Hacker News Reader

Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

> a baby some robot neglects to prevent from falling off the changing table

that is when we think about 2 handed robots. 6 handed robot can easily have 2-3 hands assigned to tightly keeping the baby. Humanoid robots are handicapped by their similarity to humans which is really an artificial constraint. After all we aren't building airplanes using birds as the blueprint.

On the similar note - while not about baby, was just rewatching an early Bing Bang Theory season with this episode where Howard "falls right into the mechanical hand"

View on HN

> Humanoid robots are handicapped by their similarity to humans which is really an artificial constraint.

YES, and I wish people would stop pretending we've unlocked some new generality by promoting generic humanoid robots over task-specific ones.

You can probably Rube-Goldberg your way to a diaper-changing robotic enclosure with a 3D baby bidet that uses many low-force robot arms to subdue (most) babies, but a humanoid robot is a very a poor substitute for a human here.

Plus, a human can take personal responsibility for the baby's safety, which is not something a robot can ever do, unless we somehow make the robot fear for its life/freedom/employment the same way the overarching social/legal system does for humans who sign contracts or accept highly accountable roles.

Wow, you want to coordinate six hands? How are you going to do that? Are you going to get a spider to teleoperate the robot to train it?

won't the baby feel dis-abled by only having two arms?

On the other hand - the baby will from the beginning develop an instinct to keep track of 6 hands flying around instead of just 2. Will help in future street fights :)

In general, looking at the AI coding agents i think we all either already feel or soon will feel disabled. And honestly i think human race with its perception of itself as the "top of the Creation" is due for a modesty lesson to help speed up the evolution. We're spending tremendous resources unproductively, be it wars or just ineffective economies, etc. We don't feel the urge to develop our civilization and to evolve ourselves in all aspects - from mental and biological to cyber-integration. The Mother Nature doesn't like such relaxed species.

Are you suggesting baby exoskeletons?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com