Technologies can pass this spot of “rapid surge of investment and technical progress” and then flop commercially, think of all the nuclear-powered (civilian) transport theoretically made available by the development of compact PWR in the 1950s and 1960s, supersonic air travel in the 1970s or GOFAI in the 1980s. For more contemporary examples, consider high-temperature semiconductors, fuel-cell cars, VR or thermonuclear fusion, which honestly hasn’t flopped yet but IMHO is going to.
I don’t argue that humanoid robots are necessarily going to flop, it’s more common that a technology can find its limited niche (think of segways or blockchain), but there’s a fundamental hard tradeoff between expensive strain wave reduction gears allowing high torque needed for carrying and moving heavy objects and cheaper planetary gears. Unlike AI, humanoids are essentially a mature technology
what is even the steelman case for humanoid robots? it seems like the argument from fiction written large and expensive. is it just that “our built environment is built largely for humanoid-shaped beings”? or maybe “for fast adoption, people need to be … comfortable(?) … familiar(?) with the shape of our robots”? is there some sort of “for a single tool that can do a wide variety of jobs, the humanoid shape is optimal”? (because this is super not true).
I’d say the most plausible way this occurs is if something close to human-like hands is necessary for a lot of robotics value, then it’s plausible that the shape of general/special purpose robots will be constrained enough to force it to be humanoid.
Don’t expect this to be true, because while I believe the premise is likely true, the implication probably doesn’t hold, and I expect non-humanoid shapes to be used during an industrial explosion much more than humanoid shapes.
Yeah, kind of “We have built the environment for humans, robots have to be produced in large quantities in order to become cheap due to Wright’s law, humanoid form factor together with AGI provides very large total addressable market because of direct human substitution”.
Nesov’s conservative timeline provides almost a decade to develop the strain-wave gear industry, which is at least plausible, even though that requires very large investments over the years
Technologies can pass this spot of “rapid surge of investment and technical progress” and then flop commercially, think of all the nuclear-powered (civilian) transport theoretically made available by the development of compact PWR in the 1950s and 1960s, supersonic air travel in the 1970s or GOFAI in the 1980s. For more contemporary examples, consider high-temperature semiconductors, fuel-cell cars, VR or thermonuclear fusion, which honestly hasn’t flopped yet but IMHO is going to.
I don’t argue that humanoid robots are necessarily going to flop, it’s more common that a technology can find its limited niche (think of segways or blockchain), but there’s a fundamental hard tradeoff between expensive strain wave reduction gears allowing high torque needed for carrying and moving heavy objects and cheaper planetary gears. Unlike AI, humanoids are essentially a mature technology
what is even the steelman case for humanoid robots? it seems like the argument from fiction written large and expensive. is it just that “our built environment is built largely for humanoid-shaped beings”? or maybe “for fast adoption, people need to be … comfortable(?) … familiar(?) with the shape of our robots”? is there some sort of “for a single tool that can do a wide variety of jobs, the humanoid shape is optimal”? (because this is super not true).
I’d say the most plausible way this occurs is if something close to human-like hands is necessary for a lot of robotics value, then it’s plausible that the shape of general/special purpose robots will be constrained enough to force it to be humanoid.
Don’t expect this to be true, because while I believe the premise is likely true, the implication probably doesn’t hold, and I expect non-humanoid shapes to be used during an industrial explosion much more than humanoid shapes.
Yeah, kind of “We have built the environment for humans, robots have to be produced in large quantities in order to become cheap due to Wright’s law, humanoid form factor together with AGI provides very large total addressable market because of direct human substitution”.
Nesov’s conservative timeline provides almost a decade to develop the strain-wave gear industry, which is at least plausible, even though that requires very large investments over the years