Yep. I work in prosthetics, people tend to overestimate current battery technology and underestimate how much energy it takes to move around a couple hundred pounds.
Even with batteries that cost a small fortune, we haven’t been able to create a lower limb powered prosthetic that can keep up with the human body for more than a couple hours.
There’s a lot of hype about the humanoid robotics coming out of China, but most everything is just marketing science fiction. Once you factor in the initial cost, power consumption for processing data, multiple batteries per unit, and the massive amount of general maintenance… It becomes pretty apparent that things aren’t going to pan out anytime soon.
I build limbs out of reinforced carbon fiber and titanium and even those acquire a ton of wear in a relatively small amount of time. Any bipedal robot with plastic parts, made to do intensive labour is going to start falling apart almost immediately. The human body takes a ton of damage throughout the day as well, but it’s self repairing.
The equation changes a lot when you start altering the assumptions.
Who says the robots have to have batteries? Human workers drag power cables all over construction sites. Why can’t a robot be built that’s smart enough to manage its own power cord? Power cord management seems simple compared to doing meaningful construction work.
The wear and tear is a legitimate concern, but fixed industrial robots have been operating for many decades. The wear issues are obviously solvable in the right context.
Keep in mind, prosthetics may not be the perfect analogy. We imagine these things as humanoid, but they need not be. You might have a drywall hanging robot that has suction cups to lift up panels and a screw gun to affix them. They might not even have legs. A welding robot could just be a welding tool on the end of a long boom arm.
There’s really no need to even make general purpose robots. It’s not like individual humans practice every trade. You could have trade-specific robots. A drywall robot, a plumber robot, an electrician bot, etc. Each equipped only with those tools needed to complete just that trade. And instead of mechanical hands, they could simply be mounted.
I would agree that humanoid battery powered robots are not likely to result in mass employment in construction any time soon. But if you start relaxing those constraints, the possibility for mass worker displacement exists. A robotic construction site need not visibly resemble a human one.
Human workers drag power cables all over construction sites. Why can’t a robot be built that’s smart enough to manage its own power cord? Power cord management seems simple compared to doing meaningful construction work.
I’m sure it seems simple from your desk
One thing: do you think that those power cables are permanently connected to the workers? Are you thinking about workers using extension cords for tools or the ones laying cable for the building, because it sure as fuck isn’t simple to do either, which is why battery and petrol powered tools exist, and why the cableways are planned well in advance.
The wear and tear is a legitimate concern, but fixed industrial robots have been operating for many decades.
Only with maintenance and servicing by a human trained to see every potential flaw and monitor the equipment long term. Nothing, not even the most expensive equipment you can imagine, is without the need for regular maintenance.
You could have trade-specific robots. A drywall robot, a plumber robot, an electrician bot, etc. Each equipped only with those tools needed to complete just that trade. And instead of mechanical hands, they could simply be mounted.
Do you think that a construction site works the same way as a factory building cars? Just one long conveyors that shits out a fully built house? Workers move up, down and across the building dozens of times a day in a job doing multiple different jobs within their field, problem solving on the fly.
Interesting take. I guess I just realized every video we’ve ever seen of humanoid robots had been them doing something for a few minutes. But you never hear of one doing anything for days, months or years outside of science fiction.
Bipedal robots are kinda stuck in between a design flaw of what we want robots to look like, what we want robots to do, and what our technology is currently able to do.
Bipedal locomotion is just not the most efficient or simple mode of mobility for things like a flat factory floor, it’s really only efficient when you are factoring unleveled ground. We just currently don’t have the technology that allows bipedal efficiency across all terrain. That would require a synergistic system of optics and something that mimic propeoception. That’s a ton of information being sent from a vast network of sensory input being sorted out by your spine and brain in real time.
Imo robots for a factory floor should be on tracks or wheels. Attempting to design a robot that’s good for everything is just going to lead to a robot that is good for nothing. In engineering design should be made to fit a solution, designing for form and then trying to find a solution that form can solve is backwards and typically leads to terrible outcomes.
I’m in manufacturing and yeah it’ll be modified arm robots if anything. But current ones are large, heavy, and expensive. Cheaper than a person but they fuck up differently
Yep, in engineering design should be solution oriented. You don’t ever really want to first design the form and then try and see what solutions it may be able to solve.
A robot arm is a great start, you can then customize it further to your needs with different terminal end devices.
The main benefit of human hands is that they have an amazing amount of sensory input. If someone gets peripheral neuropathy and loses even a modest amount of that ability they can barely tie their shoes.
Yep. I work in prosthetics, people tend to overestimate current battery technology and underestimate how much energy it takes to move around a couple hundred pounds.
Even with batteries that cost a small fortune, we haven’t been able to create a lower limb powered prosthetic that can keep up with the human body for more than a couple hours.
There’s a lot of hype about the humanoid robotics coming out of China, but most everything is just marketing science fiction. Once you factor in the initial cost, power consumption for processing data, multiple batteries per unit, and the massive amount of general maintenance… It becomes pretty apparent that things aren’t going to pan out anytime soon.
I build limbs out of reinforced carbon fiber and titanium and even those acquire a ton of wear in a relatively small amount of time. Any bipedal robot with plastic parts, made to do intensive labour is going to start falling apart almost immediately. The human body takes a ton of damage throughout the day as well, but it’s self repairing.
The equation changes a lot when you start altering the assumptions.
Who says the robots have to have batteries? Human workers drag power cables all over construction sites. Why can’t a robot be built that’s smart enough to manage its own power cord? Power cord management seems simple compared to doing meaningful construction work.
The wear and tear is a legitimate concern, but fixed industrial robots have been operating for many decades. The wear issues are obviously solvable in the right context.
Keep in mind, prosthetics may not be the perfect analogy. We imagine these things as humanoid, but they need not be. You might have a drywall hanging robot that has suction cups to lift up panels and a screw gun to affix them. They might not even have legs. A welding robot could just be a welding tool on the end of a long boom arm.
There’s really no need to even make general purpose robots. It’s not like individual humans practice every trade. You could have trade-specific robots. A drywall robot, a plumber robot, an electrician bot, etc. Each equipped only with those tools needed to complete just that trade. And instead of mechanical hands, they could simply be mounted.
I would agree that humanoid battery powered robots are not likely to result in mass employment in construction any time soon. But if you start relaxing those constraints, the possibility for mass worker displacement exists. A robotic construction site need not visibly resemble a human one.
I’m sure it seems simple from your desk
One thing: do you think that those power cables are permanently connected to the workers? Are you thinking about workers using extension cords for tools or the ones laying cable for the building, because it sure as fuck isn’t simple to do either, which is why battery and petrol powered tools exist, and why the cableways are planned well in advance.
Only with maintenance and servicing by a human trained to see every potential flaw and monitor the equipment long term. Nothing, not even the most expensive equipment you can imagine, is without the need for regular maintenance.
Do you think that a construction site works the same way as a factory building cars? Just one long conveyors that shits out a fully built house? Workers move up, down and across the building dozens of times a day in a job doing multiple different jobs within their field, problem solving on the fly.
Interesting take. I guess I just realized every video we’ve ever seen of humanoid robots had been them doing something for a few minutes. But you never hear of one doing anything for days, months or years outside of science fiction.
Bipedal robots are kinda stuck in between a design flaw of what we want robots to look like, what we want robots to do, and what our technology is currently able to do.
Bipedal locomotion is just not the most efficient or simple mode of mobility for things like a flat factory floor, it’s really only efficient when you are factoring unleveled ground. We just currently don’t have the technology that allows bipedal efficiency across all terrain. That would require a synergistic system of optics and something that mimic propeoception. That’s a ton of information being sent from a vast network of sensory input being sorted out by your spine and brain in real time.
Imo robots for a factory floor should be on tracks or wheels. Attempting to design a robot that’s good for everything is just going to lead to a robot that is good for nothing. In engineering design should be made to fit a solution, designing for form and then trying to find a solution that form can solve is backwards and typically leads to terrible outcomes.
I’m in manufacturing and yeah it’ll be modified arm robots if anything. But current ones are large, heavy, and expensive. Cheaper than a person but they fuck up differently
Yep, in engineering design should be solution oriented. You don’t ever really want to first design the form and then try and see what solutions it may be able to solve.
A robot arm is a great start, you can then customize it further to your needs with different terminal end devices.
The main benefit of human hands is that they have an amazing amount of sensory input. If someone gets peripheral neuropathy and loses even a modest amount of that ability they can barely tie their shoes.