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Comment by tedchs | Hacker News Reader

Article seems to speak out both sides of its mouth, that robots are going away for Mercedes, and also that tons of small robots are being added. Anybody else get that takeaway?

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My takeaway:

They are removing robots that are cordoned off into areas to keep workers safe. These robots are not very good at customizing/changing quickly.

What they are being replaced with is people and much smaller robots that work side-by-side with those people. Assisting more than trying to do it all.

Sounds like a business opportunity to build better robots.

The large Robot manufactures such as ABB are already working on such solutions: http://new.abb.com/products/robotics/yumi

The real billion dollar idea is robots which don't need engineers to instruct them. These robots will simply learn from humans who literally show them e.g. how to pick parts from a conveyor and put them in wire mesh crates.

This robot almost does this, you take its hands and 'show' it what is should do.

That is what Rod Brooks is pushing with Rethink. We'll see if it works.

Fanuc also has a collaborative robot:

http://www.fanuc.eu/de/en/robots/robot-filter-page/collabora...

I think the takeaway is:

Humans assisted with robots are superior to just robots when the variety is high.

Yup. Though I have to think that people are also more likely to make a mistake and your custom car might show up with the standard cup holder when you ordered the heated. The robot might be inefficient at doing the variety of tasks required for such customization, but it is certainly better at keeping track of just what ought to be done.

Isn't this just the consequence of booming luxury car sales as the rich-poor gap widens?

http://fortune.com/2015/02/17/luxury-car-sales/

Luxury car brands get more sales therefore they need to compete fast and don't have time for automation.

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