Humanoid Robots Have a Serious Design Flaw, And We Need to Fix It
Watch Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot doing training routines, or the latest humanoids from Figure loading a washing machine, and it’s easy to believe the robot revolution is here.
From the outside, it seems the only remaining challenge is perfecting the AI ( artificial intelligence) software to enable these machines to handle real-life environments.
Humanoid robots won’t be attending the robot revolution.
Watch the video embedded in the article, and you will see why humanoid robots aren’t practical. The robot does not do the laundry. It empties a bucket of laundry into the washing machine. It took 45 seconds to do what the 3 year old girl in the video could do in 10 seconds.
It isn’t necessarily an advantage for a robot to be laid out like a human. Airplanes don’t work like birds. A drill bit doesn’t resemble a carpenter bee or termite. A garbage truck doesn’t act like a raccoon.
Bipedal motion, walking on two legs, is really difficult. Walking on two legs doesn’t improve the robot’s ability to load a washing machine. How many domestic tasks rely on bipedal motion? None come to mind. The humanoid shape places additional restrictions on the robot’s design.
Practical robots will be built for specific purposes and will be shaped to best complete those tasks.
Youtube physicist, Angela Collier, already did a comprehensive video on why “humanoid robots belong in the trash”. She can get off track and just keep talking, so we can skip the first 15 minutes. She’s smart and kind of cute, so she explains it.
That would be cool to take those humanoid robots to Yosemite National Park to interact with the wildlife such as buffalo and angry mother bears with cubs to see how many times they would get attacked. Why stop there have those humanoid robots go to Africa to walk around a herd of elephants or hang out with the local gorillas. You could make an underground movie from it and all it would cost you is some humanoid robots, a movie camera and some plane tickets.
The headline of the news papers would be, (if news papers still existed that is)
Low budget film makes big budget money.
I was going to say that those robots must cost a half-million bucks or so, but some movies are costing a quarter of a billion dollars, so who cares?
A few weeks ago, I saw an article about robotic deer. I don’t know if they could walk, but they could move their heads and wiggle around to look realistic.
A few years ago, I saw an article about a guy who was making an Iron Man suit so he could talk to bears. It wasn’t very good. The helmet might have been a big pot with eye holes cut out.