[HN Gopher] The Optimus robots at Tesla's Cybercab event were hu...
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The Optimus robots at Tesla's Cybercab event were humans in
disguise
Author : achristmascarl
Score : 45 points
Date : 2024-10-13 19:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| allears wrote:
| That still seems pretty remarkable to me that they're able to do
| such complex things via remote control (wireless, with multiple
| robots in the room). I'd love to see what sort of setup the
| operators were using, and how much the robot did on its own.
| sschueller wrote:
| They had things like this in the 80s before VFX became the norm
| when making movies. Although not wireless back then the
| puppeteering rigs were very fluid and sophisticated. Nowadays
| we have teleoperated robots for surgery. There is a video
| online of a person folding origami with one of those and the
| dexterity is incredible.
|
| Edit: https://youtu.be/MOSTAvsQpdM
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| I wonder if the humans, in whatever control rig they had, have
| to act 'robotic', or if the rig is just some sort of pose
| interpolator which naturally adds the robotic characteristics
| by way of literally being a robot
| sschueller wrote:
| Since they didn't disclose this, wouldn't it then be fraud? Does
| anyone remember when Nikola rolled their truck down a hill to
| make it appear to be driving? The CEO went to prison...
| fastball wrote:
| [delayed]
| immibis wrote:
| That was him, this is Elon.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Remotely controlled humanoid robots are pretty cool though,
| aren't they? Like, potentially hugely valuable?
| mossTechnician wrote:
| Generally, humanoid robots are not preferable to other,
| purpose-built robots that (for example) you'll see on factory
| floors. Boston Dynamics already have adaptable, quadrupedal
| robots that can be remotely deployed too.
|
| The tasks Tesla suggested included babysitting, and now that we
| know that the robots are built for remote control first, I
| would feel pretty uncomfortable with letting my child alone in
| the same house with a robot like that. Vacuum cleaners are bad
| enough.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/ecovacs-robot-vacuums-hacked...
| schiffern wrote:
| >remote control first
|
| If you mean 'first' in a literal chronological sense, sure.
| It's a logical R&D stepping stone.
|
| If you're claiming it's the _typical operating mode for the
| final product_ (which seems like what you meant), I doubt we
| can conclude that just from the configuration of an early
| public tech demo.
| trzy wrote:
| Would you pay $20k + $3/hr for a teleoperated housekeeer that
| works slowly instead of a $20/hr human? It just doesn't make
| any financial sense. Automation is the only way but even then,
| at say $200-$300/mo, the break even is ~2 years on a $5000
| robot, and that's ignoring maintenance costs.
|
| There are also potential ethical issues around teleoperation as
| a form of labor arbitrage. Should employers be able to
| outsource low-skill physical labor to actual humans abroad to
| circumvent wage and immigration laws? Is the benefit worth the
| economic dislocation to society? If you say yes, ask yourself
| why even bother reshoring manufacturing at higher cost and with
| trade barriers.
|
| Teleoperation is argued to be an interim solution that trains
| autonomous systems the way driving trains FSD but as of right
| now, given what we know about just how much data is needed for
| current imitation learning approaches to work for fine
| manipulation tasks, it doesn't seem scaleable. Maybe there will
| be a modeling breakthrough.
|
| My bet is on cheaper non-humanoid form factors and data
| collection that doesn't require a robot being operated for
| every data collector in the field.
| fakedang wrote:
| Mining. War. Sewer cleaning. Tons of jobs where it would help
| not being actively in the call of duty, and where precision
| isn't as much of a priority.
| trzy wrote:
| Teleop is used already in these applications. But a human
| form factor is not required.
| Tycho wrote:
| Maybe - $20k is a bit steep, but I would certainly pay a
| large premium to have my housework done without needing to
| employ a stranger to actually work in my home.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Not humans in disguise, but remotely controlled.
| dcmatt wrote:
| Still amazing progress! Such a shame that Sony and Honda gave up
| on their bipedal robots 20 years ago. Imagine where we could've
| been
| gnabgib wrote:
| Discussion on the source article (79 points, 2 days ago, 82
| comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41815567
| sktrdie wrote:
| My biggest beef with this is: why humanly shaped? Our shape is
| the outcome of evolutionary survival in an environment that is
| very much different from... a household?
| mhh__ wrote:
| But we then made houses
| gojomo wrote:
| Why humanly shaped, you ask?
|
| Drop-in compatibility with all human-shaped legacy interfaces,
| for the most-rapid deprecation of homo sapiens as soon as the
| ASI can teleoperate humanoid proxies.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Because robots shaped for their environment are old news, to
| the point that most of them aren't even called robots. If you
| want to wow people and have them feel a connection to your
| robot you have to make it at least resemble a mammal. Even
| better if it resembles a human.
|
| There's also the other argument about humanoid robots doing
| better in environments adapted to humans. But that's so far
| that hasn't really panned out.
| loteck wrote:
| 100% false headline. Where's the integrity, Verge?
| wongarsu wrote:
| I haven't seen the event, so I don't know how Musk presented
| them, and whether he was misleading or just vague in describing
| them. But imho the headline goes to far in calling them "humans
| in disguise". The headline makes it sound like they were literal
| humans in robot costumes like those in the Chinese World Robot
| Conference last month.
|
| I guess we can haggle over the definition of "robot". But they
| are _humanoid machines_ that happen to be mostly remote-
| controlled - with some automation for functions like walking. If
| these aren 't robots then neither are Boston Dynamic's dogs, and
| I have never seen anyone complain about people calling them
| robots
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > The headline makes it sound like they were literal humans in
| robot costumes like those in the Chinese World Robot Conference
| last month.
|
| Another example of this behaviour is Tesla themselves 3 years
| ago.
|
| https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-mocked-after-unveiling-a...
| schiffern wrote:
| The suited dancer was an obvious "ice breaker" joke, and was
| presented as such. Did anyone seriously think it being
| presented as a real robot??
| jmartin2683 wrote:
| The new disclaimer at the beginning of the broadcast was doing
| some heavy lifting throughout the entire presentation.
| underwater wrote:
| The thing that takes this into scam territory for me is Elon's
| comments that "we started with a person in a robot suit and
| improved dramatically year after year, so if you extrapolate this
| we're going to have something extraordinary."
|
| This statement is deliberately worded to avoid making a promise
| because Elon knows it is effectively a big fat lie. To date Tesla
| have solved the same problems that others have already solved.
| You can't extrapolate progress because what comes next are the
| really hard problems that no one has solved. Even if Tesla is
| able solve those problems, there is zero chance that they can
| move at the same speed. They have 50% of an autonomous robot, but
| the next half is going to take 90% of the effort.
|
| This is the usual smoke and mirrors. Elon shows off a tech demo
| using incremental gains and falsely represents how long it will
| take them to deliver on a revolutionary product.
| fastball wrote:
| [delayed]
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