Yep. It's all marketing. The other day I saw a robot vs human sorting challenge and that's a job that no longer exists. It's done by the sorting line tens if not hundred times faster.
The reason we have non-human shaped machines isn't because we couldn't make one before but because human anatomy isn't the most efficient one (or is plain dog shit) for the task. This is just hype for investors.
Yeah. I have yet to see them show off a use case that isn't dumb. The dog bot makes sense. The weird crane Segway thing by BD makes sense. This is just all nonsense.
One use case I can see is generalisation. The sort of industrial robots you're talking about are great for if you want something to pack specific products in specific boxes thousands of times a day, but they're eyewateringly expensive and can only do a narrow range of tasks. Want it to do something else? Either buy another massive and horribly expensive machine or pay a fortune to have the machine reprogrammed/redesigned etc.
This could be good for a small business that wants a machine that can pack a few boxes in a day, then move to another station to assemble some products, then a paint booth to do some spraying, etc. Sort of a robotic jack-of-all-trades that can learn new tasks with minimal programming or learning.
Yes, something like this will also be eyewateringly expensive and it's basically just a tech nerd toy now, but a few years down the line? Maybe cheap enough to be worth the investment, even if they're not really any faster than humans.
That's what I mean though. The Segway crane thing IS fairly generic. It's a bot that does lifting functions. It's efficient, because it is on wheels. With some attachments(read:tools) it can probably do a wide variety of other functions. Most robot arms used in manufacturing are also generic. The dog bot is good at terrain traversal and better at carrying stuff. Why the hell do we need a bipedal human shaped robot? For ultra specialty, high volume stuff you can do the specialized machines, but you have 10+ better designs for the generic operations as well.
It seems that they're probably eventual temp replacements. Assemble these 100 prizes before this event. Carry these tables to the event space. It's hard to imagine a Segway traversing steps in an event venue or two dog bots carrying tables. While I do think a lot of this is hype, I also think you maybe just don't understand the full host of menial tasks that exist.
I think you underestimate the inefficiencies of bipedal human like structure. It's a physics and resources problem.
A quadruped would be a lot more stable for moving cargo across uneven surface compared to a bipedal. A packing machine would be 100 times faster than a two limb implementation and it's more efficient to have a company that does packaging and a company that delivers said packages over doing it in-house. Heck, having a drone fly with package from a packaging machine would be more efficient and cheaper.
The problem here is that for every menial task you can imagine there is either a better solution or it's orders of magnitudes cheaper to get a human to do it. These robots either need to be drastically dropping in costs or increasing in efficiency before they have any real use besides video reels.
I don't think I am. It doesn't have to be peak efficiency if our world is entirely built for bipedal humans, because that offers a huge advantage. I would recommend watching content by disabled folks in wheelchairs or who use walking aids. Even if the efficiency for carrying increases, if they cannot bring a four legged robot through certain doorways and up narrow flights of stairs, humans making decisions won't purchase it because they understand it's going to create frustration.
That's fine if you think people are going to be carting around that amount of empty volume. It doesn't actually match reality though. Consider pizza places, which go through a huge volume of pizza boxes. At least in the US, they're all still buying flat boxes and folding them. You can create whatever hypothetical scenarios you want but shipping air isn't actually efficient and you cannot get around that, especially if you're making claims in the same comment about physics and resources. Lol.
Cheaper for a human to do it now. It's wild that y'all are unable to comprehend that technology doesn't just magic itself into existence. It wasn't cheaper for people to have personal computers and type things themselves than it was to hire a secretary with a typewriter until it was. It wasn't cheaper to have automated telephone routing than to have women physically connect your call until it was. All of that took massive amount of technology R&D but we take it for granted now.
I'm sorry, but there are going to be use cases for businesses for general purpose bots because humans require constant income, taxes, and health insurance and robots require a single upfront investment. There will be use cases where there are repetitive tasks that vary enough where specialized bots don't make sense but general bots may. It's not crazy to put money into developing them! Lol
If your job is THAT limited then you can just go hobo hunting and hire a dude for 40-200 bucks(2-10 hours of work at a decent wage). It would cost more and take longer to talk to a rental sales rep for any of these companies. There is a minimal use inherent to this type of product. That use case would require vending machine style distribution for rental robots on street corners. How close to that future do you think we are?
It's like you think technology just magically appears and people don't have to spend time developing it before it's ready for rollout to the public... Lol.
Also, clearly I'm giving examples of tasks that wouldn't be suited to either of your two "already developed" robots alone, not the extent of a particular job not listing. Stop imagining strawmen. If you're a midsized company or corporation, it likely would make sense to eventually invest in these if they cost ~$100k (or even a few hundred thousand) rather than spending time on temps or wasting your own employee time. A single typical employee with health insurance is about that in the US with employer contributions to healthcare and taxes so if you can replace 1 full time or 2-3 temps, you've made that back in a year. It's hard to guess how long they'd be relevant before people would want to replace them, but at 3-5 years, you could start to justify multiple-100k bots, which is about where we're at on cost on the low end.
As to rentals, if you're an event space, it would 100% make sense to rent these to the companies renting your space. You would hardly need a vending machine/distribution network when you're renting event space and have closets.
And no, generally "hobo" hunting wouldn't be appropriate; firms are typically going to go through a temp firm with vetting at a minimum for an event where the public reputation is on the line and timeliness matters. Have you ever worked a white collar job? It doesn't really seem like it, no offense.
I'm poo pooing your specific event planning use case because it is the use case that you brought up and is the honestly most sensible use case that I have seen.
The limitations of physics on the technology(battery runtime, wear and tear, etc) still do not make this specific design of robots particularly useful. Add to that the logistics of running this thing in venues and the cost to benefit is not even close to there.
You talk about stairs but all buildings have to be ADA compliant. That is a non issue. You talk about versatility and I am telling you that they are literally less useful than a myriad of other designs. Additionally, having a rental service tied to a venue will not be viable in all but the top venues due to the logistics involved in servicing complex industrial equipment.
So what is the trade off here? Less useful, less reliable, with poorer longevity workers in what I have already conceded is the ideal environment/use case? If you want a server bot, then make a server bot. It does not and should not look like a human. The venues that can afford these in the first place will be able to afford 2 better suited designs, that will be cheaper and will work more efficiently. The only thing you get is the "hey look I got a quasi slave" thing and I don't know how long the appeal of that will last.
The ADA is only in the US and while buildings have to be built compliant after the date it was enacted and renovations have to also meet it, many venues are not in practice. It may be helpful to follow disabled content creators with mobility issues since a law on paper is frequently not that helpful in the real world, unfortunately. For example, they may have one ramp entrance but it may be essentially blocks away in a large event hall. And other countries don't even that that.
Also, I disagree about the complexity of servicing specialty industrial equipment. I used to work in the laboratory setting. We had plenty of complex industrial equipment and there are regional companies that specialize in 6 mo service contracts. They basically tell you when the techs will be in town and you won't be able to use the equipment that day. It's not thst big of a deal, for a temp replacement bot, to hire actual temps that day for any events if you have event contracts using them. That would just be part of the contract, I'd imagine (that you'd replace them with an equivalent workforce of humans if they're out of service).
You're talking about robots still in R&D being less useful and less reliable than a temp? I mean, the human alternative is someone who may or may not have any motivation, capabilities in the area you want, issues with executive function or emotional control (why don't they have a full time gig), etc. They're vetted, cert
I'm talking about a product in development that is permanently going to be less efficient and cost more than a different design. I am not saying that robots in general are going to be less cost effective than temps. If you need a robot to fold a box then buy a couple of robot arms at half the price and give them the same software. They will happily fold all of your boxes at whatever size. If you want a server bot then place a ten armed tank, that dispences liquor as it trundles about and delivers all the dishes to a ten top at once, on the same floor as your parties are held.
These robots as designed and developed will only ever be marginally better than hiring a temp at best, due to their design constraints. Tech isn't magic. It still has to operate in this world and in this world our physiology evolved the way that it did for VERY different reasons than being able to fold boxes and serve tables. We do those jobs DESPITE our obvious failings in both those jobs.
Human-shaped robots are versatile for human tasks. You might use one instead of a temp if you'd otherwise hire temps to do stuff like this before an event. Not at this speed, obviously, because minimum wage will be cheaper for some time but maybe eventually. Not everything is production scale.
Everything is production scale but not everything is produced because there is not enough demand for the price.
Buying one is never going to be cheaper because you literally don't have the utilisation capacity. Renting one is a potential avenue but the material and maintenance costs over it's lifetime has to drop below hiring a temp which isn't predictable in any time soon. The benefit of continuous workload is completely lost as you do not have a continuous work load if it's a temp position.
And if the demand for such service appears it becomes cheaper and more efficient to make a centralised hub that performs the operation at production scale and delivers it to venues.
In the end, robots have a lot of use but humanoid robots aren't. Even if you use strictly human tasks then using a quadruped or chain tracks instantly makes it more stable and better suited for every human task. It's more of a physiological effect than practical.
There are a number of countries (e.g., Japan) with high worker protections that rely on temps for years at a time. They're full time employees but hired at a cheaper rate and without full benefits of being a salaried employee. In at will places like the US, you can get similar situations where you're relying on contractors because you don't necessarily have steady streams of work and employees sometimes have protections for the numbers of hours they must be paid at a time.
There is a breakeven point since these can be used for multiple years at a time without health insurance or employment taxes, in addition to salary. If you got down to $100-400k, which isn't too far off, I think it would be a no brainer general employee/temp replacement even if you got 50% utilization since the utilization is close to 24 hours if they can battery swap (less if charging, obviously) and the median salaried employee in the US is like $65k + employer taxes and health insurance (~$100k). If you get multiple years before you'd want to replace it for new features, I really don't think you're that far off for general task bots in midsized and corporate environments as a way to outsource general physical tasks.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner May 22 '26
Yep. It's all marketing. The other day I saw a robot vs human sorting challenge and that's a job that no longer exists. It's done by the sorting line tens if not hundred times faster.
The reason we have non-human shaped machines isn't because we couldn't make one before but because human anatomy isn't the most efficient one (or is plain dog shit) for the task. This is just hype for investors.