4 ms·

Proof of Concept to Test Humanoid Robots

18 points by 0xedb 9mo ago

metalman 9mo ago
humanoid robots require an order of magnitude better battery technology that does not exist yet.That technology will change a lot more than just having viable robots
reena_signalhq 9mo ago
[dead]
VladVladikoff 9mo ago
They look so hilariously slow and bad in the video, and it’s a really simple back and forth task, with empty crates.
dfajgljsldkjag 9mo ago
I noticed they used the wheeled version for the test, so calling it a humanoid feels like a bit of a reach to me. The speed of sixty boxes an hour seems pretty slow if they want to replace actual people on the line.
- modeless 9mo ago
  What constitutes a "humanoid" robot is a matter of some debate: https://james.darpinian.com/blog/the-humanoid-alignment-chart https://james.darpinian.com/blog/the-humanoid-alignment-char...
fhub 9mo ago
The use case claimed here is (a) they can move around (b) they are "universal". But (a) Those things look like they need a wide berth to move around and flat terrain (b) Those end effectors are far from universal. The payload weight seems so low that it even dropped an empty box at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIXjy2GWTg&t=150s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIXjy2GWTg&t=150s
- bandrami 9mo ago
  The bot may be notionally "universal" but will only operate on the DLC you buy from the robot rental company. Want it to wash dishes? That's the $20/mo dishwashing pack, or for one low price you can get the entire housework pack for only $80/mo.
  - dyauspitr 9mo ago
    It’s got to get good enough for open source versions at some point though.
    - bandrami 9mo ago
      That would shock me. These things are going to have a TPM
    - ben_w 9mo ago
      Eventually, but consider the power envelope for compute in an android is 10-100x lower than for a car*, while at the same time the range of tasks a general purpose bot has to be good at is a strict superset of driving a car, and that open source attempts at self driving cars are far behind the proprietary attempts, and that compute efficiency is only doubling every 2.5-3 years (Koomey’s Law), so expect something like 20 years before these are properly general purpose and also not remote controlled. Still plenty of value from special purpose and from remote control, but that's the timeline for solving both at the same time. * even with the compute being external, the global electricity supply is presently a few hundred watts/capita and already being used for all the other things we want electricity for, hence all current anger about data centers making electricity too expensive, but renewables could tilt this to 8 billion robots with 1kW compute each in as little as 10 years if we brush aside all the decarbonisation efforts and keep burning petrol in cars and gas in stoves etc., otherwise more like 15 years for that.
- imtringued 9mo ago
  The weirdest part about the box carrying humanoids is that this problem has already been solved by fork lift style robots [0] which are being sold by many companies. When people talk about universality, having a central warehouse with movable pickup & place locations is all you need. The only thing that would be interesting is to build a universal loader/unloader that can take parts out of the boxes and insert them into machines factorio style, but that loader doesn't need to be humanoid and could instead just be put on a movable cart. [0] https://www.hairobotics.com/products/haipick-a3 https://www.hairobotics.com/products/haipick-a3
bandrami 9mo ago
The human body is sub-optimally designed for most hard work humans do (which is why that work is "hard"). I laugh every time I see AI videos of a human-shaped robot harvesting crops: we have very, very effective crop-harvesting robots right now, and they are shaped like big boxes on wheels because that's a much better shape for doing that.
- XorNot 9mo ago
  Universality matters though. It's less interesting that a hyper specific machine exists for a task than that the same machine might be able to do a wide range of tasks, provided the price point is right.
  - obidee2 9mo ago
    “Less interesting” is an interesting value to compare things that are typically measured by utility. Human form factor robots are definitely more interesting to us as humans, but really only economically viable for high mix low volume tasks (of which there are many). But past a certain scale special purpose machines will always be more cost effective.
    - bandrami 9mo ago
      And more annoyingly they will no doubt be given modular behavioral capabilities that require separate subscriptions to use (even the big cube-shaped farming robots do this)
  - chickenimprint 9mo ago
    The human form is terrible for most productive things. We are slow, weak, short, and inaccurate. Robotic arms are the true multitalents of manipulating the physical world.
    - XorNot 9mo ago
      That doesn't say anything about the human form: it says something about the human body. But it's also not very accurate on that count: we are actually very strong compared to mechanical systems of a similar size, weight and energy structure.
Animats 9mo ago
In this use case, the robot autonomously picked totes from a storage stack, transported them to a conveyor, and placed them at the designated pickup point for human operators. Well, yes, you can use a humanoid robot for that, but there are far simpler robotic solutions. There are lots of systems for handling standardized totes.
- dyauspitr 9mo ago
  Clearly that’s not the point. The end goal is essentially to build a robot that can function as a human slave would in the past.
Barathkanna 9mo ago
What’s interesting here isn’t the humanoid form factor, it’s the systems integration. Plugging robots into Siemens’ industrial stack means they’re being treated like first-class nodes in existing logistics workflows, not special demos. If humanoids can reuse current automation software, safety models, and ops tooling, that lowers adoption friction a lot. The real question is whether reliability and MTBF get good enough to compete with simpler, non-humanoid automation at scale.

18 points by 0xedb 9mo ago

humanoid robots require an order of magnitude better battery technology that does not exist yet.That technology will change a lot more than just having viable robots

reena_signalhq 9mo ago

[dead]

VladVladikoff 9mo ago

They look so hilariously slow and bad in the video, and it’s a really simple back and forth task, with empty crates.

dfajgljsldkjag 9mo ago

I noticed they used the wheeled version for the test, so calling it a humanoid feels like a bit of a reach to me. The speed of sixty boxes an hour seems pretty slow if they want to replace actual people on the line.

modeless 9mo ago
What constitutes a "humanoid" robot is a matter of some debate: https://james.darpinian.com/blog/the-humanoid-alignment-chart https://james.darpinian.com/blog/the-humanoid-alignment-char...

fhub 9mo ago

The use case claimed here is (a) they can move around (b) they are "universal". But (a) Those things look like they need a wide berth to move around and flat terrain (b) Those end effectors are far from universal. The payload weight seems so low that it even dropped an empty box at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIXjy2GWTg&t=150s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIXjy2GWTg&t=150s

bandrami 9mo ago
The bot may be notionally "universal" but will only operate on the DLC you buy from the robot rental company. Want it to wash dishes? That's the $20/mo dishwashing pack, or for one low price you can get the entire housework pack for only $80/mo.
- dyauspitr 9mo ago
  It’s got to get good enough for open source versions at some point though.
  - bandrami 9mo ago
    That would shock me. These things are going to have a TPM
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    Eventually, but consider the power envelope for compute in an android is 10-100x lower than for a car*, while at the same time the range of tasks a general purpose bot has to be good at is a strict superset of driving a car, and that open source attempts at self driving cars are far behind the proprietary attempts, and that compute efficiency is only doubling every 2.5-3 years (Koomey’s Law), so expect something like 20 years before these are properly general purpose and also not remote controlled. Still plenty of value from special purpose and from remote control, but that's the timeline for solving both at the same time. * even with the compute being external, the global electricity supply is presently a few hundred watts/capita and already being used for all the other things we want electricity for, hence all current anger about data centers making electricity too expensive, but renewables could tilt this to 8 billion robots with 1kW compute each in as little as 10 years if we brush aside all the decarbonisation efforts and keep burning petrol in cars and gas in stoves etc., otherwise more like 15 years for that.
imtringued 9mo ago
The weirdest part about the box carrying humanoids is that this problem has already been solved by fork lift style robots [0] which are being sold by many companies. When people talk about universality, having a central warehouse with movable pickup & place locations is all you need. The only thing that would be interesting is to build a universal loader/unloader that can take parts out of the boxes and insert them into machines factorio style, but that loader doesn't need to be humanoid and could instead just be put on a movable cart. [0] https://www.hairobotics.com/products/haipick-a3 https://www.hairobotics.com/products/haipick-a3

bandrami 9mo ago

The human body is sub-optimally designed for most hard work humans do (which is why that work is "hard"). I laugh every time I see AI videos of a human-shaped robot harvesting crops: we have very, very effective crop-harvesting robots right now, and they are shaped like big boxes on wheels because that's a much better shape for doing that.

XorNot 9mo ago
Universality matters though. It's less interesting that a hyper specific machine exists for a task than that the same machine might be able to do a wide range of tasks, provided the price point is right.
- obidee2 9mo ago
  “Less interesting” is an interesting value to compare things that are typically measured by utility. Human form factor robots are definitely more interesting to us as humans, but really only economically viable for high mix low volume tasks (of which there are many). But past a certain scale special purpose machines will always be more cost effective.
  - bandrami 9mo ago
    And more annoyingly they will no doubt be given modular behavioral capabilities that require separate subscriptions to use (even the big cube-shaped farming robots do this)
- chickenimprint 9mo ago
  The human form is terrible for most productive things. We are slow, weak, short, and inaccurate. Robotic arms are the true multitalents of manipulating the physical world.
  - XorNot 9mo ago
    That doesn't say anything about the human form: it says something about the human body. But it's also not very accurate on that count: we are actually very strong compared to mechanical systems of a similar size, weight and energy structure.

Animats 9mo ago

In this use case, the robot autonomously picked totes from a storage stack, transported them to a conveyor, and placed them at the designated pickup point for human operators. Well, yes, you can use a humanoid robot for that, but there are far simpler robotic solutions. There are lots of systems for handling standardized totes.

dyauspitr 9mo ago
Clearly that’s not the point. The end goal is essentially to build a robot that can function as a human slave would in the past.

Barathkanna 9mo ago

What’s interesting here isn’t the humanoid form factor, it’s the systems integration. Plugging robots into Siemens’ industrial stack means they’re being treated like first-class nodes in existing logistics workflows, not special demos. If humanoids can reuse current automation software, safety models, and ops tooling, that lowers adoption friction a lot. The real question is whether reliability and MTBF get good enough to compete with simpler, non-humanoid automation at scale.