The real bottleneck is physical. Going from limited volume production to producing these by the millions and eventually billions is going to take some time and an enormous amount of resources and investment. I expect that might take a decade or two to ramp up. The first generations are probably going to be a bit of a toy for rich people as they will likely be a combination of expensive and not limited utility. But that could change rapidly.
I do not think people are even recognizing the security ramifications of these devices. A picture of your key is enough to replicate it[0], and yet we're just going to put these devices everywhere? LLMs have been pretty easy to jailbreak too, you think thieves aren't just going to get these robots to open the doors for them? Or what about governments? Even if you trust your government now, will you trust them with data where they can literally see everything you do and say? That's well beyond 1984. Or just what about what we see from top labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or even Google and Apple? These trillion dollar companies are not showing themselves to be good at protecting data. Obviously some better than others, but this is a whole new level of intimacy with the data they'll get. Everyone is pissed at Flock, and you want to put mobile Flock in your house?
No thanks, it isn't worth trading all that for not having to load up the dish washer and cook my own meals.
I can't believe these discussions aren't more common.
I mean, the OP's argument is concerning negative effects that may be hidden or obscured by the suppliers of such robots.
Your comment regarding their use of electricity and that they make noise - well that's kind of obvious... Nobody is forcing you to buy these robots.
We are not the best creatures at performing every possible job, yet we are so interested in building humanoid robots. Instead, we could build specialized robots for each job and create ways for them to integrate seamlessly into an ecosystem that includes humans and other robots.
A cooking robot, for example, doesn't necessarily need to look humanoid. It could be a completely autonomous kitchen with no hands at all, while another robot could have some kind of interface or mechanism that allows it to integrate with and interact with the kitchen.
I appreciate that the site also shows examples of this approach. But even then, we keep building humanoid robots because, deep down, they feel more alive. Seeing something that looks like a person working gives us a strange sense of joy and satisfaction.
Funny how much of robotics is driven not just by what is practical, but by what feels alive to us.
> The success of LLMs in generalized work over individual apps (the software equivalent of your counter example) has made people impatient for general robots.
LLM seems to be the most hated technology for the last 30 years. Heavily forced from top, pushed on people whether they like it or not.
And also the one that is supposed to make us all unemployed, obsolete and unable to buy basic necessities. If one believes what AI labs claim.
Given that this is a much simpler problem than a fully humanoid robot, I'm not going to hold my breath for those.
I think the next advancement are robots like the MicroDuck [2], a little gimmicky, but demonstrating higher levels of intelligence that everybody can afford and collaborate on together. Once that has the ability to return to a docking station on low battery and recharge, you basically have a fully autonomous robot pet in your home.
If we see rapid advances in robotics will alignment become a visceral concern for the population at large?
"HERE'S ROBBY!"
/cut to door chopping and robot led eye lights ...
Many contemporary humanoid robots do not even have an e-stop and this is why you see clips where people frantically try to stop an unstable robot by grabbing it. At the moment, it’s a solution searching for a problem and blood.
So don't buy one from an ad company then? There are home robots that run entirely on-device.
The biggest reason for humanoid robots is that they will need to function in environments designed for humans and used by humans, sometimes even alongside the robots.
This is very different to something like a factory or even a warehouse, that can be designed to be used almost exclusively by the robots.
https://www.inceptivemind.com/toyota-gantry-robot-hangs-ceil...
You might now counter that legs are easy and a solved problem, sure, I won't deny that, but the point is that you should try to think out of the box.
For example, we bolt robot arms on tables, so that the work space is at a comfortable height for humans, but if the robot arm had the exact same intuition and intelligence as a human, you could just install it onto the floor. Suddenly the entire rationale, the table, which is the representative stand-in for "the world was designed for humans" is gone.
It's not that we necessarily need a specialized machine, it's that a generalized machine doesn't have to be humanoid.
We have automated large chunks of the economy already. I don't thing building humanoid robots is gonna drive a major further increase in automation.
For one, I don't think we have the technology for it. Servo motors is not it. The human hand has 20+ degrees of freedom. We're not gonna build a great robotic hand with step motors.
Founderarcstone•1d ago