7 pointsby p1esk7 hours ago5 comments
  • gas9S9zw3P9can hour ago
    Not anytime soon. The big leaps in LLMs don't really carry over to robotics much, aside from some computer vision stuff. I'd say we're still 10+ years out from robots cooking for you. Maybe we'll get some kind of dedicated 'cooking machines' if there's money in it, but not humanoid cooks walking around your kitchen. And even that's being pretty optimistic because right now there's no clear way to get there, and we'd need some real fundamental breakthroughs to make it happen.
  • fernando_camposan hour ago
    One big difference between LLM progress and robotics is that language models benefited from purely digital feedback loops — training, testing, and scaling could all happen in simulation.

    Robotics still pays a heavy “reality tax”. Every improvement eventually has to survive messy, unstructured physical environments where sensing, actuation, and safety interact in unpredictable ways.

    My guess is we’ll see a ChatGPT-like moment first in semi-structured environments (warehouses, logistics, industrial assistance) rather than homes.

    A general household robot feels closer to a GPT-4 equivalent problem than a GPT-3.5 one because reliability matters much more when failure affects the physical world.

    • a-salehan hour ago
      I think there will be a sort of ~meeting in the middle. I.e. when friend was furnishing his appt. he chose specifically the sort of furniture that will make it easier for his robotic vacuum to work. I wouldn't be surprised if there will be some extra allowance for autonomous vehicles comming in next ~5 years. Stuff like that.
  • chfritz5 hours ago
    "the funding all these startups are getting should allow them to scale their methods 10x-100x.." .. "Therefore, we might soon see a ChatGPT moment in robotics" -- I don't think so and no, the second statement is NOT entailed by the first. Why would it? Because 100 is a big number? Do you have any idea how much more data LLM needed to be trained for a GPT3 level compared to the data available for robot training right now, and how low dimensional the space is in which LLMs operate compared to robots?

    "My intuition is there's 40% chance we will see it this year" -- again, why? Don't you realize that people have been working in robotics for 65 years, and these people don't live under a rock either. They knew about GPT3 because 2023. So why is it NOW less then 10 month you think that this breakthrough will happen?

  • ensocode2 hours ago
    sounds unrealistic to me. For military and industrial use cases yes but I think we are at least 5 probably 10 and more years away from that moment. I think there is not enough data, and hardware is not software so the scaling will be more difficult and use cases are so wide that I can not imagine a humanoid cooking and mowing the lawn and repairing the roof. Look how long the autonomous driving takes and this is just moving a car.
  • b3ing7 hours ago
    The cost would have to be real low for a real ChatGPT moment
    • p1esk6 hours ago
      How low? Would you consider $50k to be low enough for wide adoption?
      • muzani3 hours ago
        I'd say closer to $5000, which is about the cost of a domestic helper for a year or so.

        Then again, they don't need sleep, can be jailbroken, they only need closet space, and won't take your money and run. They can do dangerous tasks like fixing the roof too. Menial labor like walking 3 km over to the store to buy me a can of Red Bull. You can have them do pranks at night. They'd probably be valued quite a bit more than a human.

        • Liongaan hour ago
          $5000 will still be absolute niche. Cost needs to be close to a phone to get mass adoption. And that might very well never happen.
      • pants26 hours ago
        No, but for industrial and business uses yes. You'd start to see a lot more robots used for warehouses, deliveries, restocking, cleaning, preparing food, etc.
        • p1esk4 hours ago
          Honestly I’m not really interested in industrial robots. What price would be reasonable for a humanoid robot that can do common household tasks?