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Comment by skeledrew | Hacker News Reader

There will be no escape. Prepare to be outperformed in all the things.

Nah. What's often overlooked when seeing these (mostly) propaganda events is the fact that the actual autonomy of these machines is still lacking.

We've had purpose-built machines that outperform every human at specific tasks for over a century now. Just because a subset that's popular these days (the "humanoid" and dog-like variants) invoke some psychological and cultural (we've been primed by media for over 150 years at this point) fears, doesn't make them more capable than they seem.

Sure, the thing can run real fast, but looking at it, that's pretty much all it actually can do. In contrast to a boring old industrial robot, though, being able to win a half-marathon or a 100m dash against any hypothetical human isn't all that useful, no?

Given its form factor there is already a ton of active research into developments that would be just about plug and play. Hands with coordination for example.

True. Physical capabilities can be added with ease. The actual problem isn't the actuators anymore, though. Very useful for a remote controlled puppet ala "Surrogates" (the film), still not quite there yet when it comes to performing even simple tasks autonomously.

Emptying a washing machine located in the cellar/basement, taking the clothes to a room on the ground floor, folding and sorting them before putting them in the closet still is quite the challenge.

Wirelessly hooking such robot up to a data centre running heavy machine learning models isn't a proper solution either, because in contrast to digital agents, latency matters quite a bit in physical interactions.

Of course it's still lacking. In contrast, how long does it take for a human to go from birth to being able to break any world records? How many years of dedication just to hone themself for that particular thing? And is a human breaking a record any more "useful" than a machine breaking it?

Once you lay down the coolaid for a second you'd realize that the whole point of the human experience has little to do with its "usefulness". But you'd have to redo your civic education and maybe socialize first for that to finally hit.

Ah, someone who doesn't have a valid argument but feels compelled to argue anyway, and so resorts to personal attacks. I know, it sucks to be in such a position. But you'll feel better once you accept reality. Buck up.

Ah, someone who doesn't have a valid argument but feels compelled to retort anyway, and so resorts to vague-posting about some higher-level point they supposedly hold. Drink up.

I'm ready since I was born. I'm including the times when people were better than machines at anything into Middle Ages. I hope I'll live long enough so I can see civilization finally exit them.

My bar is the Kilian Jornet test. Once a humanoid robot can do everything he’s done within the same time constraints it’s officially over.

Until then human is the best at navigating and moving across various terrain.

Not in feeling emotions.

You won't be outperformed in humanity. And that's precisely the point. People will start rejecting AI and robots en masse, because they'll get disgusted by it, the same way you are disgusted when eating a "powder shake" kind of meal compared to a whole, earthy, flavorful, home-made meal

Workers hated the factories of the Industrial Revolution but the masses also wanted those sweet sweet high quality textiles that were tighter knit and lasted longer than anything handspun. The same will happen for AI.

Also, further counterpoint, if we reject industrial produced food, who spent $139 billion at McDonald’s in 2025?

If people were rejecting them en masse now we might have a chance to reverse this

As it stands I am not hopeful. I believe the frog will be well and truly boiled long before we reach the rejection en masse stage and it will be too late to change course

> humanity

What does that even mean?

BTW I consumed Soylent regularly for several years while living in the US and was never "disgusted" by it. Would love to get my hands on some now as it's been so long. You should watch your arguments.

What does "watch your arguments" even mean? It's just "Dont say anything I disagree with" with a threatening tone.

Why bother asking a question you already have your preferred straw man answer to?

For many humans "watch your arguments" carries the same tone as "pay attention to those boxes you're standing on".

A reasonable assumption here would be the GP questioning the assumed universal truth of:

  the same way [ all people ]  are disgusted when eating a "powder shake" kind of meal compared to a whole, earthy, flavorful, home-made meal

That's what she said

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