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Dead end. You can't redesign and replace the entire world. It's the same issue as self-driving cars: universal worker robots have to either learn to use the sa

Dead end. You can't redesign and replace the entire world. It's the same issue as self-driving cars: universal worker robots have to either learn to use the same things humans do, or never leave the labs.

croes 1y ago
We changed the world for combustion cars, why not for self-driving cars?
- Avicebron 1y ago
  Typically the world changes when a new market is discovered, making the earth more traversable by car at the time opened up enough of a new market that it was done post haste for better or for worse. The only real way I see self-driving cars opening up markets at a scale that they would justify the amount of overhead is if they created self-driving only lanes with infrastructure closely around them to be quick and easily accessible from the passengers. Which at that point is really just the Japanese train system and surrounding infrastructure, which many places (at least in the US) don't seem capable or willing to make happen.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  Combustion cars were already usable even on the roads built for horse drawn carriages - they were, in fact, adapted to the existing world. They even ran on things like firewood, coal, or, for the first ICEs, relatively common liquid fuels that could be sourced in large cities. Cars rely on gas stations today - but gas stations only became a thing after cars already became a thing. Nowadays, Tesla had to make Superchargers happen all by themselves before EVs could really happen - despite EVs already having the crushing advantage of being able to charge overnight in any garage that has power. Can you see a robot company branching out to be a competitor to McDonalds to prove that their kitchen robot is viable if you design the entire kitchen for it? Well, it's not entirely impossible, but I think it unlikely.
  - marcosdumay 1y ago
    Yes, I can see restaurants easily adopting an entire robot-friendly kitchen if it means robots can handle dish-handling and repetitive cooking tasks. From that to every manufacturer adopting the standard on every product, independently of the client you just need some competition on their market. I dunno if there is any, but it's not a lot.
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      If all a robot does is take a package and throw it into the microwave why don't I just save a trip to the "restaurant" and eat at home?
      - marcosdumay 1y ago
        I have no idea how you came from my comment to that idea. But nothing is stopping the chef from just throwing your food into the microwave today, so I don't see what change you are complaining about either.
        lesuorac 1y ago
        There's a huge practicality issue for the chef. They don't have the food in microwavable format for many dishes. But to me thats the end state of this conversation. Like lets take shipping as an example, we came up with pallets and containers not because they're useful for a person to move but because they're helpful for robots (and analogs) to move. People aren't born with palletjacks for hands. So to me it seems as you add more robotics into the kitchen you're going to slowly change your supplies to arrive in more robotic form.
  - Nicook 1y ago
    While in Europe earlier I learned that BYD had to make hybrids for the European market since their charging infastructure isn't quite there.
  - gmueckl 1y ago
    Your comment is actually lagging behind reality. There is a manufacturer of kitchen robots that opened a fully functional demo fast food joint: https://misorobotics.com/CaliExpress/ https://misorobotics.com/CaliExpress/
- Chris2048 1y ago
  How so? roads were already dimensioned for horses, motorways for tanks. Most major change had industry (shipping, logistics etc) or military backing.
  - croes 1y ago
    We changed the main purpose of roads to be for cars https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/11/08/happy-birthday-car-dependency-100-years-old-this-week/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/11/08/happy-bi...
    - lelanthran 1y ago
      Yeah bit we didn't change the world, and we didn't add roads. We just refused the existing ones, building out as necessary.
      - croes 1y ago
        Only if you think a road back then is the same as a road now. We changed the layout, the material, added guardrails and guide posts etc.
eloisant 1y ago
That's exactly what we've been doing since the industrial revolution. Step in a car factory, plenty of robots but none of them are humanoids. We redesigned the whole factory around specialized robots, rather than have humanoids on a Ford-like moving assembly line.
- meindnoch 1y ago
  So you want to turn your home into the equivalent of a car factory, where everything is designed to be handled by robots? I don't think many people would want to live in such a home.
- randcraw 1y ago
  But the reengineering of assembly lines has targeted speed and cost of assembly, not so much automation. Robots do have a role in manufacturing, but I think it's a relatively small fraction of the whole. AFAIK, most part makers don't rely on automation, and even though final assembly has had greater success, it's still far from as adaptable as humans are. GM's Saturn was relatively early in that space but it didn't scale up anywhere as well as they had hoped. Likewise, Tesla went there 30 years later, but IIRC, they too experienced myriad difficulties building reliable automated manufacturing processes. If automation among makers were ready for prime time, the work would have migrated to countries with the cheapest power and fastest mobility while ignoring labor costs. AFAIK, that still hasn't happened.
bonoboTP 1y ago
Not the entire world but maybe enough of it. I mean, think about the batshit idea of raiway transport in Europe. Like trains sound nice in principle, sure, it works on the scale of a mine or a shipyard to move things around, but using that to travel between all major cities (and even most villages) and countries all over? It would require laying thousands and thousands of kilometers of train tracks. Or introducing electricity and phone lines, public lighting, and adopting various standards, metrification, putting road signage everywhere, etc. etc. We've done a lot of large scale transformations. But to kickstart the process, robots need to be "good enough" without these infrastructure changes, and then people will see it and want the change. You can't start speculatively. It has to work first, and offer to work better if there is more infra standardization.

croes 1y ago

We changed the world for combustion cars, why not for self-driving cars?

Avicebron 1y ago
Typically the world changes when a new market is discovered, making the earth more traversable by car at the time opened up enough of a new market that it was done post haste for better or for worse. The only real way I see self-driving cars opening up markets at a scale that they would justify the amount of overhead is if they created self-driving only lanes with infrastructure closely around them to be quick and easily accessible from the passengers. Which at that point is really just the Japanese train system and surrounding infrastructure, which many places (at least in the US) don't seem capable or willing to make happen.
ACCount37 1y ago
Combustion cars were already usable even on the roads built for horse drawn carriages - they were, in fact, adapted to the existing world. They even ran on things like firewood, coal, or, for the first ICEs, relatively common liquid fuels that could be sourced in large cities. Cars rely on gas stations today - but gas stations only became a thing after cars already became a thing. Nowadays, Tesla had to make Superchargers happen all by themselves before EVs could really happen - despite EVs already having the crushing advantage of being able to charge overnight in any garage that has power. Can you see a robot company branching out to be a competitor to McDonalds to prove that their kitchen robot is viable if you design the entire kitchen for it? Well, it's not entirely impossible, but I think it unlikely.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  Yes, I can see restaurants easily adopting an entire robot-friendly kitchen if it means robots can handle dish-handling and repetitive cooking tasks. From that to every manufacturer adopting the standard on every product, independently of the client you just need some competition on their market. I dunno if there is any, but it's not a lot.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    If all a robot does is take a package and throw it into the microwave why don't I just save a trip to the "restaurant" and eat at home?
    - marcosdumay 1y ago
      I have no idea how you came from my comment to that idea. But nothing is stopping the chef from just throwing your food into the microwave today, so I don't see what change you are complaining about either.
      - lesuorac 1y ago
        There's a huge practicality issue for the chef. They don't have the food in microwavable format for many dishes. But to me thats the end state of this conversation. Like lets take shipping as an example, we came up with pallets and containers not because they're useful for a person to move but because they're helpful for robots (and analogs) to move. People aren't born with palletjacks for hands. So to me it seems as you add more robotics into the kitchen you're going to slowly change your supplies to arrive in more robotic form.
- Nicook 1y ago
  While in Europe earlier I learned that BYD had to make hybrids for the European market since their charging infastructure isn't quite there.
- gmueckl 1y ago
  Your comment is actually lagging behind reality. There is a manufacturer of kitchen robots that opened a fully functional demo fast food joint: https://misorobotics.com/CaliExpress/ https://misorobotics.com/CaliExpress/
Chris2048 1y ago
How so? roads were already dimensioned for horses, motorways for tanks. Most major change had industry (shipping, logistics etc) or military backing.
- croes 1y ago
  We changed the main purpose of roads to be for cars https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/11/08/happy-birthday-car-dependency-100-years-old-this-week/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/11/08/happy-bi...
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    Yeah bit we didn't change the world, and we didn't add roads. We just refused the existing ones, building out as necessary.
    - croes 1y ago
      Only if you think a road back then is the same as a road now. We changed the layout, the material, added guardrails and guide posts etc.

eloisant 1y ago

That's exactly what we've been doing since the industrial revolution. Step in a car factory, plenty of robots but none of them are humanoids. We redesigned the whole factory around specialized robots, rather than have humanoids on a Ford-like moving assembly line.

meindnoch 1y ago
So you want to turn your home into the equivalent of a car factory, where everything is designed to be handled by robots? I don't think many people would want to live in such a home.
randcraw 1y ago
But the reengineering of assembly lines has targeted speed and cost of assembly, not so much automation. Robots do have a role in manufacturing, but I think it's a relatively small fraction of the whole. AFAIK, most part makers don't rely on automation, and even though final assembly has had greater success, it's still far from as adaptable as humans are. GM's Saturn was relatively early in that space but it didn't scale up anywhere as well as they had hoped. Likewise, Tesla went there 30 years later, but IIRC, they too experienced myriad difficulties building reliable automated manufacturing processes. If automation among makers were ready for prime time, the work would have migrated to countries with the cheapest power and fastest mobility while ignoring labor costs. AFAIK, that still hasn't happened.

bonoboTP 1y ago

Not the entire world but maybe enough of it. I mean, think about the batshit idea of raiway transport in Europe. Like trains sound nice in principle, sure, it works on the scale of a mine or a shipyard to move things around, but using that to travel between all major cities (and even most villages) and countries all over? It would require laying thousands and thousands of kilometers of train tracks. Or introducing electricity and phone lines, public lighting, and adopting various standards, metrification, putting road signage everywhere, etc. etc. We've done a lot of large scale transformations. But to kickstart the process, robots need to be "good enough" without these infrastructure changes, and then people will see it and want the change. You can't start speculatively. It has to work first, and offer to work better if there is more infra standardization.