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392 points lairv | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.416s | source
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cooper_ganglia ◴[] No.45530893[source]
Crazy to me how negative the comments are here. None of this was even remotely possible less than 5 years ago. Now, we're demoing consumer-facing robotics that will soon, within a couple iterations, be able to perform most of your household tasks without issue.

The frog boils quickly.

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paxys ◴[] No.45531624[source]
> None of this was even remotely possible less than 5 years ago.

Boston Dynamics has been releasing actual product demos of such robots (not cherry-picked ads) for ~20 years now. Not a single one has graduated to any mass market real world use case.

I'm not saying one shouldn't be hopeful, but it's also not hard to see why people here are generally more conservative about the near future.

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xdennis ◴[] No.45532322[source]
> Boston Dynamics has been releasing actual product demos of such robots

Boston Dynamics hasn't released any actual products. They seem to be focused on flashy demos of robots dancing instead of end user products.

As a counterpoint, Unitree right now sells humanoids you can actually buy. They're no where near as good, but you can actually use them.

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1. ItsHarper ◴[] No.45532560[source]
They do sell Spot, actually
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2. gonzobonzo ◴[] No.45533920[source]
True, though very few (this says "over 1,500"[1]). And from everything I've seen, Spot appears to be a very expensive solution in search of a problem.

They also have Handle, a slow moving robot on wheels with an arm for moving boxes. No idea how many have been sold, but it seems to be even less than Spot.

[1] https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/