Camel-Riding Robots

misterpies writes "Of the many jobs robots could be put to use, here's one I'll bet not many slashdotters have considered - camel jockeys. According to the BBC, from next year racing camels in the United Arab Emirates will be ridden by robots. And for once, the folks put out of work won't be complaining - mostly children (some as young as four) who are reportedly abducted or sold by their families to unscrupulous racing-camel owners. How long until we see robots take over from humans in other sports?"

Comments

Re:Crossover

[kiatoa]

Looks just about as silly too. Rendered pic of camel jocky

Re:Complex task vs. low wages

[fireboy1919]

And possibly, or more likely, probably this indicates that you don't know what is complex for a robot and how much it costs to buy and maintain one.

Even in the States, its far cheaper to hire someone to pick strawberries, sweep walkways, mow lawns, weed gardens, clean toilets, and a number of other similar mundane tasks than it is to get robots to do it. In addition, with the exception of sweeping and mowing, those tasks are all complicated for a robot (and even in the case of sweeping and mowing, a robot usually doesn't do a very good job).

It is highly unlikely that this is a suitable task for a robot. It is a task that will likely require more maintenance (on-site robot repair team vs monthly doctor visits), human labor (robot repair team, and robot teleoperator vs small human), and cost (cost of robot, cost of paying team vs cost of labor for a small human) than the previous way.