General_Josh t1_ivfs4f0 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 5:31 PM

I think humanoid robots are one of those sci-fi staples that came about primarily because they're:

Cool/evocative to look at (our monkey brains like things that look like us)
Easy to film (slap some tin-foil on an actor and call it a day)

But, in the real world, they're just not very practical. There's not all that many use-cases where a more 'traditional' robot would not be able to do the same thing for a tiny fraction of the cost. Maybe child/elder care? But, why would I ever buy a humanoid robot to sweep my house, when I could get a Roomba for 1/100th the price? They're certainly not going to make economic sense in many (if any) industrial/manufacturing capacities, like this report seems to think.

I'm sure they'll have a niche market, based primarily on that cool factor. I don't think they're going to be a hundred-billion dollar industry.

MasteroChieftan t1_ivfvf5u wrote on November 7, 2022 at 5:52 PM

I think they're going to be more like Mr. Handy from Fallout. (minus the hover jet). They'll be utilitarian, like a Roomba, but with multiple arms, manageable form factor, and something that can easily navigate the home and perform simple tasks like laundry, dishes, dusting. Imagine always coming home to a perfectly clean house. Can just focus on hobbies and leisure.

Racxie t1_ivgat8j wrote on November 7, 2022 at 7:30 PM

Even Japan already has robots for elder care and they don't need to be humanoid. If anything Japan is generally far more accepting of robots whereas countries in the West generally find them creepy etc.

And eve when they're not just look at that hitchiking robot that got destroyed by people that didn't like even something simple.