flight of stairs, and she is decidedly not humanoid.
    - ACCount37 1y ago
      So, a dog body, but with a pair of humanlike hands attached? I fail to see how that would be any less complex than making a humanoid frame in the first place.

chmod775 1y ago

Then they're just a worse human on every metric: from capability to real cost. When these things can make a burger without help I'll change mind, but right now they're not even close to that. Everything I've seen so far makes them look like clumsy pieces of junk. I haven't even seen one make a sandwich without a human having to prepare every step for them so they could then perform "cutting motion" or "stack ingredients" (painfully slowly and shaking like a geriatric).

TheDudeMan 1y ago
You know they're getting better, right?
- elzbardico 1y ago
  Like fusion power reactor are, and have been for a long time?
  - TheDudeMan 1y ago
    No, I never said that.
- chmod775 1y ago
  Once they're good enough, I'm sure they will be used somewhere. These aren't. They're not even ten percent there. I don't get why you'd try to mass-produce and market them. Tesla is going to have proper autonomous driving in their consumer vehicles before they make one useful humanoid robot.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
    That's the part I find frustrating as well. The Optimus demos I've seen show a product that is far, far, far from ready for prime time while Musk and others act like it's amazingly capable. The recent clip posted by Marc Benioff was...painful. It took a few seconds to reply to a simple greeting. Its next bit of speech in response to a query of where to get a Coke has a weird moment where it seems like it interrupts itself. Optimus offers to take Benioff to the kitchen to get a Coke. Optimus acknowledges Benioff's affirmative response, but just stands there. Then you hear Musk in the background muttering that Optimus is "paranoid" about the space. Benioff backs up a few feet. Optimus slowly turns then begins shuffling forward. Is it headed to the kitchen? Who knows! The reaction to that should not be "OMG I cannot wait to pay you $200-$500k for one of these!" It should be "You want HOW MUCH for THIS? Are you nuts?"
  - TheDudeMan 1y ago
    OK, so you do get the vision.
xandrius 1y ago
Except: - No pain - No breaks - No protesting/strikes - No rises needed - No happiness to take care of All things business find annoying.
- numpad0 1y ago
  They're going to have lots of downtimes and constant raises. Human joint longevity is insanely long by standards of robotics, and supplier costs only go up.
- iamleppert 1y ago
  Instead of a large group of low power, easily manipulatable and controllable workforce, you will have traded for a small group of very powerful, wealthy and influential business and tech people who now fully control the production of your labor. I'd be very worried if I was that business, in terms of the control that company would now wield over me. They could release a software update and disable your entire workforce unless you agreed to pay more money. They could slow your workforce down to prop up a competitor, etc.
  - whiplash451 1y ago
    It will likely end like cloud computing. So, not amazing, but certainly not what you describe. Your current cloud provider can absolutely "release a software update and disable your entire workforce unless you agreed to pay more money". The reason why they don't is quite obvious (competition).
sandworm101 1y ago
Dont look at the robot making the sandwich at a restaurant. Look at the robots already being used at food processing facilities. The robots are already doing it, they just dont look like robots. My dishwasher also doesnt look anything like a hired dishwasher. https://youtu.be/U2sN5g6wOBU https://youtu.be/U2sN5g6wOBU
- chmod775 1y ago
  I explicitly said they're going to get outperformed by specialist robots, just like the humans they poorly imitate sometimes are. That was my entire point!
zerotolerance 1y ago
Nobody is buying them today. But these shaky clumsy versions didn't exist even a few years ago. The hype promises these things tomorrow, which is obvious BS. But the better they look today the more investment will be poured into their R&D which accelerates real improvement, which accelerates investment, etc. Generalist robotics are all about minimizing or at least front loading some portion of retooling cost, minimizing overhead associated with safety and compliance, and being able to capitalize what would have otherwise been human opex. Those pressures aren't going anywhere.
Daneel_ 1y ago
Well sure, but you asked about the vision not the current state. I have very little doubt that they’ll be making burgers within 10 years. The hardware is already capable I think - it’s mostly just a software problem now.
- chmod775 1y ago
  It's not remotely capable enough. There's a reason you never see one of these things cut something soft like a tomato into even slices (or at all). Their extremely clumsy fingers/hands can pretty much just open and close. I have doubts they could even fasten a screw using any kind of screwdriver, given the hardware's overall lack of precision and degrees of freedom in their digits. They have about enough degrees of freedom to grip most things, but not enough to manipulate (such as rotate) something like a screwdriver they are already holding. Some sources claim they can be precise to within around 1 newton with their grip force - this does not include the additional error introduced by the rest of the robot the hand is attached to. This is relevant if they're holding something that is also pressed against a cutting-board. Best case for them is simply holding an object without having to exert further control, since they have some sort of clutch mechanism that decouples the motors and essentially locks their fingers in place. That gets rid of the shaking you'd otherwise see when they have to exert continuous motor effort. You do not have that luxury when you are manipulating something soft, such as when cutting a tomato, or when you're trying to turn a screwdriver in your hands. We can deduce they are at least an order of magnitude off human precision, likely multiple. These things are not going to cut tomatoes into something you'd put onto a sandwich or burger, then sell to customers, any time soon.
  - Daneel_ 1y ago
    The gen 3 hand from Optimus (Tesla) has 22 degrees of freedom in the hand and 3 in the wrist - it's more than capable of twisting a screwdriver or holding a knife well enough to cut a tomato. Like I said, it's a software problem - there's a reason the optimus robots are being tele-operated at their demos. The hardware is capable enough, it's just that the control software isn't up to the task yet.

schwartzworld 1y ago

> If you can have one robot do multiple tasks at 80% of the capability of a special-purpose robot What does them being humanoid have to do with this? There are other form factors that could get to 80% but might be simpler to implement.

BurningFrog 1y ago
The whole point of humaniod robots is that they can work in environments designed for humans. And the world is already full of those! If that ends up being a dominant or niche part of the robot market is way too early to predict.
ACCount37 1y ago
And what would that "other form factor" be? Can that "other form factor" climb stairs? Or operate existing power tools? Or get into a generic car to get transported to a new workplace? Or get teleoperated by a human with mocap gloves? Non-humanoid robots don't get simplicity for free. They have to trade off capabilities to get there.
- schwartzworld 1y ago
  OP mentioned a standard of being able to do 80% of human activities. You might need human legs to climb stairs, but then again, if you work in a building with elevators, that might be a pretty simple tradeoff to make. > Or operate existing power tools? Or get teleoperated by a human with mocap gloves? Requires grippers that can hold in a similar way to human hands. > Or get into a generic car to get transported to a new workplace? My dog can do this and traverse a flight of stairs, and she is decidedly not humanoid.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    So, a dog body, but with a pair of humanlike hands attached? I fail to see how that would be any less complex than making a humanoid frame in the first place.