AI Robots Are Learning to Make Sandwiches, But They Won't Be in Your Kitchen Anytime Soon
AI Robots – When will they be in our homes
Robots are advancing rapidly, with humanoids like Atlas and Optimus learning new skills, but they are not ready for homes. They are too complex, costly, and unsafe, and will first appear in factories and warehouses. The article explores the challenges of building a robot butler, from Roomba's simple success to Asimo's pre-choreographed routines, and the role of AI in solving robotics' hardest problems.
These robots are still too complex, too costly, and too unsafe for home use. You definitely don't want one of them staggering around in your kitchen.
- bArray
We've had AI robots in our homes as the article points out in the form of a Roomba or cleaning robot. Arguably before that, we've had robotics in the form of dishwasher and washing machines with a range of sensors and actuators, and a small amount of autonomy. We've had humanoids in the home already in the form of toys, I remember RoboSapien from the early 2000's [1].
I think the next advancement are robots like the MicroDuck [2], a little gimmicky, but demonstrating higher levels of intelligence that everybody can afford and collaborate on together. Once that has the ability to return to a docking station on low battery and recharge, you basically have a fully autonomous robot pet in your home.
- godelski
I love the idea of robot helpers but I don't love the idea of putting cameras all over my house and having ad companies surveil my intimate space.
I do not think people are even recognizing the security ramifications of these devices. A picture of your key is enough to replicate it[0], and yet we're just going to put these devices everywhere? LLMs have been pretty easy to jailbreak too, you think thieves aren't just going to get these robots to open the doors for them? Or what about governments? Even if you trust your government now, will you trust them with data where they can literally see everything you do and say? That's well beyond 1984. Or just what about what we see from top labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or even Google and Apple? These trillion dollar companies are not showing themselves to be good at protecting data. Obviously some better than others, but this is a whole new level of intimacy with the data they'll get. Everyone is pissed at Flock, and you want to put mobile Flock in your house?
No thanks, it isn't worth trading all that for not having to load up the dish washer and cook my own meals.
I can't believe these discussions aren't more common.
- schnitzelstoat
I stopped using my Roborock because it was such a pain to move everything out of the way (chairs etc.) so it could do a good job. Once I had a toddler, it was basically impossible to use.
Given that this is a much simpler problem than a fully humanoid robot, I'm not going to hold my breath for those.
- Vishal_Max
The purpose of building humanoid robots is actually very simple: we want machines to feel lively and familiar.
We are not the best creatures at performing every possible job, yet we are so interested in building humanoid robots. Instead, we could build specialized robots for each job and create ways for them to integrate seamlessly into an ecosystem that includes humans and other robots.
A cooking robot, for example, doesn't necessarily need to look humanoid. It could be a completely autonomous kitchen with no hands at all, while another robot could have some kind of interface or mechanism that allows it to integrate with and interact with the kitchen.
I appreciate that the site also shows examples of this approach. But even then, we keep building humanoid robots because, deep down, they feel more alive. Seeing something that looks like a person working gives us a strange sense of joy and satisfaction.
Funny how much of robotics is driven not just by what is practical, but by what feels alive to us.
- hazbot
How could you sleep with one of these in your house? How could you trust it around small children?
If we see rapid advances in robotics will alignment become a visceral concern for the population at large?