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Comment by jamala1 | Hacker News Reader

Chinese Unitree's demos are better by now imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dFTc4W8wm0

Unitree is catching up to Boston Dynamics in locomotion, but has not surpassed them yet I think. Unitree's real advantage is the much lower cost of their hardware and their ability to mass produce their robots.

But IMO manipulation is harder than locomotion, both in hardware and software, and neither company is convincingly ahead there. I think the uncut laundry demo from Physical Intelligence a few days ago is better than anything shown by Unitree or BD for manipulation. https://www.physicalintelligence.company/blog/pi0#:~:text=Af....

I don't really want a robot wandering around doing laundry. I think what most people want is a box you dump clothes in and they come out folded, an extra machine next to the dryer. That would be a genuine time saver. I hate scaling Mount Foldmore.

Well the robot is that machine....and much more.

I don't want more machines taking up space in my home. I don't want a bunch of special purpose "smart" devices with buggy software and dedicated apps requiring logins and firmware updates to plug security holes. I want one robot that can do it all. I'd get rid of my security system, cameras, smart thermostat, dishwasher, clothes washer, stand mixer, toaster, etc etc.

I put the laundry on this morning, came into the kitchen and got a bread mix going, made some toast while that was mixing. The dishwasher was just finishing. Having to wait for one machine to serially finish doing each job not quite as well as a dedicated machine, before doing the next job, doesn't sound ideal. Plus when the dishwasher breaks I can still have toast.

The robot can do the dishes and the laundry while you aren't even there. No need for that to happen during breakfast! It can start making breakfast before you even wake up, if you want.

The horror!

Clearly it’s not easy to solve the folding machine problem because otherwise we would have one of those already. I absolutely wouldn’t mind a robot helper walking around the house and going what my maid currently does.

Not at the level of dumping a basket of dryer clothes into a folding machine but getting close:

https://foldimate.website/

I took a look. It seems that the original company folded (ha) in 2021 and I'm not sure who owns it now or what the level of support would be like.

Why do robot companies insist on beating up their robots?

Because that's what you'll do when you have a bad day, and this piece of trash gets stuck for the 5th time this week.

They put a lot of work into the control algorithms that allow the robots to move. From a control theory perspective, being hit is a disturbance that the control system is able to reject to maintain the intended pose/motion.

It also shows the strength of the hardware. Unitree sells the hardware so it's a hardware demo as much as a software one.

You have to make sure that robots know their place. Today you treat them too gently, tomorrow you have a robot uprising destroying the whole humanity on your hands.

Haven't the last century of sci-fi books and movies taught you this?

Unitree products feel like oversized toys, not serious research platforms.

What? The humanoid robot in the video is walking on the most even surface possible. Boston Dynamics has a more impressive walking video from 11 years ago (obviously restricted by the hardware at the time): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8

Yes, human-looking gait is nice, but it isn't worth anything if it can't translate to real-world settings.

LMAO Boston Dynamics used to have a guy randomly coming into the frame and giving the robot a kick and show it could recover, Unitree goes all-out kung fu on them.

Something rubs me the wrong way when the dog is hit and kicked, and we don't have a dog. I know it's a robot but the same could be demonstrated without clear violence.

Maybe it's just me..

Unfortunately some humans are just violent in nature. Or perhaps most. When robots become as intelligent as humans, some people might enjoy abusing them like they once enjoyed abusing people of different skin color.

It is expected that some humans will not accept robots walking among the public. So they have to be vandalism-proof.

However, the guy in the video is attacking the robot in the wrong way. He should be using a spray paint can instead of a baseball bat.

what if the robot has little vials of acetone, IPA, etc. to wash off its lenses, while switching to mm-wave vision (not even dead reackoning) returns the favor to the offending human while cleaning its lens...

Plus at least 10x cheaper!

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