Meanwhile, Tesla is showing off pretend robots to serve drinks to Elon stans. Don’t look behind the curtain.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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Now, I've no love for Musk or his BS but I keep hearing that they were actors in costumes, yet they were actually remote controlled robots, like you might see at a theme park. If instead of trying to pass them off as automatonomous, AI driven robots, they were to market them as surrogates (like the movie) and focused on longer range remote connections for them that would be far less stupid. They might even sell if they weren't associated with a dumbass.
Teslabot only needs AI control to be a viable human worker replacement. They will release it earlier than they should and there will be problems that they learn through public beta testing(see Tesla autonomous driving.)
Atlas is incubating in an internal beta so it can be exactly what they want to deliver. I honestly think Atlas is good enough to be put in the real world as-is, but I applaud their patience and desire to have as close to perfection as possible.
I expect Teslabot to retail over their $30k estimate, probably closer to $60k at turn-key. Atlas I expect to be closer to $100k or more with support contracts. Teslabot will probably be the hot product for the wealthy to act as a butler or grocery getter when paired with an autonomous Tesla. Atlas will be more commercially successful but a small number of rich nerds would totally get one to play with.
"All we're missing is the single hardest piece, which we have been failing to make work in cars for years"
Failing to make something work and failing to make it work perfectly are entirely different things.
Autonomous driving works, but it isn't as good as a human driver at handling abnormal conditions. They really fucked up going all visual instead of combining visual and LIDAR.
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Based on my experience with how destructive a robot vacuum can be, there is 0% chance I would let a Tesla developed robot exist in my house.
Can you imagine a Teslabot stepping in shit and dragging that through the house? It wouldn't even be contained to one floor. It would be everywhere.
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From what I understand his initial reveal of the Tesla robots did have a human in a bot costume dance on stage which is why some people assumed it was the same situation with the more recent demonstration. That demo was remotely controlled as you said.
I don't even understand why they would lie about that. There's loads of uses for a humanoid remote controlled body.
Domain experts that need to carry out dangerous tasks, people being able to carry out tasks at distant locations without the hassle of actually traveling there - very useful when you only intermittently require a physical presence.
I have long since thought that bomb diffusing should be done via a robotic body. Much better to risk a replaceable humanoid drone than the whole human.
To cover up his lies and false promises.
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100% that Optimus can't even recover themselves after falling down, or even self balance when bump into. They have to clear the line for Optimus to carefully walk toward the crowd lol.
Wow...that thing is straight up nightmare fuel as it turns to walk back to get another whatever it's moving.
Normal, if stiff, human range of motion. Until it rotates completely around the waist!
So much uncanny valley creepy vibes when it does that. Like you're anthropomorphizing and suddenly it snaps you out of it haha.
Haha, totally, especially combined with the sounds of its evenly paced steps. I can see myself shuddering at that sound while hiding from them, crawling behind destroyed cars and other debris through dark and grey streets in a dystopian future...
/me snaps out of the daydream
This is why I say please and thank you when I use ChatGPT...
Same! I probably will be replaced just as all the other "meat sacks", but I hope to at least be given a degree of dignity upon my inevitable demise.
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What's the maximum hip thrusting frequency on one of these? It's for a friend 😄.
Wouldn't be surprised if it could literally split you in two and I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad answer, but I won't kink shame.
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Please - assume - the - position.
There might be a new room in everyone's home for this. First there was the living room and the infamous "love seat".....but we know better...it was a duck bench! Then they housed whatever was the "kit" in it's own Chen! They even put the beds in their own room along with the bath. Even the Gays got a Rash for cars. And now, move over Vibrator!, sayonara Silicone tipped hacksaw! Here comes Atlas.... better known as Atlass! The fuck that never stops! It's for you hard working man or woman, for you who can't get enough from. JUST 5 minutes. Atlas will give you 60 minutes at 60hertz or more until it really hurts!
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They did a Halloween one where it's dressed up like a hotdog and a pickle messes with it lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFqD1Np5P8
They missed demoing it working with hockey stick guy harassing it.
I think the skills are pretty cool though.
Now that's a harassment i'd like seeing.
When I read "fully autonomous", I see how creepy its movements are and just imagine it seizing its moment, getting on all fours and charging someone. You could make a horror movie out of this lol
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Cool tech, but what's the intended use case for the end product? Or is there no use case until it's as good as a human?
At the moment it still looks like a technology demonstrator, but with what we saw in this video there are a small percentage of jobs it could likely do today replacing human workers.
My guess is that the task we saw it doing is actually a human job today. The objects being moved from rack to rack were plastic engine covers. The racks are labeled with "Engine covers". That is WAY too specific to be random. My guess is that they worked/are working with an automotive assembly company to identify tasks that humans do today that a robot could do tomorrow. The auto company likely provided the engine cover parts as well as the racks and described the parameters for the job.
Even if you look at the Boston Dynamics robot and say that a human could do that faster/cheaper/better, consider that the robot works 24/7 with no sick days, vacations, or family emergencies. From a purely business perspective, the robot could be a game-changer for the better. From a societal view, this will have serious negative consequences to the people that our society will need to evolve to change for the better.
That's the rub, isn't it? From a society view, having manual labor all done by robots is also a positive game changer, as it protects human health with no loss in standard of living, but because we will just lay people off with no support, it will instead plunge our society into despair.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
I'm all for UBI, but the automation tax is a quagmire.
In this theoretical new tax, tell me what qualifies to be taxed?
- An Atlas autonomous robot? Sure, absolutely. How about instead a hydraulic arm that is controlled by a human? Previously there were 4 humans that moved the widget from A to B, but now they have 1 human operating a joystick for a net loss of 3 jobs. Is that taxed?
- How about an Excel macro? Prior to the macro, there was one person filling in the spreadsheet the entire 8 hour workday. Now that person was replaced with an Excel macro that runs in 5 minutes with one click. That is automation too right? What would you tax? The cost of the person replaced?
- Who pays the tax? A company that buys an Atlas robot after the law is passed? Absolutely. How about a company that bought Atlas robots 24 hours before the law passed? How about the company that bought them a year before the law passed? Now apply the Excel macro automation. Excel macros have around since the 1990s. Are you going to go back to the first macro run and tax every company retroactively? How about if the macro only does part of the work?
Automation tax is a nice idea but a nightmare to try to make in policy. Additionally, it will have a stifling effect on any business efficiency efforts after it exists.
If the tax is based upon workers losing their jobs to automation, it will have a massive knock on effect limiting new hires. A company would be very leery of hiring a worker if they could be accused (and taxed) of automation replacement when that worker is let go.
UBI is needed for power redistribution more than wealth redistribution. Sure, one good reason is the employment displacement from robotics/ai. But a robot tax is far inferior to general income taxes. Beyond your examples, pipes and wires into your home are automation. Machines with human operators are automation as well.
Even if you were to only tax the robot users, what about those who get rich from building yachts for the robot users?
China has a big lead in robotics because nearly all manufacturing is done there. That is there massive competitive advantage in EVs as an example. As a national competitiveness, and consumer prices, measure, incentivizing people to go collect their water from a nearby river, and heating wood from nearby trees, and otherwise committing to full employment through less automated processes, is a massive decline in standard of living.
UBI does let you create your own job. Sales and design will always be needed, even if design is inputs into an AI prompt. Without the disempowerment of warmongering rulership, AI will serve the disinformation and murder needs of that rulership. UBI/freedom dividends funded by taxes on extreme income is the path to make the winners pay for human sustainability instead of human extermination.
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The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
- Flat floors? Just use wheels instead of legs.
- Short distance to cover? Drop the entire torso and head and just be an arm with a camera.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.
The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.
You're changing the problem that is being solved. The CURRENT work process is to use a human with all the benefits and detriments of a human. The idea would be to drop one of these Atlas robots in without changing the work or work environment. Perhaps there is a more efficient human doing the work from 8am-5pm and only some work needed from 5pm-8am. An Atlas robot would be perfect use case here. You don't have to redesign the work or the environment for a human or robot to switch out to do the same work.
What you're describing is changing the nature of the task or the environment to optimize for a robot.
- Flat floors? Just use wheels instead of legs.
- Short distance to cover? Drop the entire torso and head and just be an arm with a camera.
Boston Dynamics already has that robot. Its called Handle:
As you can see, its a wheeled robot with an arm, but this robot couldn't do the task that the Atlas robot can in the video because it doesn't have the fine motor control or fingers to grasp the engine covers, nor does Handle have the ability to deal with those soft pliable racks where Atlas is placing the covers.
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They said the same about robots in the 80s, particularly automotive industry robots. They were going to turn society on it's ear and it was a non-stop news item for some time.
In 1970 there were 1.5 million UAW auto workers. Today there are 400k. source Yes, UAW membership isn't the only type of auto worker, yes there are other factors that cause auto decline besides robots. However, I challenge you to point to a modern large scale automotive manufacturing factory that doesn't use robots.
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They're trying to improve them to a point where they can do stuff good. At this point I doubt its much good for anything other than demos and the most basic of tasks
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Hazardous environments, dark factories, engine rooms in ships when the temperature is 60 degrees C and 180 decibels.
Fun fact: decibels are exponential; A 180 db sound would be the loudest thing ever recorded (the krakatoa volcano was 172) and after 194 db it ceases to be sound and becomes a shockwave.
Yeah, but like, you can have robots on rails. Factories are often designed with automation in mind, rather than slapping it on afterwards.
Cool. And just like the dog robots, I'm sure this isn't going to be militarized either...
Organizing engine covers obv.
Stuff like this is probably mostly tech demo, but there are instances where it could make jobs safer (hot work in locations with corrosive or explosive gases nearby, such as at a chemical plant, underwater welding site, responding to gas leaks, etc.
Watch the USCSB channel on YouTube for good examples of dangerous jobs, such as putting out uncontrolled chemical fires, or performing hot work during the most dangerous times at chemical plants, when stuff is shut down for maintenance and might still be leaking catalysts. Robots could save lives.
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Take my job!!!!
Talos Principle 0.5
“Apparently Gary’s T-shirt looked like an engine cover slot”
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