The only thing preventing general purpose humanoid robotics is lithium-ion batteries. They just don’t have the energy density—and their recharge cycle/lifespan is too crippled—to make a sustainable platform.
Form and design of human body based on completely different approach to the conversion of energy to the movements and all other stuff, and electromechanical approach to the robotics just does not fit in this form and design. Humanoid robot is a very ineffective, fragile and limited design if you use electromechanics.
Because of different nature of internal design, humanoid robots will always fall into "uncanny valley" when you will try to make them more human-like. Different way of movements, different motion planning limited by electromechanic will never allow them be something more than overpriced and useless toys.
You could make human-like general purpose robot, but it will be the worst possible design from all points of view, from efficiency of energy to work conversion to the perception of this thing by people.
In the same way that people ourselves are a compromise of efficiency, a humanoid robot is a similar compromise. If a self-contained platform can be made to do multiple tasks otherwise suited to individual robots, you save on the construction and maintenance costs of the individual robots. A person’s home doesn’t have room for a cooking arm in the ceiling of the kitchen, a laundry arm in the ceiling of the basement, a housekeeper arm sliding around every single room to do the cleaning… but it does have room in a closet for a humanoid robot to stand while plugged in.
I’m totally fine with the uncanny valley being extremely hard to overcome. I don’t want robots hiding out as real people in real life like they do on the Internet. Forget skin coatings; just give me robot robots.
It is not a compromise, it is a wrong, completely irrational design purely for the sake of looking like human.
If a self-contained platform can be made to do multiple tasks
it will not resemble human body at all.
but it does have room in a closet for a humanoid robot to stand while plugged in.
The same closet could be easily used for something non-humanoid too.
I understand that many used to modern clown world workflows when imbecile faggots, called "designers" dictate to engineers how appliances should look like and how they should be composed. This always end in inferior reliability, quality, useability and efficiency. Good design is always dictated by engineers based on the physiscs and nature of components used, not by delusions of designers.
This idiotic idea of humanoid robots comes purely from humanitarian dreams of fiction writers and ignorant delusions of so called designers who for some reasons think they have any right to dictate how things should look. This idea have no any grounds in actual engineering and laws of physics.
From the engineering point of view, something like R2D2 with multiple tentacles around top dome will be order of magnitude more sane and efficient as universal robot than any humanoid form.
Universal robot absolutely doesn't have to copy human movements to do any human job. If you look at actual industrial robots, they never do that, because electromechanics have different degrees of freedom and additional very effective ability to rotate without limitations unlike anything alive. Nature didn't have a wheel or bearing, but electromechanics on the opposite is mostly build around rotation. That only difference is already shift any rational robot design from anything like humanoid form. And there are much more fundamental differences between living beings and electromechanic.
To make human form more or less rational for building universal robot, you have to abandon electromechanics in favor of something completely different, that is more resemble processes and principles behind human body functioning.
The only thing preventing general purpose humanoid robotics is lithium-ion batteries. They just don’t have the energy density—and their recharge cycle/lifespan is too crippled—to make a sustainable platform.
Batteries is not the only problem.
Form and design of human body based on completely different approach to the conversion of energy to the movements and all other stuff, and electromechanical approach to the robotics just does not fit in this form and design. Humanoid robot is a very ineffective, fragile and limited design if you use electromechanics.
Because of different nature of internal design, humanoid robots will always fall into "uncanny valley" when you will try to make them more human-like. Different way of movements, different motion planning limited by electromechanic will never allow them be something more than overpriced and useless toys.
You could make human-like general purpose robot, but it will be the worst possible design from all points of view, from efficiency of energy to work conversion to the perception of this thing by people.
In the same way that people ourselves are a compromise of efficiency, a humanoid robot is a similar compromise. If a self-contained platform can be made to do multiple tasks otherwise suited to individual robots, you save on the construction and maintenance costs of the individual robots. A person’s home doesn’t have room for a cooking arm in the ceiling of the kitchen, a laundry arm in the ceiling of the basement, a housekeeper arm sliding around every single room to do the cleaning… but it does have room in a closet for a humanoid robot to stand while plugged in.
I’m totally fine with the uncanny valley being extremely hard to overcome. I don’t want robots hiding out as real people in real life like they do on the Internet. Forget skin coatings; just give me robot robots.
It is not a compromise, it is a wrong, completely irrational design purely for the sake of looking like human.
it will not resemble human body at all.
The same closet could be easily used for something non-humanoid too.
I understand that many used to modern clown world workflows when imbecile faggots, called "designers" dictate to engineers how appliances should look like and how they should be composed. This always end in inferior reliability, quality, useability and efficiency. Good design is always dictated by engineers based on the physiscs and nature of components used, not by delusions of designers.
This idiotic idea of humanoid robots comes purely from humanitarian dreams of fiction writers and ignorant delusions of so called designers who for some reasons think they have any right to dictate how things should look. This idea have no any grounds in actual engineering and laws of physics.
From the engineering point of view, something like R2D2 with multiple tentacles around top dome will be order of magnitude more sane and efficient as universal robot than any humanoid form.
Universal robot absolutely doesn't have to copy human movements to do any human job. If you look at actual industrial robots, they never do that, because electromechanics have different degrees of freedom and additional very effective ability to rotate without limitations unlike anything alive. Nature didn't have a wheel or bearing, but electromechanics on the opposite is mostly build around rotation. That only difference is already shift any rational robot design from anything like humanoid form. And there are much more fundamental differences between living beings and electromechanic.
To make human form more or less rational for building universal robot, you have to abandon electromechanics in favor of something completely different, that is more resemble processes and principles behind human body functioning.
Bipeds most efficiently move around a human-scale home. And I can’t take seriously anyone who claims the human hand is an “irrational design.”
So “replace humanity itself” then, huh? Because nature and physics didn’t create us?
And he’ll use his rocket motors to climb stairs, right?