frontiersummit

Karma: 8

frontiersummit Feb 11, 2025, 6:13 PM
3 points
−2
on: How AI Takeover Might Happen in 2 Years
. The main bottleneck to robotics was brains not limbs
I feel that it is an overly optimistic take on the state of robotics, particularly the degree of human maintenance that equipment like this requires, how little of it is produced today, and how long it takes to bring new manufacturing on-line considering the deep supply chain needed. The robots described are not the robots of 2027, or even 2127. They are the robots from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

frontiersummit Jan 13, 2025, 9:24 PM
5 points
2
in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: How quickly could robots scale up?
The average American drives 45,000 miles in three years, but a car operated ²⁰⁄₇ (like your robot) would accumulate about a million miles in that timeframe. Probably it would go through 2 engines and 3 transmissions if it could even be kept on the road. All things being equal it would need 22x as much maintenance than the average of the US fleet, so probably more like 220% of the capital cost.
A really nice printer/photocopier-combo costs about $10,000 like your robot, and is built from of motors, cameras, and computers just like your robot. While it’s mature technology and built to generally high quality standards, if you try running copies ²⁴⁄₇ you will quickly be on a first-name basis with local Kyocera guy.

frontiersummit Jan 13, 2025, 6:25 PM
3 points
−2
on: How quickly could robots scale up?
Fly into Monterrey Mexico sometime and notice who is on the flight with you: Nearly everyone will be a technician-looking guy in his 30s or 40s. The times I’ve done it, probably 80% of the flight (including me and my colleagues) fit that criteria. The eastern side of that city is packed wall-to-wall with shiny new manufacturing plants, each filled to the brim with the latest and greatest in industrial automation, robots not excluded. Many of those foreign technician-looking guys are wearing polo shirts emblazoned with the logos of the companies which manufactured that equipment, and they are on their way to service it.

The author’s analysis leaves out the service cost for these robots. What happens when a servo motor or touch sensor malfunctions? Probably 2 technician-looking guys in robot-company polo shirts have to fly in, maybe even from overseas, and bill somebody for 3 days each of hotel stay and dining per diem, on top of the cost of their flight and salary.

Sure, this would become less of an issue if a standard design of robot becomes widely diffused, but consider today how even routine car maintenance can easily cost hundreds of dollars.
The author might suppose that general-purpose robots could be manufactured which is able to diagnose and repair other general-purpose robots—AI will undoubtedly mature to this level in the near future, but sensors and electromechanical elements won’t move so quickly. I expect huge advancement in automation over the next few decades, and huge hiring and training of humans needed to keep the robots alive and doing their jobs.
What links here?
- Noosphere89's comment on How AI Takeover Might Happen in 2 Years by joshc (Feb 11, 2025, 9:00 PM; 2 points)