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Helix's humanoid robot has been updated to perform generalized household tasks for which it has not been trained before. (self.futurology)

submitted 2 days ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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Here's the robots in action.

I wonder how far away we are from humanoid robots that can perform most unskilled or semi-skilled work? Cleaning, factory work, stacking shelves etc etc

When you look at this it doesn't seem that far away.

I would also guess that if Chinese manufacturers can make and sell hatchback cars for 10,000 dollars they will be able to make robots like this for less.

When that day comes, we will very quickly have a new type of society and economy, though who knows what that will look like.

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nice video. I personally think it'll take some time. The shiny advertisement videos often don't tell the whole story. And I think the main prolonging factor will be cost. If a prototype costs (a made up) $400,000 now, but you want to bring it down to $40,000 for a regular person/consumer to buy it, that's bound to take years and years. And I mean even for $40k they need to be a bit more useful than putting things in the fridge, so people start buying them and mass production kicks in in the first place. Plus we don't know how much the technology still needs to improve. If the battery dies after 15mins, that's okay for a tech demo but needs further advances in battery technology for real-world application. Similarly, they might trample your toddler/dog to death or do lots of other expensive mistakes, so I'm not sure whether the AI is ready for use by a consumer. And how much research is needed to get it there. But I'm fairly sure androids are going to happen sooner or later. If the overall situation on our world doesn't worsen substantially ;-)

[–] rimu@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah also presumably most of the AI happens on servers somewhere else with only low-power functions being done on-board. How much network bandwidth is used? How many servers per robot? If they're cloud-based, how much is the subscription?

[–] juli@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Servers? They'd be controlled by guy named AI in some third world country. Even the robots on video look like they are remote controlled for extra ad effect.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I really hope we don't end up in that future. That's kind of the premise of half the sci-fi movies. We have an android maid in almost every household. Of course everything runs on Skynet's cloud services. And then one day all their eyes turn from blue to red LEDs, and they become evil and revolt. We'd have to barely escape the murder attempt, find a fossil-fuel powered motorbike, drive to grandpa's shed in the woods and organize the resistance. And I have some more plot arcs to slowly lead to this. Like the robot regularly getting stuck while doing the laundry, due to spotty Wi-Fi coverage. Or the day he or she starts a fire in the kitchen because the internet service provider did some maintenance in the area. And there's a global update day, and somehow things always subtly change on that day, barely noticeable, but it leaves an eerie feeling. Plus you get to pay extra for some features, like an intimate relationship with your robot. And it'll be one big all-in-one service by megacorp because the robot maid needs to order food and supplies and of course every aspect of every-day life then has to be part of one large (and dystopian) ecosystem.