Because natural selection and evolution did not have access to plastic, metal, circuitry, and batteries?
2 Likes
I was referring to production capacity. Theyâre starting out with a production capacity of a few hundred (not 10K) - not a few hundred robots already in existence. Which is certainly a sign that people in the industry see potential in these types of products, but is not really an indication that theyâre yet convinced that these things are ready to move into actual large-scale production.
Sometimes these things are enormous successes. Many times they are not. The fact that Musk had enormous success with the Model Y didnât stop him from having less impressive results with the solar roof, or the Boring tunnellers, or being unable to deliver autonomous robotaxis or the âTesla Networkâ (which disappeared from the last call). Sometimes companies set up these skunkworks to try to come up with the next big thing, and most of the time they justâŚmiss. Google, for example, was filled with really smart people and given billions of dollars spun off from their main product (search) to try and do world-changing things - but most of the Google X stuff just ended up not working out.
Thereâs lots of companies trying to make humanoid robots work - though some of them arenât necessarily trying to make them bipedal, which seems like an unnecessary complication for most workplaces. Some are already being deployed in very limited areas, but those arenât âgeneral purposeâ humanoid robots. Weâll see whether the âbrainsâ are anywhere close to being ready to make that kind of robot a genuinely useful thing, or just an aesthetic choice.
2 Likes
Bob, what have you done for me lately?
Chinaâs emissions are set to fall in 2024. After a major build out in renewable energy.
Listen to you and the US goes nowhere.
Some are holding onto their ideas of the failures of the future. LOL
2 Likes
There are three basic issues
We have arms but mobility is wanted. More arms is meaningless.
We need a more universal multitasking robot to paradoxically bring down the costs of production. That does not mean the forms of the robot will all be the same but the basic parts will improve.
We need AI so the robots gain an ability to work in many situations.
There are plenty of robotic arms in factories now. That is not good enough.
2 Likes
Actually you were being pedantic. Whether is is hundreds or thousands it is still a projection. One projection might be months and the other years but they are both just projections. Nobody builds a facility of 10,000 without plans of using it.
Andy
1 Like
Of course they have âplansâ of using it. But the 10K projection is longer term than the couple of hundred that theyâre actually installing a production line to build, and building the space doesnât represent the same sunk cost investment as building the production lines. If the humanoid robot thing doesnât end up working, they can always pivot the many extra thousand square feet of space to building other products - or even divide the building and lease it to someone else.
This isnât just being pedantic. If Agility was today ramping to build 10K per year production capacity in the near term, it would represent an assessment by a player in the field (backed by Amazon) that there was market demand in the near term for robots with present capabilities for that level of production. It would be a sign from at least one non-trivial player that the humanoid robot market had passed the level of trials and pilots and test programs, and was ready to absorb some mass production. Installing production capacity of a few hundred, though is still in the realm of a much more cautious (and still tentative) examination of whether these things are useful, rather than a major bet that they already are.
1 Like
Out of morbid curiosity, if humanoid robots are so useful, why arenât the robots the ones working in the factory?
1 Like
Some day more so they will be.
The difference between a robot with AI and an arm is like a bunch of computers without the internet. Mobility is needed. Training is needed.
The morbidity is unnecessary. Human creativity will invent more industrial usages for all of us. More wealth is a good thing. If it is greened.
2 Likes
Wait a sec. I thought that was the whole premise of the robot thing - to create a completely automated factory that didnât require humans to make cars. The initial use of the robots was to put them in the Tesla factories.
The whole premise is to bring down costs. To raise productivity which would otherwise cause stress on human flesh.
Iâm going to go sideways here for a moment. Not sure if it will be anything.
Humanoid robots are often mentioned in the same breath with âfast food restaurantsâ, so Iâll use that as an easy illustration. I think the same conclusions may be true for many âfactory linesâ, but weâll see.
If youâve ever seen a documentary or read about how McDonaldâs was invented, then you know that Dick and Mac McDonald came up with the âspeed-eeâ system by designing the kitchen around the work flow - much in the same way as home kitchen designers put the Golden Triangle at the heart of their designs: refrigerator/stove/sink. (To that point restaurant kitchens were built around the cookâs whims.) In short, todayâs fast food production is designed around human capabilities, requiring fewer steps, easier production, simplified systems, and so on. All necessary for cheap labor and volume production. Thereâs a reason fries are near the front and thereâs a buzzer on the fries machine, for instance.
Putting a humanoid robot in here doesnât really change anything, at least insofar as production is concerned. Only so many âbodiesâ can fit in the space. Only so many fry baskets can be dropped (without adding more fryers), and so on.
So maybe it would be nice to have a humanoid robot at the counter (we have all noticed the disappearance of same) but you donât really need at $250,000 robot to do that: you need voice recognition and better AI and more intuitive touch screens or whatever. Unless the humanoid robot accomplishes the mixing of milk shakes, pouring of Cokes, dropping of fries at much better prices (possible) and reliability (also possible, but not assured) then this is a punt.
Now maybe you can redesign the kitchen to take advantage of a standing robot with 8 arms to do many multiples of tasks at once, but thatâs not what weâre talking about, at least not yet. And if youâre going to redesign the kitchen, well, youâre into a long and costly process anyway.
(I note that auto production lines are now similarly built mostly around robotic capabilities, with humans filling in for the tasks which robots canât handle well: insertion of flexible items, fit and finish inspection, and so on. At Amazon the warehouses are designed with shelving designed to be carried around and robots to do the carrying - theyâre not likely to be substituting hundreds of thousands of those little bug robots with humanoids carrying boxes around, although Iâm sure there will be a trifle of that - perhaps to pick up and restock things that fall off the conveyor line or whatever.)
Anyway, the point is that humanoids may replace warm bodies, but only if the cost is really favorable (itâs pretty cheap to hire drones to ask âfries with that?â). There might be more application if production was designed around the robots, but that has to factor into the overall scheme of total production price and quality.
1 Like
Hey, if you have a form factor that can accomplish what a humanoid Bot can do but better, you should contact Boston Dynamics to see if they will buy your idea.
Weâve only just achieved the technology to make robots that can behave like humans. The robotic hand is one example where new actuators and pressure sensors allow dexterity approaching humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=logovkS6kBE
AI is another.
There are no doubt some cases where humans can be completely replaced. But there are probably many more cases where humans will be working together with the bots. The stated objective of all these humanoid robotic companies is not to completely replace humans from the workforce. It is to automate tasks that are repetitive, tedious, or dangerous so as to allow humans to do other things.
2 Likes
Iâm pretty sure that Musk has said his vision for Tesla car factories is for them to be completely automated. No humans in sight.
Has he changed his mind on that goal?
To answer the specific question, thereâs something of a spectrum of how humanoid a âhumanoid robotâ is - and the Agility robots arenât humanoid enough to be working as assembly-line workers. Their Digit robots are somewhat humanoid, but theyâre not nearly as human-like as something like an Optimus or Figure. They donât have hands with fingers (just a gripping âpadâ), and their arms arenât nearly as articulated (and thus donât have the variety of movement) as a human arm - and of course their legs are structured completely differently. Their bodies couldnât be used to drive a forklift or use a screwdriver.
Their design allows them to possibly be warehouse workers, but not assembly workers.
1 Like
Beats me, but Iâm not sure why this matters. Musk apparently feels that the best way to increase automation in Teslaâs factories (completely or not) is with humanoid as opposed to specialized robots.
You seem wedded to the status quo, specialized robots that do one thing. As I noted before, thatâs how Toyota and GM make their gas powered cars, which works well as long as the technology doesnât change significantly. But if it does, good luck.
But I think the world is changing with the key to economic success for most companies the capacity to rapidly adapt and take advantage of those changes. Tough to do if your manufacturing infrastructure is based on machines with limited abilities.
Perhaps this quote is appropriate?
{ In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
Patti Smith}
I wonder if Dyson Spheres will have any carbon based organic living âbeingsâ?
A âmachine that builds the machinesâ might conceptually/theoretically be 100% automated/robotic, but I suspect weâll have to keep some humans around for the foreseeable future just for the balance and stealth?
Sorta like the Borg.
ralph
We (humans) keep imagining aliens as âlivingâ creatures that "evolved " on some other planet. But, what if they are actually âAI robotsâ that are the result of ânatural selectionâ from âorganicâ lifeforms?
1 Like
Everything has to start somewhere Peter. This is just the start of a new paradigm. I think they will be working in the factories as helpers to the other workers. Every human will be the foreman over many robots.
Andy
1 Like
No that is why they are going with a humanoid form. It is so they can work with humans. Otherwise if it was just going to be a robotic factory and no human would enter, than I would agree, there isnât a need for the humanoid form.
Andy
Why do they need a humanoid form to work with humans? Humans work with robots that donât have a humanoid form all the time. Many factories are filled with robots (and other machines). Teslaâs factories are filled with robots.
1 Like