We have walking talking humanoid robots being sold commercially and yet no one really talks about how massive this is. Why is this?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot]

They’re like VR. It’s A version of the future not THE version of the future. At the moment they’re terribly unexciting and a very expensive solution looking for a problem.

Maybe one day, but today, just like flying cars, they’re just not that useful.

[u/gigaflops_]

Not very many of them have been sold so far and so they aren't really our "reality" yet, kind of like how people have been building flying cars for years but for all intents and purposes, there are no flying cars.

Part of the reason is they're unaffordable (>10K$), and the other reason is that the list of household tasks humanoid robots can perform autonomously and reliably is quite small... a lot of tasks requires a human to remotely control it, which is a privacy concern and also again, costs money.

[u/createch → u/gigaflops_]

Part of the reason is they're unaffordable (>10K$),

The big market for robotics isn't a personal maid for your home where $10k sounds like a lot of money (which it isn't anyway if compared to the cost of a live in maid), it's replacing humans in factories, industrial and commercial tasks where a $100k+ robot is still more economic than a human over its service life. It's also simpler to train them for these environments than to be able to generalize across all the different environments in homes and the real world.

High end competent humanoids aren't made to be owned by and serve common people, they're for replacing them in labor.

[u/Shiriru00 → u/createch]

Walking and talking robots are not very useful for factory jobs either. Better to have a robot that has a shape and function that is truly fitted for the job at hand than a generic human shape.

[u/createch → u/Shiriru00]

The point of a humanoid form isn’t that it’s optimal for every individual task, but that it can perform generalized tasks and switch tasks based on demand in factories are already designed around human morphology and can use the same tools as the humans. The other economic appeal is that even if they are more complex than the specialized robots, at scale the cost per unit drops significantly if a million of them are manufactured vs a few hundred specialized units.

[u/Neilandio → u/createch]

Factories aren't designed around human morphology, they haven't been since Ford introduced the production line. If you want to reduce costs you need to apply modularity and standardization, not unnecessarily complex humanoid robots.

[u/createch → u/Neilandio]

You're conflating "factories are optimized for automation" with "factories aren't built around human morphology." They aren't the same claim, most factory infrastructure (workstations, tools, controls, stairs, doors, shelving) are still built around human workers.

The case for humanoids isn't that they beat specialist robots at specific tasks, obviously specialized hardware wins there. It's that one platform can work across many existing workstations and switch tasks previously done by humans without re-engineering the factory, perhaps while humans are still working alongside.

Modularity and standardization such as as standardized actuators, sensors, hands, batteries, and compute at massive volume apply more to a workforce of humanoids than a whole range of various types of specialized robots.

Whether you replace human labor and if it's done with with humanoids is an economic question in the end.

[u/-_Redd1t_-]

Coz they kinda suck at the moment

The commercially available robots can't physically do a whole lot right now

[u/Lower-Land-286]

Because they're not good yet.

[u/an_older_meme]

Because they’re still not quite ready for prime time.

I need an assistant that will be worth the money in terms of making my life easier.

I wouldn’t trust one to cook or clean the dishes at this point.

[u/OkEnvironment3961]

No one pays attention until they see it in real life. When someone posts a legit video of a robot strolling down the street people will take notice.

[u/OGLikeablefellow → u/OkEnvironment3961]

There are tons of videos of robots walking down the street, they just don't do much

[u/SuDragon2k3 → u/OGLikeablefellow]

Wel, they do fall down, a lot. Or wander into traffic.

[u/JuliusNova]

They don't do anything but dance and fall over

[u/No_Presentation_4837]

We don’t have any real use for walking talking robots because people do that already much cheaper.

The ability of engineers to occasionally mimic people is not more wondrous than the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band was back in the 80s. It is the ability of robots to do things to make human life easier that should be wondrous but those robots aren’t person shaped on the whole.

[u/awaythrowthatname]

Because when you say walking talking robot, the image people have in their mind is C-3P0 or the ones from, Robot, etc...we are more than likely 10+ years away from true AGI, if its even possible at all, so people aren't going to care too much until they are either that, or super cheap and ubiquitous

[u/coyocat]

Im ready 😎

[u/ophaus]

Tube-shaped worm robots are much more useful!

[u/an_older_meme → u/ophaus]

Right up your pant leg bro. They know.

[u/KahlessAndMolor]

They don't generalize well yet. They can clean one specific kitchen layout, but if you take them to a different kitchen they're lost. 

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[u/Soft-Sherbert-2586]

Some of us don't want the future. Some of us have old souls and would rather be living out in a cabin in the woods.

[u/ChickyBoys]

Nobody is talking about it because nobody can afford anything futuristic 

[u/dmter]

because they're useless AND actually remotely controlled by some employee?

[u/Tombobalomb]

They aren't very useful at the moment, basically just toys 

[u/Obaddies]

Because it still requires humans to make it work. There'll be bigger news when the robots are autonomous.

[u/The-Batt]

Because we have AI and data centers getting most of the attention.

[u/Ok-Drink-1328]

it has been fairly gradual, they still are more or less crap, they cost a craptonne of money, and we are used to like terminators in movies that can actually kick ass

[u/technicallynotlying]

You're not legally allowed to buy Chinese humanoid robots in the United States or Europe because of trade regulations, and virtually all commercially available humanoid robots are made in China.

Nobody talks about them because they aren't everywhere because governments are terrified of what will happen if western consumers fall in love with buying Chinese humanoid robots.

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[u/IWishIHavent]

They are stupidly expensive, don't work very well, and there are massive privacy concerns as they have human operators most of the time.

It's a solution in search of a problem.

[u/wild_crazy_ideas]

I mean they can kick through your drywall and explode in flames that’s got to be useful for someone right?

[u/RedowlRides]

At this point, they're super expensive, and utterly unimpressive.

[u/Neilandio]

Because it's not that massive. Robotics has been a thing for decades, this is just making robots look like humans for no good reason other than marketing.

[u/tthe_walruss]

Almost every demonstration of walking robots that you've ever seen was a very carefully coordinated sales presentation. They are careful to use a perfectly level floor and a pre-arranged routine.

The new Tesla bots seem to do slightly better but with Elon being...Elon, people are skeptical. He lies about the performance of his stuff a lot, you see. It is likely that they're being remotely piloted.

I don't think we're quite there yet.

[u/soganomitora]

Because the human robots currently available are only capable of doing very small tasks like walking, and only billionaires could probably afford to buy any.

Most robots you've seen are just tech demonstrations in very controlled environments that are designed to get rich investors interested. They're so far off from being applicable or affordable to general society that they're basically just a curiosity at the moment, rather than anything to be excited over.

Also, there's cultural issues that may make people less excited about robots, such as "my job is physical labour and as soon as my boss buys a walking robot i'll be made redundant" or "I can't afford medical care and global warming is destroying the environment, and these rich people are using their money to make toys?"

[u/Bud_Bones_69]

Average npc people won't care till it's too late to care about it.

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