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How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype?
moon_unit2 writes: You may have heard of "personal robots" such as Jibo, Buddy, and Pepper. One journalist recently met one of these home bots and found the reality less dazzling than the promotional videos. Whereas the Indiegogo clips of Buddy show the robot waking people up and helping with cooking, the current prototype can only perform a few canned tasks, and it struggles with natural language processing and vision. As the writer notes, the final version may be a lot more sophisticated, but it's hard to believe that real home helpers are just around the corner.
You mean like 3D printing?
... aren't good at dealing with shit just being anywhere in the house. They like things to be predictable. They're also really bad at identifying objects. I saw a thing in a lab where they had a robot that was doing a pretty good job of recognizing stuff. But are they going to be able to recognize the difference between a clean plate, a dirty plate, and a plate with food on it? And if they can't do that then they can't clear a table. Just a really basic thing you would want a home robot to do. Forget whether it has the arms to move any of that. If it can't tell the difference between these things then it can't clear a table.
When people say "personal home robot" what I think they're looking for is a robotic maid. Rosy the robot. Pick my crap up. Dust. Organize things. Clean. Make me food. Clean up. etc.
The roomba etc are about as close as we've gotten to that. And the roomba has so many fucking problems.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
State-of-the-art autonomous robots are quite pathetic in their capabilities. In a (relatively free) environment like anybody's home they are lucky if they are able to take a couple of steps without bumping into something or just collapsing. Despite the hype coming from the AI and robotics worlds, such contraptions are good for grins and giggles, and very little else.
When do we get to read about stories where hackers infect one and instruct it to break your neck?
Lets rush to get these into our homes. I'm sure nothing can happen since computers are 100% secure from outsiders.
The irony is mind-boggling.
Give it some time.
As any AI researcher will tell you, we know how the brain works and Geoffrey Hinton's recent paper is nothing short of a breakthrough, and will lead to us having strong AI programs real soon.
We have IBM's Watson, a program that actually understands the information it's processing and will be used to augment medical diagnosis, SIRI, a personal assistant application that actually learns, and MAKO, a program who can do anything on a PC!
IBM is already making neural network chips that implement the way the brain really works, a program the learns the same way that a child learns, and many, many more!
We have courses that teach you AI, and ... it's easy!
Give it some time! We need to let the AI mature like a fine wine, and filter down into consumer devices.
It's coming soon - it really is!
I like cooking and am quite good at it. As far as other household jobs, i really don't like them, but they literally take me minutes per week and have never understood why people complain about them. Maybe I'm not that messy of a person and clean as I go.
How you doin'?
I've been hand washing my clothes with something like a plunger for the past few months but I bought a washing machine last week. The washing machine is far easier to use, works better, and will make me lazier.
Robots will *never* live up to the hype. Hype is there to get outsiders excited about something. I'm a robotics researcher, and even *inside* the community, people hype things in order to drum up interest. That's the point of hype.
The fact that things are sometimes overhyped doesn't detract from the fact that significant advancements are being made.
> progress needs to be made in natural language processing, machine vision, and human-computer interaction
Natural language processing on my phone is getting pretty damn good.
I've seen machine vision used on security systems that you might find interesting. The object recognition is quite something-- it catalogs every new thing it sees, tracks it while visible, and is pretty successful at remembering things. Even the ol' Xbone is pretty decent; paired with some Roomba features I would think it could mostly suffice for your basic home robot.
Human-computer interaction is also fairly advanced now. Again, my phone does pretty well with this (and is getting better). Then you have something like Watson, which can actually compete on a game show randomly exploring a huge array of general trivia... yes, it had specialized software written for this purpose, but it shows how a simple, formalized style of language can facilitate a wide range of inquiries.
- - -
The big problem is that all these technologies are proprietary, and the rights to their use are divided among a sea of entities who seem to be addicted to squabbling with each other over short-term monetary anxieties rather than cooperating (must... preserve... teh profitz!!).
Ferengis, the lot of them.
One day, someone will transcend all this, get these existing solutions working together, and build a proper robot.
Until then, every other attempt will seem like a turd in comparison with the features we already know exist *right now* but are locked away in war chests behind medieval fortress walls.
Current voice recognition is pretty good, but overall natural language contextual understanding is poor. 90% isn't good enough 98% isn't good enough. When you can reasonably talk to your computer and give it complex Star Trek type commands, then you can build something that moves and tries to do them. When you can give a somewhat imprecise order like "Computer, analyze employee sick days and compare them to major sporting events" and the computer can understand what you want and generate a reasonable product, then you can give it some motors to move around the house.
Right now, I'd say that we'll have a home robot that lives up to the hype in about twenty more years. Of course, twenty years from now I expect to be saying the same thing, but that's just because no matter how good we get, the hype will be even better. It's about the ultimate in constantly-moving goalposts.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
We'll have robots that live up to the hype just as soon as we have wives that live up to the hype.
The first one that makes me a sandwich wins.
My, isn't my karma burning nicely...
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Is Bennett Haseltron. Exactly what the hype is, we're not sure. But it lives up to it.
Assuming that these Home Robots are fusion powered, they of course will always be 20 years away...
I've heard someplace that they plan to put Siri-like voice response into them in addition to all the almost-not-uncanny valley stuff they do now to make it more "real". It wouldn't surprise me if something like a sex doll didn't become a more compelling home android than any general purpose one.
They're focused on a single use case, which means they focus on enhancing just the things that enhance that versus doing many things clumsily, They're also focused on realism in looks, touch and appearance. Doing those things right doesn't help with marginal avancement of other abilities but I think it does make them more believable and appear more advanced which has a psychological value. (In the case of a sex doll, looking good is an inherent value).
Sex, for all of its theatrical acrobatics, really isn't a very compelling physical movement problem to solve, (especially if you're the bottom) either, and mastering a limited range of needed motion well is a whole lot easier than getting a wider range of motion mostly right.
It's not that a sex doll would be a better general purpose "robot" but that it could be a much more compelling one because it does its one job much better.
I took the shuttle to the moonbase yesterday - It's a good thing that in 1999 the nuclear dump didn't blow up and send the moon hurtling off into deep space like the tv showed me in the 70's.
I think we're a bit behind on terraforming tho. I just wish the cost of plutonium fuel for my Underwater home reactor would drop, cause wow, it's still unobtanium.
Now, where's my food pills that contain everything I need to survive without having to actually eat - they have to be around here somewhere.... Damned old age...
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Don't you know human nature? If any robot ever lives up to the hype, the hype will be relocated further down the line.
We say we'd be happy with a robot that could clean our homes. They made one that does some of that, so people started to want one that could clean AND cook. We don't have that yet. When we do, we'll start demanding that it cook, clean, and drive the kids to school and back. When one can do that, we'll insist that it cook, clean, drive the kids around, do the shopping, walk the dog, help us file our tax returns, make us feel better when we're under the weather, help the kids with their homework, chaperone them, nurture and guide them, and look out for the family's wellbeing as a whole. And once we have THAT, it STILL won't be good enough, we'll want it to satisfy us sexually too.
Somewhere around this point, someone will point out that we've reinvented the woman.
When people say "personal home robot" what I think they're looking for is a robotic maid. Rosy the robot. Pick my crap up. Dust. Organize things. Clean. Make me food. Clean up. etc.
The roomba etc are about as close as we've gotten to that. And the roomba has so many fucking problems.
To be entirely fair, until we get further along with room temperature superconductors, you just can't build something like a Roomba without the cat ass magnets.
when the bot can drive my damned flying car.
Table-ized A.I.
See, bots can't even troll well yet
Table-ized A.I.
Not everyone likes or dislikes doing the same chores. I don't like cleaning bathrooms. Mopping the floor, scrubbing the walls, floor, and door of the shower, scrubbing the tub, cleaning the toilet, clearing the counter and cleaning it and the sinks, not my idea of fun. It still gets done, but probably not as often as it should.
I want a robot to do household cleaning chores. Clean the bathroom, or at least the flat surfaces. Mop the tiled floors. Vacuum the carpets. Clean the windows. Possibly clean the patio and the sidewalks. Possibly deal with some of the kitchen cleaning. If the robot did this kind of cleaning daily then it never would be all that bad and consequently the robot wouldn't have to work very hard on any given day so long as it started out relatively clean.
Stuff like laundry? Not that big a deal when the machine does all of the work and I just have to load the wash, move the washed clothes to the dryer, and put them away when they're dry. Can do that off and on while I'm otherwise just watching TV. Cooking dinner? I'd rather do that my self for the moment as I like variety, which I don't think a robot would be as good at compared to extremely repetitive cleaning tasks.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'll give you a clue... It'll be powered by cold fusion.
They're about 10 years away.
And in 10 years, they'll be about 10 years away.
Don't think I'll get it though.
Unless it can hover, has a sawblade and a blowtorch - and a humor emitter, what's the point? The Future is NOW!
C'mon. Even one powered by a ZX81 could do better.
Already here, if you adjust the hype according to reality...
I think too many try to emulate fantasy like the Jetson's or Star trek or Hal. Trouble is, we do not have the technology or the processing power to instill such required
programing and function to make anything come close to fantasy that we create. But when we create robot's for example to do specific tasks or perform a series of tasks repeatedly. That is where robot's excel and can do good things. Why we are creating so many robot's to do all of the tasks we should be doing ourselves is very strange? Will the robot's take over someday? Or are we trying to allow the robot's to take over someday? We have a choice you know.
Professional cleaners are very competitive. You can pay a team of 3 to come into your place 1 time / month to do all the things you can't get to.
I have had a number of Roomba units over the years and can agree with the other posters -- they are sort of ok but the maintenance issues are way over the top. My wife vacuums the house with a central unit -- claims she enjoys it. My last Roomba is downstairs in the train room and comes out on schedule to wander around under things. Even without a long haired perma-shedding dog, Roomba needs to be field stripped and cleaned between every run... per the company.Not much of a labor savings. For a while I had a Dirt Dog -- stripped down unit for basements and garages. Worked great cleaning up the shop until sawdust and grunge got into it. The vendor recommended field stripping it and blowing everything out with compressed air... I added it to the scrap pile at the dump. But for years we cut our 3/4 acre yard with a Lawnbott Evolution. It did a great job with only modest cleaning requirements -- flipping it over every few weeks and scraping off the grass. Its in the garage now and I use a riding mower. Needed replacement lithium cells and the parts suppliers did their usual 'you can kiss my ring and I will let you know in time if I choose to respond to you...' bit. When the grass is growing fast in the Spring waiting a few weeks for an email or even a Fedex package is tough. So great machine that amazingly just did its job but killed by a boutique supply chain. But the in-house robots (I have had 3) were all neurotic junk. A cocktail party novelty but useless. And as for the companion robots or cooking droid... hysterical laughter...
> It wouldn't surprise me if something like a sex doll didn't become a more compelling home android than any general purpose one.
What could go wrong? After all, Pris Stratton is just a basic pleasure model.
Although I think we'll see attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion and C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate, before a Pris dressed as Miku brings breakfast to bed.
If you only have a female partner because she cleans, you're doing it wrong.
Stuff like laundry? Not that big a deal when the machine does all of the work and I just have to load the wash, move the washed clothes to the dryer, and put them away when they're dry....
As you say, it's different things for different people. If you have an extended family, or have several small children, the laundry is simply absurd. It is something that you have to do basically every day. And it is a pain in the ass to have to check every pocket first (because otherwise you get pens, candy, or other stuff in the wash), un-ball them (since kids are amazingly good as making their clothes into tightly wrapped origami when taking them off), and then at the end folding a zillion shirts that have one tiny sleeve out the wrong way. A robot that could spend an hour or two a day doing laundry would be a magical device for me and many other people, on the order of the changes of washing machines or dish washers in the first place.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
I want a robot to do household cleaning chores. Clean the bathroom, or at least the flat surfaces. Mop the tiled floors. Vacuum the carpets. Clean the windows. Possibly clean the patio and the sidewalks. Possibly deal with some of the kitchen cleaning. If the robot did this kind of cleaning daily then it never would be all that bad and consequently the robot wouldn't have to work very hard on any given day so long as it started out relatively clean.
HEY - robots exist for at least a few of the items you listed here. You really need to buy one if you haven't already! They're certainly not perfect but the vacuum and mopping robots I have work good enough for me. They keep the floors clean for me during the day, I just have to empty their canisters and throw the mop cloths in the laundry. I wish they'd make robots that can dust and vacuum stairs though :\
Robert A Heinlein gave quite detailed descriptions of household robots in his 1956 SF novel "The Door Into Summer" (although admittedly the novel's action is set in 1970 and later). The protagonist's company is called "Hired Girl", and he creates Flexible Frank, Drafting Dan, and finally Protean Pete. Whatever slight lacunae there may have remained in the engineering details, Heinlein had the marketing down pat.
For quite a good account of the novel, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... One of the footnotes there recounts the amusing story of how the Heinleins decided on a title:
"When we were living in Colorado there was snowfall. Our cat — I'm a cat man — wanted to get out of the house so I opened a door for him but he wouldn't leave. Just kept on crying. He'd seen snow before and I couldn't understand it. I kept opening other doors for him and he still wouldn't leave. Then Ginny said, 'Oh, he's looking for a door into summer.' I threw up my hands, told her not to say another word, and wrote the novel The Door Into Summer' in 13 days."
- Heinlein interview with Alfred Bester; pg 487 Redemolished ISBN 0-7434-0725-3
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Cooking dinner? I'd rather do that my self for the moment as I like variety, which I don't think a robot would be as good at compared to extremely repetitive cleaning tasks.
Invert it. Robots prepare the food and you cook it. It's pretty damn near what I do now for my dinner. When I lived in DC, I got used to a place called "Let's Dish" it's one of those places where you prepare your meals from a list of recipes each month. You then stick them in your freezer for when you need them. Later the 'cooking' is basically just adding heat/sautéing/baking and you have a full meal in 30 minutes or so. It ends up being cheaper for me because even with the overhead of "Let's Dish" they buy their ingredients in bulk and my meals end up being about $3-5 per serving. I'm not careful enough in my meal planning to beat that.
So what do I mean by invert it? Robots in the preparation, humans do the final cooking. The early work such as chopping, slicing, packing, marinating, sorting are the kinds of mindless timeconsuming portions which seem to be right in line with the type of work a robot could do. The final cooking and cleanup requires much more subjective actions which are suited to humans. Thus invert it and you could have robots prepare your meals except for the final steps.
(Personally I love the make and take places because I always know that a meal has 6 servings, will take 30 minutes from freezer to plate, and keeps me from impulse purchases when in the grocery store)
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Headphones. For my kids it's headphones. Dunno how many times they''ve washed their cheap Skullcandy sets. Miraculously, they still work after a wash or two. But they definitely lose some over time as they buy new ones every 6 months or so.
Heck, I thought I'd lost my nice Plantronics Bluetooth earphones when I left them in my pants and someone didn't hear me to get them out before starting the laundry...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Maid Droid with "Sex Technology Option"
Please.
In a show of the sad state of affairs, we have your average everyday Mr Handy robot ( http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mister_Handy_(Fallout_3) )
who still tries to use his skill-saw blade arm for domestic chores like cutting a cake.
Now that Microsoft has released Windows 10 in all its perfection we will be seeing many new automatons