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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again. Factories that have already heavily robotized their production, employ a minimal amount of humans to do niche work. It's going to be immensely difficult to replace that niche work with any kind of robot, let alone humanoids.

These humanoid robots (or generally limbed robots) could be useful for the two sectors that are craving for cheap workers, worldwide: agriculture and construction. Yet all the demos i see are fragile lightweight robots not made for rugged work. That makes me conclude that the whole sector is currently like the Metaverse.

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Imagine LLMs reach their potential and the general field of 'cognitive work' starts to be able to be largely automated. What happens then? I think there's some precedent with the Industrial Revolution. The increased productivity and the like did lead to some 'super farms' and the like, but the real change is that it left a vacuum in the economy. That vacuum was filled by industry such that even the 'super farms' started to be a vanishingly small part of the overall economy.

I think the same will happen with LLMs. They're going to create a vacuum in the economy, on a global level. And I think what will come next is something in the real world (as opposed to the digital) filling it. Humanoid robots might be myopic, but I think it's, at worst, a pretty decent guess. One basic goal would be able to automate typical service jobs, both in terms of normal employment - but also even within households. A low cost highly capable robotic maid would have a massive market.

I'm hand-waving away the dystopia of this all, because I ultimately think humans will still play a key role - but trying to predict what that role may be is impossible from where we're standing. Imagine trying to predict the consequences of mass industrialization when you've lived you're entire life in an agrarian society. There's just no real basis for an intelligent prediction, besides 'way different.'

You're saying the vacuum in the economy (people without an income source) will be filled by something else that leaves people without an income source? Who's paying for the robots? If people find themselves with more time than money, they're not going to buy robots to free up more time

Take yourself back to agrarian society, and imagine hearing that in the future there'd be trillions of dollars being spent to try to force people to watch a video or look at a picture for a product - advertising in other words. It'd sound absurd - to some degree it still does when you think about in these terms.

I imagine the future will be similar. It's difficult to predict what will be valued in a world where cognitive work can be largely automated, and then after that we may even begin to see basic physical work (like service labor) start to be automated as well. All that's ultimately going to do is send the value of those industries to relatively near zero, exactly as happened with agricultural work. What will fill the vacuum? I think it's impossible to predict besides 'something.'

A LOT of real humans still assemble machines across the globe. Probably also what you have at home.

There are plenty of YouTube videos available were you can see how many hands a rice cooker is going through.

And we talk about a real robot costing 5 figures being able to shown what it should do and then it just does it 24/7.

It will fill the gap of no automatisation to full automatisation.

Besides that, in theory it would also allow the remote-gig economy: A robot at home, a helper sitting somewere else.

Take some random problem: You want some automatistaion for painting a wall. What do you do? You buy the full automat from a special company which comes with its own support contract, and fllow up costs.

Now you buy one 5 figure robot, explain to them that they should paint the room and they will do it. Not today, but do you think this will take 50 years and is a non solvable problem? I don't.

It works 24/7 till it breaks down or gets stuck in a situation it was trained for then the company that purchased it will likely have to wait at least days if not weeks for a repair tech to come down and fix it or adjust its training data.

I feel so many people bullish on these robots has never worked on physical things so they have this rosy picture of the smooth sailing once they get their humanoid robots delivered that it's going to just work forever without effort or input.

Wouldn't they just send another robot to fix or replace it?

Can't imagine that going wrong /s

But can you imagine it going right?

Eventually maybe but not in the next few decades

Even with just teleoperation, the first robotics companies are poised to have some of the most efficient in-field technician operations, as long as there are at least two robots on site.

Only if it is and stay a nice product. Not with mass market.

And as hard as physical things are, i assumed that the first robots would cost 7 figures they are already at 5.

It will not take 50 years to have a generic AGI style Robot walking around.

These machine assembling robots would be more expensive than the humans in those countries. And there is no shortage of humans willing to do that job.

There is , however, real shortage of humans for agri and construction , in the rich world, right now.

> You want some automatistaion for painting a wall

You call over someone with a spraying machine that paints the house in 30 minutes.

> I dont get the investment in humanoids beyond trying to create some kind of stock market bubble again.

Our entire world is heavily adjusted towards bipedal humanoid creatures. Having a moving humanoid tool who could replace some of our physical tasks without the need to build additional infrastructure in proximity around it is BIG. Noting your reservation about fragility, even the possibility of cheap construction and agriculture work is VERY BIG.

Is it?

Bipedal is the easiest one: very few environments require 2 feet in particular. Sure, ability to cross uneven terrain is needed, but this can be done with 3, 4 or 8 feet. But in a lot of places, including most of the retail and a lot of factories, all one needs is an ability to move on flat surface and cross door thresholds (thanks to ADA, no stair climbing required). And than can work just fine with large wheels, or tracks. On the other hand with something like construction, you probably want many appendages with some sort of climbing attachments?

The "top" part of humanoid is more integrated into the world: our human infrastructure is really built for beings just under 2m high, and a many of actions need at least 2 human-like hands, with at least the same reach as humans (~3/8 body height long, attached at ~7/8 body height). But this is just a minimum - a lot of things would work better with 3 hands, or maybe with dissimilar hands - one "strong", one "fine manipulation" and one "misc"? I certainly wished to have a 3rd hand when building something...

And not to mention those robots will require an expensive subscription and maintenance contract which I’d imagine wouldn’t actually save money vs traditional labor. Any company that can optimize labor costs pretty much already has to the point of diminishing returns.

The only sector I see any of these selling in any meaningful number is military and police.

Literally crawl, walk, run... fight?

The physical world is currently designed for human interaction, and people who want to make money see the potential to replace humans with property. They'll get there.

"Your scientists were thinking so much about whether they could, they didn't stop to ask if they should".

Sexbots. That's it, that's the whole thing. And slaves in general but yeah.

pretty much the closest thing to the case where a human form is required.

This came across my feed today so you can see where they are going with it: https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1w51b0a/yoga_robo...

They’re probably hoping for some hardware version of the software “bitter lesson”

I think it’s probably also easier to raise money on a humanoid robot because everyone has some intuitive understanding of the form.

In the united states, workers have traditionally been super expensive to the point that manual labor such as manufacturing has all been exported.

could any of this be reversed?

>could any of this be reversed?

Unless Americans are willing to work for the same wages, the same hours and under the same conditions, no. Most of those jobs have already been replaced with automation anyway.

But the point is, could the exported jobs be re-imported with easier automation.

China has cheaper energy, why wouldn't companies go there to produce even cheaper?

US is expensive compared to what?

You are discounting iteration. Today they are fragile and lightweight. Tomorrow they will have better actuators, pneumatic/McKibben muscles, etc.

You can't imagine a more useful Roomba?

I think for safety reasons, we won't want any home robots to be very strong. Just precise.

Housework is the obvious use case.

Hands yes, for all the human actuated things. You don't need 2 legs to do that. Cantilevered wheels might be better for stair climbing around the house.

A better obvious use case for fully humanoid is vehicles. Jump into a forklift, combine, or golf cart and be immediately productive. Then jump out and a human can use the vehicle still.

That seems kind of nuts when you could stick a few solenoids on the pedals and steering wheel, mount the sensors from the head onto the chassis, and skip the need for a humanoid robot.

You could say the same about the dishwasher, lathe, and whatever else. I guess the use case is a humanoid bot can use all the human things without modifying them.

But is it the most profitable

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