Comment by arjie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arjie | Hacker News Reader

All my life I've loved robotics, so I was very eager to get things in the house, but my primary problem with humanoid robots is that they're very different from my Roomba-successor Dreame vacuum in a crucial way: they can fall. The Dreame can occupy the same space as my toddler, but the more industrial grade robotics machines cannot. The Unitree Sun Wukong is unbelievably impressive and I could completely imagine a world where it replaces humans in existing dangerous spaces without requiring the spaces themselves retooled. But in my house, perhaps the future will be like what these guys say and I'll have an Eka Claw on my kitchen counter and another by my washing machine, and so on.

In the classic example of old-guy-gets-surprised-by-new-tech, I bet people will find a way around the problem: but the thing has to be powerful to be fast, and if it's powerful it can hurt.

Who can tell. It was just prior to the pandemic when I was showing my wife talktotransformer.com and thinking about how much needs to be solved before it's useful. More fool am I HAHA!

All I want is a machine that I can drop ingredients in it and it can give me a delicious meal

And another that I can just drop all my clothes in, and have them washed and ironed for me.

Doesn't have to be a humanoid.

If you like smoothies, I think I've got something for you!

> All I want is a machine that I can drop ingredients in it and it can give me a delicious meal

https://www.thermomix.com/

> In 1971, the original Thermomix VM 2000 was launched on the market – first in France, later in Spain and Italy.

There are also robotic versions like Nosh One where you just need to insert the chopped ingredients and it sequences the cooking operations for you.

Thermomix isn't what you describe, but it spared me so much time...

I don't see a future with humanoid robots inside the house. We probably will have specialized robots for certain task like the roombas.

I fully expect to buy one within the next three years. Probably Optimus 4, depending on the price.

> in a crucial way: they can fall.

The question is do they fall and can't get back up

The main issue is how heavy duty they are, because they operate on lithium batteries you can't make them too heavy otherwise it burns battery. So these humanoid robots durability will be closely aligned with innovation in lithium battery tech, or having larger and expensive robots with lots of battery.

I think he meant it can fall onto his toddler, causing injury.

Could we not simply encase the weaker unit some kind of armored robotic shell?

Then we would need better baby-gates. But that might lead to escalating scenarios.

Tragedy of the commons toddler armor. Can you guys fucking not? It’s best to death. I’d rather have a Ford vs Chevy vs Ram conversation again.

Might as well put an AI chip in the toddler's exosuit and get another bot

That's not a robot problem, that's a toddler problem.

We don't leave our young toddlers to roam freely around the house for a reason. Our homes are full of hazards to these risk-seeking small people and a robot is just one more on the list.

So, staple the toddler onto the kitchen counter, so that the humanoid cooking robot can get free run of the house, got it

Well, if that is how you manage other hazards in the home, then yes.

I would recommend another approach though. We decided for making changes to our home to allow our toddler to be safe in our home environment without being notably constrained.

Not that big of a problem, right? Just put a lot of power sockets throughout the workspace. Robot gets to its work station, can be tethered and recharge when it's operating there. Similarly in a household.

I think the focus has been on lowering mass so that they can move quickly with low kinetic energy.

Meanwhile the Roomba-successor robots that I've tried still get tangled up on our laptop charger cables and wedged under the coffee table.

I got given a Huawei one for free which I found useful while I had a housemate with a cat since the place needed a vacuum almost twice a day. But after he moved out I just went back to vacuuming manually since it’s easier than having to scan the floor for every cable or throw rug it might get jammed on.

I don’t want to say home robotics will never happen since it seems likely eventually it will. But I think the deployment will be much much slower than entirely software based products like ChatGPT.

You won’t have an eka claw. You will have a humanoid. It’s a no brainer. You will get used to the “danger” just like we got used to the danger involved in driving a car or ceiling fans or propane home heating. Every year you’ll have a handful of injuries/deaths but eventually because of how useful they are no one will care and rightfully so.

Well, except we have 5 decades of cautionary tales in film that show plausible ways this goes sideways when everything is connected to the internet.

what's the danger involved with ceiling fans (unless you are Korean)?

now that I think about it I can only remember videos of people doing really stupid things with them, then being surprised by really bad results, but never heard about any of them endangering anyone during normal operation

In rooms with low ceilings people can sometimes get hit if they’re standing on their beds. Basically the point I’m trying to make is you have something with metal blades spinning really fast only a few feet above your head.

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