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Comment on Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype: The obstacles to scaling up humanoids that nobody is talking about

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Iunnrais@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Did you know that elevator operator used to be a job that people had to be employed to do? No one says hiring a person to operate an elevator is more cost effective than installing a push button system for people to do it themselves. The cost really wasn’t prohibitive to move away from human labor here.

This is not the only case, I’m just bringing up an example. The thing is, when a job is replaced by technology, you don’t even think about it anymore. Yes, there are also jobs that CAN be replaced by technology, where the tech is more expensive… but that’s not the rule, that’s just the leading edge.

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Archangel1313@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Did they replace the elevator operator with a robot that looked just like an elevator operator? And did they make that robot stand inside the elevator, and pull the lever, just like the old elevator operator would?

No. Of course not.

Because that would be insane. Replacing a person with a robot that does the exact same thing that a human can do, is pointless. It doesn’t improve anything. It doesn’t save you money. It isn’t more efficient. It’s just a very expensive gimmick.

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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
But did the elevator operator get replaced by a humanoid robot pulling the lever of a formerly human-operated elevator?

That’s what they person before you was referencing. In most situations a simple computer-controlled mechanism is enough. If that’s not enough, a non-humanoid robot trumps a humanoid robot. And in situations where a humanoid shape is really necessary, human labour is really cheap.

Humans don’t have their shape because it’s the perfectly ideal form, but because evolution always only iterates on what it has.

Btw: automatisation happens because either using a full human for a simple task is overkill (e.g. your elevator operator example) or because humans really aren’t the optimal shape (e.g. using a robot arm to lift a car during production). If a humanoid shape is required, humans will do the job.

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