I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different

(wired.com)

22 points by zdw1 day ago

6 comments

chrisweekly19 minutes ago
Anyone else here have happy memories of playing with Armatron? Circa 1984?
HardCodedBias11 minutes ago
This one is different? What about unitree? What about their demo at the Spring Festival Gala?<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykiuz1ZdGBc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykiuz1ZdGBc</a>That sure felt "different".No doubt hands are important, but I think you've missed a lot here Wired.
martythemaniak46 minutes ago
Rodney Brooks has a great essay on why he's skeptical that the current humanoid hype will deliver and the central claim is that human dexterity is extremely advanced any today's humanoids lack even the sensors and data needed to start building the models needed to match human performance.<a href="https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dexterity/" rel="nofollow">https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex...</a>I saw him post this article on his Bluesky saying that they're the first ones he's seen that are close to cracking this issue (he's an investor/adviser).
- dyauspitr43 minutes ago
 Yeah I’m going to completely disregard this because I feel like we are less than a year away from completely human feeling humanoids. This is based on nothing but obsessively watching and following humanoid progress on the internet.
 - ManuelKiessling24 minutes ago
 What was eye-opening, or rather, sobering for me was when I read an interview with an engineer who explained how incredible difficult it is for a robot to orient itself when it is lying on the floor and wants to stand up.Yes, it can do the required motions just fine, that’s not the point. But think about yourself when you are lying on the floor: it’s really easy to determine if this is safe, if you are lying underneath something and so on. You just feel that.A robot cannot do that; all they can do is look around as good as possible and visually determine their situation.
 - jgord14 minutes ago
 I naively assumed they have a gravity sensor, so will generally have an approximate up vector ?
 - ManuelKiessling2 minutes ago
 Yeah but imagine yourself lying on the floor with your vision being your only sense, plus an info floating in your mind: „fyi, you are no longer upright“.That’s all, you feel nothing else. Now your job is to move all parts of your body in just the right way.
 - rcxdude7 minutes ago
 Theu have an IMU, what they don't generally have is the various aspects of touch.
 - rcxdude6 minutes ago
 Beware generalising from a carefully curated and presented set of demos to real life.
 - nancyminusone15 minutes ago
 Well, as someone who has tried to build at least a couple small robot arms, I think we are probably closer to 20-50 years away. Both the power and dexterity are not there.Right now, only a human can both push over a boulder and pick up a tiny speck from the floor using the same actuator.
 - jfengel24 minutes ago
 I obsessively avoid any kind of "technology is going thataway" content. So I haven't seen anything that looks like humanoid progress in quite some time. About the only thing that has snuck around my barrier is Musk apparently claiming he'll have it by the end of the year, which is pretty conclusive evidence that they won't have it by the end of the year.So if you're seeing anything that actually seems to merit attention, I'd love a few pointers. I could use some good news.
jfengel22 minutes ago
Back in the 90s, I developed a rule of thumb: if I saw it in Wired, it's because it was either already over, or it wasn't going to happen at all.I was so disappointed when I saw BetterPlace (the car with replaceable batteries) on the cover of Wired. It seemed like such a good idea. Too bad the rule of thumb meant it wouldn't work.Rules of thumb were made to be broken. Maybe this time it will be different.
dataking46 minutes ago
no paywall: <a href="https://archive.is/Wro1e" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/Wro1e</a>
SpaceNoodled7 minutes ago
> a ChatGPT moment for the physical world.That's not a good thing, WIRED.
- gwbas1c0 minutes ago
 I want Rosie (fictional robot from the TV show "The Jetsons")Basically, I want a robotic butler / maid that will do most of the cleanup around the house.