"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?""Oh.
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Nobody wants a robot that's durable, versatile, powerful and sensitive and not too expensive (and self-repairing, obviously) more than me.
It would be so amazing if the problem were software and not software, power, design, everything.
It's also design philosophy, so they'll likely design robots that need to be replaced every couple of years with a new, upgraded model. Just like your mobile phone, washing machine and fridge.
Douglas Adams, sadly missed, wrote about an SEP(*) field that allows aliens to walk unnoticed among us.
That same field is in evidence in the thinking of every techbro, most manufacturers and a large number of politicians, most notably when it comes to climate change, depletion of resources, and the poisoning of our planet with the byproducts of manufacturing and disposal.
If anyone is likely to produce a viable domestic robot, my money's on Ukraine.* Somebody Else's Problem
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@futurebird
Funny how ALL the gen Ai LLM benefits are in the (currently) nonexistent future, a time when all of us will be dead, and none of us will be able to either benefit from it or to do anything about it.
We have the misfortune of living in a time when money and marketing-speak talk so loudly that every rational voice is drowned out by the sound of greed.I suspect that future historians (if there are any) may well decide that the first Luddites were right all along, and that various First Nations and the Amish had the right idea as to how humankind should live in this world of ours.
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Hard because changing one of those parts changes what all the other parts need? Because a little change one place might lead to a huge change elsewhere, even a change of direction?
(Zero robotics, but I have some of the math!)
@clew @Robotistry @futurebird @mxchara
(To be clear, I love robotics, it is the best job, even better than crazy radio shit)The problem is that any fix requires fixing multiple levels at once, and those levels are in different, often warring disciplines.
For instance, if you find a vendor underspecced a motor brake (they always do) now you need to reduce the length of limbs, the available torques in software, the available currents in power management, oh right that changes which constraints bind the constraint solver so I hope the controller software has hopped on to renormalizing Jacobians an' shit, also wake up the contract lawyer, negotiate building access for the vendor's technicians, and probably 3D-print some little stop widgets as well to clip onto the motor to backstop any broken brake springs, but maybe those can wait until overnight. Also the new constants for the balance controller to avoid stressing that motor cause the robot to make lots of quick stomping steps, annoying the tenants below your lab because the vibration aerated their anaerobes or something, so your landlord is also on the phone now.
Realistically no individual person in this job _can_ be a specialist in only one area; everyone needs to know enough of everything to at least talk to each other. That sort of hyper-generalist workplace is an absolute trip to work in. And it isn't going to get solved by "AI" in short-to-medium time, although several parts of it will become moderately simpler or cheaper.
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@P__X @futurebird Yet another reason why I'm skeptical about humanoid use cases.
@Robotistry @futurebird ditto.
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@futurebird @mxchara
So much this. The only problem in robotics is everything, because each problem in robotics is every other problem in robotics in a trenchcoat. -
@futurebird
This is what I've been bullying my AI hopeful colleagues for for years.
Robotics hasn't gotten better since the 1990s because it turns out human motion is incredibly precise, adaptable, and REALLY COMPLICATED
We physically can't make an arm shaped thing that works like an arm. We can make an arm shaped thing that can do certain arm like tasks, maybe pick up an ergonomic object, press a few buttons, or I guess flip over packages for 4 hours per that one new "AI" stream. But that same arm can't do surgery, it can't drive operate heavy machinery, hell, it couldn't reach behind a couch to plug in a vacuum with near the ease we have.
I will admit, the compute is probably there. We can probably simulate the motion of a person enough that an AI scale compute system could do the math to plug in a vacuum. But motors aren't getting smaller. Not without becoming uselessly weak. We've hit the physics barrier of electromagnetism.
Hell, look at any video of an incredibly sophisticated hand and just conceptualize how many hand positions it can make. Then try to make one you know it can't. Cross your fingers. Touch your thumb to each finger tip, see how fast you can do it. You are so much more sophisticated than a robot.
And obviously, we could just, redesign the whole world to accommodate bots with just a slew of specialized tools to be a portion of human ability, but that's quite expensive since we've already built the world to our liking.
So unless we want to rebuild the world with the logic of an Amazon Warehouse, the bots aren't going to take over for a while.If these people watched ants more they wouldn't be so blithe about robots.
I watched an ant carry a feather 15 times* longer than her body up a wall into a crack since she was enjoying chewing on the end and didn't want to share with other ants.
It would put every human gymnast to shame. It makes every robot look like a joke.
But that's millions of years of adaption.
I do think we'll make progress, but it will be hard work. Not magic.
*it was more like just 6 times, but still
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They said those words with their mouth. And didn't die instantly of shame.
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."@futurebird so let's start laying off people right now
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If these people watched ants more they wouldn't be so blithe about robots.
I watched an ant carry a feather 15 times* longer than her body up a wall into a crack since she was enjoying chewing on the end and didn't want to share with other ants.
It would put every human gymnast to shame. It makes every robot look like a joke.
But that's millions of years of adaption.
I do think we'll make progress, but it will be hard work. Not magic.
*it was more like just 6 times, but still
much of the world probably mistakes "magic" for "someone else did all the hard work".
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@dingodog19 @futurebird @mxchara or looked at the cost of even a single stepper motor
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@clew @Robotistry @futurebird @mxchara
(To be clear, I love robotics, it is the best job, even better than crazy radio shit)The problem is that any fix requires fixing multiple levels at once, and those levels are in different, often warring disciplines.
For instance, if you find a vendor underspecced a motor brake (they always do) now you need to reduce the length of limbs, the available torques in software, the available currents in power management, oh right that changes which constraints bind the constraint solver so I hope the controller software has hopped on to renormalizing Jacobians an' shit, also wake up the contract lawyer, negotiate building access for the vendor's technicians, and probably 3D-print some little stop widgets as well to clip onto the motor to backstop any broken brake springs, but maybe those can wait until overnight. Also the new constants for the balance controller to avoid stressing that motor cause the robot to make lots of quick stomping steps, annoying the tenants below your lab because the vibration aerated their anaerobes or something, so your landlord is also on the phone now.
Realistically no individual person in this job _can_ be a specialist in only one area; everyone needs to know enough of everything to at least talk to each other. That sort of hyper-generalist workplace is an absolute trip to work in. And it isn't going to get solved by "AI" in short-to-medium time, although several parts of it will become moderately simpler or cheaper.
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."@futurebird This is one of those posts where the comment thread turns into a wonderful read about a tangially related topic, in this case robotics.
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If these people watched ants more they wouldn't be so blithe about robots.
I watched an ant carry a feather 15 times* longer than her body up a wall into a crack since she was enjoying chewing on the end and didn't want to share with other ants.
It would put every human gymnast to shame. It makes every robot look like a joke.
But that's millions of years of adaption.
I do think we'll make progress, but it will be hard work. Not magic.
*it was more like just 6 times, but still
@futurebird @nagaram that and the square-cube law
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If these people watched ants more they wouldn't be so blithe about robots.
I watched an ant carry a feather 15 times* longer than her body up a wall into a crack since she was enjoying chewing on the end and didn't want to share with other ants.
It would put every human gymnast to shame. It makes every robot look like a joke.
But that's millions of years of adaption.
I do think we'll make progress, but it will be hard work. Not magic.
*it was more like just 6 times, but still
@futurebird @nagaram off topic, but now whenever I watch a character on Archer say “do you want ants? because that’s how you get ants,” I think of you
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."@futurebird a sad but relevant point is that taking care of people is so much harder than injuring them, and even our injuring robots are not that great.
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I had a little note in my calendar because this conversation was two years ago.
@futurebird tangentially, i bet that any person who believes in developing fully robotized bedpan changers with the current technology never had to care for the bedridden people.
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@futurebird tangentially, i bet that any person who believes in developing fully robotized bedpan changers with the current technology never had to care for the bedridden people.
There’s the tech solutionist who invented leaded gas, became bedbound, invented a movement harness, and died strangled in it, right?
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."@futurebird I want my robots to be soft robotics so when they bump into me they don't kill me, but that brings a whole new world of robotic challenges, but robotic octopus tentacles would be neat :~)
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."@futurebird I'm sorry, but I just pictured a robot trying to shove a phone into an elderly person's mouth while saying, "Here's your toast, enjoy." Given the current state of LLM hallucinations, that could easily happen.
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"How will an LLM change the bedpans in the nursing home?"
"Oh. Robots. Obviously."
"... So, you'd say the greatest obstacle to robot home assistance is... what? Software?"
"Ah. I see why you are skeptical. But you have not considered that the LLM will also design better robots."
"Really? That sounds amazing. Can we do it right now?"
"Two years."
"Oh."
"..."
"..."
"What do you mean. 'oh'?"
"Nothing. I'm... I'm so excited. For the robots. Like you said."
"You're mocking me."
"No. I would never."From what I understand, one problem of robotics is indeed software, as in understanding and implementing real-time coordination of complex movements (things that are obvious to us because we don't even think about it).
And AI is indeed a path considered to bring promising results (I mean, considered by people who are actually working on it, not just by bullshit-peddlers).
