[HN Gopher] A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Rob...
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A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Robotics
Author : Bogdanp
Score : 91 points
Date : 2025-06-16 16:28 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (generalrobots.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (generalrobots.substack.com)
| taneq wrote:
| Halfway through and this is hilarious. Are you trying to tell me
| that AI originally stood for Anomalously-small Istanbulians? :D
|
| Edit: Oh. In hindsight this (and other similarly snarky
| backronyms) is obviously why any time computers can do a thing it
| stops being "AI".
| Symmetry wrote:
| The YouTube videos will never stop.
|
| But I think the author missed a trick by not including that time
| one of our Spots got shot.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-dynamics-robot-do...
|
| EDIT: And a link to the programming languages inspiration for
| this post if you haven't read it already.
|
| https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...
| gdiamos wrote:
| Was this thing written by ChatGPT?
| dmillard wrote:
| Clearly not - it's quite funny (or at least I thought so).
|
| Anyway, the author is a well known writer in the robotics
| world.
| gdiamos wrote:
| The future part didn't land for me at all.
|
| To me it just goes completely off the rails.
|
| """ 2035: AI is 10,000 times smarter than the smartest
| human.7 It composes "A Brief, Exhaustive and Completely
| Correct History of Robotics" which is much funnier than this
| one.
|
| 2035: Technological utopia arrives. """
|
| That's okay, humor requires taking a risk.
| modeless wrote:
| The problem with Google's robotics acquisitions was that they
| fired Andy Rubin less than a year after he made them. They
| floundered after that.
|
| It's clear that Google's management simply didn't have the
| patience to continue putting money into hardware development
| before the software was ready. They forced premature
| commercialization on BD and then dumped them on SoftBank. Strong
| top-level executive support could have changed that. I wonder
| what Google robotics could have been.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Worth remembering he was fired due to sexual harassment[0].
| While Google did the right thing in firing him, they deserve
| far more criticism for the cover ups. Both of which are frankly
| unacceptable
|
| [0]: https://archive.is/gmvI7
| immibis wrote:
| Given the choice between having a sexual harasser on staff,
| or missing out on a billion dollars of profit, every company
| in the world will choose to keep the sexual harasser and the
| profit, so that can't be the only reason.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's a very unrealistic perspective on management. To
| begin with, no individual is ever seen as personally
| irreplaceable.
| mooseling wrote:
| I'm going through a breakup right now and really enjoying posts
| like this. Interesting, funny, accessible. The Grug Brained
| Developer also really hit the spot. Any other recommendations in
| this vein? Thanks!
| fydorm wrote:
| Lifting weights
| ianbicking wrote:
| Why do folks think remote telepresence never became popular,
| outside of the occasional appearance in sitcoms?
| Groxx wrote:
| Because almost nobody has ever seen a telepresence robot in
| use.
|
| Like, factually.
|
| Unless you count video calls as telepresence, but I think most
| do not.
| Groxx wrote:
| On rereading the thread, maybe I'm just misreading? I read
| your question as "they're popular, why do people think they
| are not" but you could also have meant "why doesn't anyone
| want them".
|
| For the latter: because it's far higher friction than a phone
| call (or any similar tool). On the extreme end, I can walk
| into a meeting room and push a couple buttons and have a zoom
| meeting. And doing that with your computer or phone is
| significantly easier, often just one or two buttons whether
| you're a two person business or 200k.
|
| Versus telepresence robots at the simplest: it requires
| charging, far more complicated UI to do anything that a video
| call cannot do, and is many times more expensive so you
| almost certainly do not have one everywhere you have a video-
| call-capable display. And the display is probably
| dramatically smaller, so you _still_ need a separate display
| if you want to show anything useful. For very nearly
| everyone, that 's just "a video call with extra baggage".
|
| They can work just fine where those tradeoffs are offsetting
| vastly more expensive and higher friction things, e.g. in
| highly specialized surgery, and you do see them in those
| areas. That's just a rather small niche compared to "has a
| computer or phone".
| ge96 wrote:
| Maybe the remotely-operated robots, no face though
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Fundamentally it's just easier to send an email or call.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Because nobody asked for it at the first place. Zoom was what
| people wanted.
| michaelt wrote:
| Firstly: By the time your organisation is big enough that
| nobody will bat an eyelid at buying a $4000 gadget, it's big
| enough you've got several buildings with several floors.
| Probably some doors too.
|
| So you don't need one robot, you need ten. And if it works
| really well and it's a big hit? One per floor won't be enough.
|
| Secondly: The expense and maintenance burden fall on the
| recipient of calls, but most of the benefit is to the person
| making the call.
|
| I benefit as the caller, as I can trundle over to someone's
| desk and interrupt them - but the benefit to them as the
| recipient is much more indirect.
|
| Thirdly: Pre-pandemic, a lot of video call stuff was pretty
| unreliable, making the expense of a robot a risky matter. Post-
| pandemic, far fewer people are in a physical office - it's not
| like there are important in-office meetings that only have a
| single remote attendee.
| degrees57 wrote:
| I was hoping to see a mention of Odex 1 by Odetics. I was working
| in a printed circuit board factory at the time (1983), and we got
| to build boards for it. Later on, there was a demo where it
| lifted one end of a small pickup truck off the ground.
| smath wrote:
| Serious Q: What are the best known approaches for getting robots
| to fold clothes / do dishes? Doesn't need to be humanoid
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| if you have a good dishwasher and don't overfill it, you
| probably are over-washing by hand. with two dishwashers (one
| dirty, one clean,) and most of the problem is solved.
| aetherson wrote:
| I've seen a lot of people claim this for 15 years, but every
| experience I've ever had with minimal or no handwashing of
| dishes before putting them in the dishwasher has resulted in
| visibly dirty dishes.
|
| It's possible that the (several) dishwashers I've used have
| been "not good enough," but if so I suggest most people's
| dishwashers aren't good enough.
| pflenker wrote:
| Father here with a family of 4. our dishwasher runs
| multiple times per day and we never hand wash before, and I
| can tell you that the dishes tend to be very dirty before
| they go in. They always come out sparkling clean.
|
| Here is what works for us: - keep the salt tank filled as
| well as the rinsing agent. Don't use these tabs which claim
| to have all of this in there combined. - don't overload the
| dish washer - clean it regularly. Once per week I take out
| the sieve at the bottom, clean it (takes less than 5
| minutes) and then I use one of these bottles of cleaning
| fluid with a wax cap. You put it in, start a cleaning
| program, the wax melts and the fluid does its work. That's
| also when I refill the salt and rinsing agent. Total time
| effort per week: 15 mins.
|
| We have a low mid-tier dish washer, but I had the same
| results with cheaper ones.
| aetherson wrote:
| Okay, a heated debate in my slack group is now going. We
| need more deets:
|
| * When you say that you don't hand-wash, can you clarify?
| Does that mean you just take the dish and put it directly
| into the dishwasher after throwing any large chunks of
| food away? Or do you rinse it or even soap it, you just
| don't scrub it thoroughly?
|
| * You mention washing the dishes multiple times per day.
| Does any food actually dry on your plates before the
| dishwasher gets run?
|
| * You don't have a problem with fingerprints or lipprints
| on glassware?
|
| * Do you feel like the salt tank has benefits beyond hard
| water mitigation?
| smath wrote:
| I guess I want the robot to do _all_ the work -- loading and
| unloading does take a good chunk of time everyday. Same thing
| with loading / unloading washing machines, and folding
| clothes. Just good ol' housework that should be automatable.
| I was wondering whether anyone has seriously tried - and what
| the sota is.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Best known approach for getting robots to do dishes is commonly
| called a dishwasher and is widespread.
| pryelluw wrote:
| But it doesn't load/unload itself ...
| margalabargala wrote:
| Are you serious, or parodying the "reddit users claim it's
| not a robot because _< moved goalpost>_" trope in the
| original article?
| pryelluw wrote:
| I find joy in the ambiguity.
| fragmede wrote:
| get two of them, and don't be afraid to rewash dishes.
| pryelluw wrote:
| That's what I'm working on doing. Makes so much sense. I
| wonder why it's not a common thing.
| wavemode wrote:
| Similar to the old saying "if it works, it's not AI", we
| could also say "if it works, it's not robotics"
|
| Once a physical process X becomes automated in a reliable and
| efficient way, we no longer consider it a robot. It's just
| "an X machine".
| Animats wrote:
| Real answer: [1][2] From Chicago Dryer. It's boring, reliable,
| practical equipment for the huge laundries that service big
| hospitals and hotels. The machines look big and dumb, but there
| are vision systems in many of them, inspecting, separating, and
| finding corners. Robotic grippers grab items where necessary.
|
| Industrial-strength dish cleaning has been demoed but does not
| seem to be deployed.[3]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpTuwKu5fY0
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/7bd900ehE9M?t=41
|
| [3] https://nalarobotics.com/spotless.html
| z3ratul163071 wrote:
| great history. one of the hidden gems inside: "the wildly
| successful ROS operating system. ROS is used to this day by
| enthusiastic researchers and frustrated companies who can't
| figure out how to migrate off of it"
| jvanderbot wrote:
| "We should use ROS to move fast"
|
| <first stage prototyping done>
|
| "As we grow we need to move off ROS"
|
| <slippery market and customers require new hires and agility>
|
| "ROS has this thing that can replace 1000 lines of your bespoke
| code, and it works pretty well"
|
| Round and round and round we go. Seen it happen first hand,
| will see it again.
| dima55 wrote:
| ROS usage is a great quick way to evaluate the doofusness
| levels of an org. It's such a dumpster fire on every level,
| no reasonable human should be going within a mile of that
| thing.
| all2 wrote:
| I've tried a few times to get into ROS for personal
| projects. I guess I understand the gist of it, but I still
| don't understand it.
|
| Suppose I've got a motor, a motor driver, and an Arduino.
| How does ROS work with that? There's all this message
| passing and distinct blocks of stuff, but how do I get my
| motor to turn?
|
| I'm sure there are tutorials out there... I get tired
| trying to approach their docs. I typically understand
| things from the ground up or from the top down. Their docs
| seem to start in the middle and work up/down at the same
| time.
|
| [edit]
|
| What are my alternatives in this space? What is better than
| ROS?
| dima55 wrote:
| ROS is a collection of mostly-independent components,
| each of which is a not-as-good implementation of existing
| tooling. The implementers and the users mostly haven't
| grasped how to use the existing tooling, and the whole
| community is full of the blind leading the blind.
| Alternatives for what? The build system? The IPC?
| all2 wrote:
| > Alternatives for what? The build system? The IPC?
|
| Honestly, I don't know. I don't even know what ROS _is_.
|
| I could spec a multiplatform (computing and embedded with
| sensors and controllers) system, and come up with
| something like messaging on a CAN bus between different
| bits of the system and compilation targets for each piece
| of the system... Is that what ROS is?
| gugagore wrote:
| "What is ROS" is really the right question. Maybe this
| helps:
|
| https://goosetaco.notion.site/Beware-of-negative-
| polarity-st... . It links to
| https://answers.ros.org/question/12230/what-is-ros-
| exactly-m...
| rcxdude wrote:
| it's a collection of tools bound together by a common
| build system, set of libraries, and a messaging system
| with a bunch of tools for introspecting and debugging it.
| It is, in principle, most of the kind of stuff you want
| for developing a robotic system, it's just each part is
| not very good, and it strongly encourages a distributed
| architecture that more or less makes every problem
| harder, especially ones which are latency sensitive, like
| most robotics.
|
| Unfortunately there's no unified alternative: your
| alternative is to basically just put together a similar
| system from third-party libraries. It's a bit of a pain
| but not fundamentally that difficult, and you can salvage
| what's useful from ROS with less faff than dealing with
| it.
| gertlex wrote:
| Regarding your edit:
|
| The setup you describe, "how do I get my motor to turn",
| is lower level than ROS. Typically if I had a robot with
| a microcontroller to control a motor, I'd write some
| bespoke code (or find libraries, such as Adafruit's for
| example, probably) for my particular hardware. Most
| recently, I've just asked ChatGPT for such code (having
| done it myself the harder ways in years past, so
| admittedly I know reasonably well what to ask...).
|
| Once you achieve code that moves the motor at various
| speeds or directions, you might e.g. connect to the
| Arduino from a computer (e.g. raspberry pi), write a
| python "ROS Node" script that listens to a ROS topic and
| sends serial commands from the Pi to the Arduino.
|
| Then, if you attach a laser range-finder or 2D lidar to
| the Pi, and look for a corresponding ROS node for that
| laser hardware (on github via google), you would run that
| additional ROS Node...
|
| And finally you might write the "main" script as a third
| ROS Node that:
|
| - Interprets the laser data it gets from the laser node's
| published ROS topic - Has some logic for the robot that
| interprets that data and chooses to set speed/direction
| of the motor.
|
| This is all very ad hoc description but hopefully
| somewhat helpful... You also asked "what is ROS", to
| which my own typical answer is: A framework for Nodes to
| communicate with each other, that happens to have a lot
| of open source nodes available for common hardware.
|
| (I write this with ROS1 in mind, having hardly touched
| ROS2)
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Serious question: Why would I want to read something with this
| title? Is this some much more abstract form of a "How Not To"
| article?
| theamk wrote:
| It's humor, a robotiscist joking about their field.
|
| If you are interested in robotics, you'll find it funny. If
| not, you will be confused.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| As stated in the article, it's a reference to a piece by James
| Iry on programming languages. From the title I expect something
| wrong, funny, but mildly insightful.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Just awesome stuff: "Tesla deploys thousands of their Optimus
| humanoids working in their automotive factories.1 The robots are
| slower and less productive than human workers, but make up for it
| by being more expensive and harder to train."
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