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There’s functionally no engineering reason to put a robot on two legs. Every other form factor is cheaper, more stable, more efficient, and easier to maintain.
There is, however, a very good marketing reason: everyone’s watched Terminator, fear goes viral, and anxiety drives attention.
A warehouse robot is infrastructure.
A humanoid robot is an engagement strategy…
I always cringe at illustrations of “office AI assistants”. Humanoid robots who look at a big monitor and does input using a keyboard and mouse. JUST USE THE USB-C CONNECTOR ALREADY!!!
Of course, they are almost always white and the female bots have nice boobs. So infantilising.
Sarah Connor’s biggest mistake was failing to develop military grade glue guns. The first robot uprising would have been too sticky to do much damage 😁
@Daojoan a lot of the engineers take ideas from fiction as well : )
@Daojoan There is one reason. Robots will often have to work in a space designed by humans for humans, so they will need to mimic humans. Big companies have the money to create infrastructure that fits robots better. China has entire factories run by robots, where they work 24/7 with lights off. Amazon has warehouses that are completely flat, and riddled with guidelines and tracks on the floor. Not every company will have such infrastructure, so they'll need robots that can climb stairs instead.
@Daojoan Those gizmos that open greenhouse windows wider depending on temperature/sunlight are pretty cool (and purely passive, with no "intelligence" at all)
@Daojoan A bipedal design is hardly efficient for what we're trying to use robots for today.
@Daojoan
There is an interesting mixture of videos with ridiculously failing androids...
and astonishing abilities of others.
In one sort they look harmless and acceptable clumsy, even adorable mainly because of their human shape.
In another way they look very ..useful.
None of this should distract from their frighteningly rapid development.
None of this should distract from the question of who could benefit from their future capabilities and mass production.
@Daojoan It’s more than engagement. It’s an attempt to directly devalue human worth.
https://humancode.us/2024/10/11/robots-should-not-look-like-people
@Daojoan oh yes the constant videos of biped robots falling over in amusing ways is driving fear into our hearts. Fear that will *something something* sell more robots!
I bet they can by now, but the last time I checked with people who would know, it wasn't yet possible to build a robot that could catch anything but a perfectly thrown ball. Without requiring mobility, can a robotic arm catch a ball traveling at, say, 20km/hr through a 1m x 1m window?
Aaakshully
Two legs makes sense.
1. Minimum suspension mats (vs tripod or quad+)
2. Nature doesn't do wheels.
3. There are other ground propulsion methods (wigglies etc) but not fast.
4. Once you got the balance software going, legs are super fast.
5. You could have alternatives, but they are medium specific (arboreal, hydrous), legs are universal.
6. Flight has specific downsides mass/energy also medium specific
Just about the only half decent alternative is snake.
But legs > snake
It is our desire to play God...
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
@Daojoan The argument is that they should be able to get around in a world designed for humans with two legs, and the argument is plausible.
@Daojoan oh oh oh, for once I have written something somewhat relevant on the topic
https://caffeineandlasers.com/blogs/WhyhumansarehumanoidshapedandwhySciFiMechsshouldnotbe.html
Biomimicry is good, but only makes sense if you are actually working in the same constraints as the biology you are mimicking
@Daojoan yep, decades of insane non-humanoid robots at universities, tracked military robots (with weapons, and airborne robots we call "drones", but a weird race is run in China and people freak out
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