BREAKING: NVIDIA DROPS Bombshell DEMOS of 9 Humanoids!
As a Tesla investor I though for a time that Tesla had a clear advantage over the competition. With Nvidia providing the training the odds have changed. While watching the video I was thinking how this might impact Tesla.
Using history I went back to the coming of age of the Personal Computer (PC). It was IBM that put the stamp of approval on the innovation in 1984 when it entered (half-assed) into the market. The result was
What this tells me is that the nine hardware entrants are irrelevant, the competition for Tesla are Nvidia and Open AI.
The advantage Tesla has is their vertical integration, Tesla does not need customers, it has lots of factories to put Optimus to work, and in-house manufacturing of Optimus. This reduces the logistics problem of dealing with multiple parties.
The Captain
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Based on the news AMD, ARM, and TSLA were hit hard at the market open but have rebounded nicely. I have short call positions in AMD and ARM expiring this Friday. The Nvidia announcement brought the shares down close to the strike price which is where I want them (180, 125).
How can anyone deny that Humanoid Robots are actually being made? 9 humanoid robots from 9 different companies. This is not an outlier but something that is actually happening and NVDA is going to propel this into the main stream.
Is there anyone out there denying that humanoid robots are actually being made? I mean, Asimoâs been around for two decades, and Boston Dynamicâs Atlas videos always went pretty viral.
Several of us disagreed whether humanoid robots are anywhere near being ready to be a commercial product, but not whether they are actually being made.
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.
I recommend Martha Wells Murder Bot series. All Systems Red is the first book. They are a mix of novels and novellas and explore human, augmented, human, and cyborg relations in a world where corporations are governments. Becky Chambersâ Monk and Robot series beginning with Psalm for the Wild Built is also a great look at robot human relations after the robots decide humans are not worth working for.
Uhm, take AI with robotics and add an intense interest in life extension --âimmortalityâ â amongst the Siliconistas of every nation and you get:
CYBORGS!
If you want to be tougher stronger hyper-sensitive and quasi-eternal, you start by looting proven humanoid robots that already have the capabilities you want, can replace your biological parts with little alteration, and are already designed as humanâŚoid.
Give it another 5 - 10 years and a CyMuskborg might be leaving for Mars.
Yep. I think you misunderstood the argument. Of course humanoid robots are and have been made. Asimoâs been around for a quarter-century. We talked about them in that thread. The discussion was about whether humanoid robots have a use case yet - whether thereâs any commercially viable reason to make a robot in a humanoid form (other than aesthetics - plenty of uber-rich people will pay for a high-tech âtoyâ for a while).
Itâs easy to see the benefit of humanoid robots for Nvidia. Generate excitement! Sell more chips! But still nothing there showing why these robots need to have legs rather than wheels, or have their trunks shaped like a torso and head rather than a cylinder.
That is my whole point all along. You have said that there is no use point, that it is just a fad. But now there is 9 separate companies doing it and NVDA just made a foundry and training facility to train robots.
Amazon is using humanoid robots in itâs facility as we speak. Humanoid robots are being implemented in Mercedes assembly line. All of this is happening now and is just the start. We havenât even begun the hype cycle on humanoid robots, when it gets here , and then it deflates doesnât mean that people wonât be using humanoid robots, it just means it is starting its next leg of being implemented into human society.
NVDA doesnât need to sell more chips, they only need to make more chips. They sell all they make. What you keep forgetting is that there is more than just NVDA involved in this. NVDA doesnât even make the robots.
Andy
Sure. Doesnât mean thereâs a use case for them yet. There were lots of companies making 3D TVâs. Quite a few companies made smart augmented reality glasses back in the day. I canât remember how many âBlockchain of Xâ companies there were. Sometimes the tech just doesnât have the capabilities yet to do what it needs to do to be useful.
This is not all that uncommon. There are loads of examples of people trying to bring to market a product that just needs a decade or more of improved technology before it can really do what needs to be done to be a viable commercial product. Early PDAâs in the mid 1980âs, the EV1 in the mid-1990âsâŚboth would eventually become widespread products, but you couldnât really build those products with the level of tech available then. The PDA wasnât really ready until there were significant advances in touchscreens and computing power, and EVâs needed better batteries (something better than lead-acid batteries).
Lots of companies experimenting with humanoid robots, seeing what they can make them do. Doesnât mean any of them will develop a product with a good enough brain to do enough to justify the humanoid form.
Lots of companies making computers, lots of companies making electric cars, lots of companies making ICE engines. But none of them have proven a use case yet? That seems really weird to say, doesnât it.
When they have implemented them into their production process it is no longer an experiment. The experiment was the trial period.
They havenât proved me wrong. Theyâre trying the things out. Itâs not like theyâre deploying them at scale, like they do with all the tens of thousands of other robots Amazon already deploys, or the thousands that Mercedes does. A pilot project is just that - a pilot project.
Sure - only because theyâve made and sold millions and millions of those things. We know a computer with the capabilities we can build into a computer ,is useful for lots of things. But a humanoid robot with the capabilities we can put into the âbrainâ today, or even the immediate future?
Actually that is exactly what they are doing. Like I said it is no longer a pilot project. It is now in the implementation phase.
But back when IBM came out with the first computers people were scoffing about people having computers in their homes, now I have 4 computers. People always get it wrong and until it is completely implemented in every fabric of society they scoff. Then when it is completely implemented they say âSure but everyone could see that it was something that we all would need.â Itâs just like the electric car with Musk. Everyone thought he was going to fail until he didnât.
Ahh maybe that is why you are having a hard time seeing what is already done. You expect the Humanoid robots to be like the Terminator or act exactly like Humans? You expect them to have âbrainsâ that can match a human at every possible, conceivable, action? Well then you are right, they donât have those types of Humanoid robots.
They donât always get it wrong. When the Segway came out, people scoffed that it didnât meet any real need, relative to the price. And the people were right. When the Google Glass came out, people scoffed that it had a bunch of intrusive aspects that werenât worth the limited capabilities it offered. And the people were right. I wonât get into all the many things that blockchain was expected to be able to do, where people pointed out that blockchain didnât add anything of value. Sometimes, products just donât match what they would need to have in order to be useful.
Not at all. I merely point out that unless they have a sufficient amount of capability, thereâs no benefit to them having a humanoid form compared to a purpose-built robot. The brain doesnât have to act exactly like a human - or even similar to a human. But it has to have the ability to do the sorts of tasks that a human form is necessary for, in a way that creates value for the owner.
So, for example, if what the owner needs is for a robot to do one thing, in one location, at all times, a humanoid form isnât necessary (trivially, it wonât need legs, and almost certainly doesnât need to have the body shaped with a differentiated torso and head). If what the owner needs is for a robot to be able to do multiple things in different locations, the robot has to have the âbrainâ to let it do those multiple things in different locations. I think weâre still quite a long ways from the âbrainâ part, which makes the âbodyâ part rather useless.
3D TV
Zeppelins
Solar roads
New Coke
Laserdisc
Supersonic and hypersonic transport
The Master Race
XFL
The hunt for âWeapons of Mass Destructionâ
WebTV
Fyre Festival
Edsel
Y2K
The Arch DeLuxe
Brexit
Lots more, too. Just had to sit and think about all the great predictions and products that never came true. My favorite, which I save for last, was how the Internet was going to make people smarter, and we would all come to understand everyone better.
One application where a humanoid robot might make sense is in the personal care field. That doesnât mean it has to be exactly humanoid, but more or less. For example caretaking of elders. If a humanoid robot can help keep a person clean, keeping their abode clean, watch over them for signs of falling, make sure they eat properly, make sure they are adequately intellectually stimulated for their level, etc. If a robot can help you out of bed, help you clean yourself properly, assist you to prevent falling, etc then why not? In fact, Iâm pretty sure a robot would be far more vigilant than a human.
Another application might be lifeguarding. I only mention it because I swim a few times a week, and on Monday I noticed that the one lifeguard they had on duty stepped outside briefly while I was swimming laps. When a group of kids come to the pools, they add a second lifeguard of course. A robot lifeguard would surely be more vigilant that a human one.
As far as operating machinery, I donât see why the human form is necessary. Most modern machinery can be directly operated via âwireâ, those controls you see were simply added for us humans, due to our form, but they arenât really a necessary part of the machinery. For example, a robot operated vehicle wonât need the steering wheel, the brake pedal, or the accelerator, because it would operate those devices (steering, brakes, and accelerator) directly.
