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Comment by Closi | Hacker News Reader

> Taking control of $100,000 robots to manufacture does have value at the high-end, but still can't compete with humans at the low end.

The problem with robots isn't the physical cost vs a human, it's the task flexibility & cost to program.

This is something that could also theoretically be solved with AI in the (fairly close) future.

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I worked in a semi automated assembly line. We,as workers were pretty good at keeping the robots running and knowing their quirks and my supervisor was even more knowledgeable. Despite this we still had to call up an engineer daily to trouble shoot why the robots were revolting. AI is not remotely near solving this.

Disagree - AI is getting much closer to solving this fast.

Latest generation robotic arms with vision are taking on a greater variety of tasks (e.g. bin/case picking from a mixed tote), more reliably, with a better ability to adaptively recover failed tasks.

The progress here are about not needing parts/items to be in a predictable/consistent location and still understanding how to handle/retrieve them and perform actions on them. This stuff is in sites right now.

picking stuff from bins is a far stretch from a full assembly line production. Latest generation arms are surely being developed but the are far from fitting affordability profiles for the average American factory. It sounds great when you are reading it but fabrication is not like picking stuff from bins. The colossal amount of programming for every human task that is performed in a factory that builds compressors would be a dauntingly expensive enterprise even without counting the physical robotic equipement that would be needed. Theory and practice don't always correlate.

Heres a small example. In one position the compressor gets scanned and rolls up to the operator.The label needs to be smoothed around the rounded compressor (it has been left standing out at previous stations because the scanners have a hard time catching them otherwise). The scan reads the style of compressor and this lights up parts bins so the operator knows which parts are required. There are two different types of screws and also a ground screw so the robot would need to be fitted with the ability to pick scews and screw them in. They would also need to apply plugs clips inserts, caps, connect wire ends, apply two different kinds of stickers and put a clip on cover that requires finesse to get clipped in all the way without cracking the plastic. Also the the final piece needs to be checked for paint flaws or visual weld defects. All these actions are done by a good operator in under a half a minute. And this is just one station in one part of the assembly line. Sure its possible, but practical or cost effective, not really.

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