That, we’ve had for decades… if you had a Hollywood budget. The end goal is for that to not just exist, but to be available to everyone.
Yes, but the popcorn will taste funny afterwards.
Gee, yet another category of jobs AI destroys. I suspect the porn writers job is already gone.
You beat me to it! Dan Davis, I presume?
Nope. Not as bright as that Heinlein hero, though I probably display judgment just as bad at times.
But I’m going to have to re-read The Door Into Summer soon, with this thread in mind. I’ll be asking myself: of all domestic chores that Heinlein’s household robot did - so outlandish as to put the story firmly within the realm of science fiction - how many have become commonplace for gadgets to do? How many might be automated soon ?
I’m pretty sure we already have most of the technology to do this stuff from a series of discrete “robots” in static locations. Even delivering beer could be done with a smartfridge capable of vending a bottle to a roomba (there’s a restaurant near me that uses a wheeled robot to deliver stuff to tables).
Designing a robot that can interact with human objects the way humans do is a much bigger lift than just building robots designed to do one or two things very well.
A “smarthouse” with a bunch of this stuff embedded in the structure of the home would, for me, be preferable to a “domestic manservant” robot. I’d rather say “house, get me a beer” and have it pop out of clever tube than wait for RoboJeeves to shuffle to the fridge and get it for me.
Ooh or maybe the fridge could have, like, a fleet of lil robot trucks that deploy with snacks and drinks. That would be cute AND fun.
This article has quotes about the various robots in the book
The first model was a slightly sophisticated vacuum cleaner (Roomba, anyone?), though one that would put anything bigger than a BB shot (anyone remember those?) in a tray for human consideration. Then he developed Window Willie to clean windows and “ring around the bathtub” without supervision. For all his devices, he used modular parts – when something broke, it could be unplugged and a replacement plugged in.
Ultimately, though, he moved on to Flexible Frank, a household servant that could do anything. He bought hands, eyes, and ears off the rack; made extendable arms and a neck; and used a power wheelchair for the framework. The key, though, was the Thorsen memory tube, developed for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Walk the memory tube (or the machine it controlled) manually through an operation once and it could repeat it perfectly. (Don’t ask how – “No need to go too deeply into the theory of an electronic tube even Bell Labs doesn’t understand too well.”) Add more tubes and it could wash dishes, change diapers, polish silverware, make martinis, and do hundreds of other pre-programmed tasks.
Note that when the book was new, dishwashing machines of the modern type were for very wealthy folks.
OP here.
That was sort of my inspiration. When my son was very young we’d use the monitor to watch him. We also had a Roomba (which we put googly eyes on and named Jake for some reason). Plus the smart speaker.
Once you start adding a bunch of things together you’d end up with a little robot that could be a home companion.
Well, with AI you could converse, and get information, from it. So we aren’t that far off from natural interactions.
No, this robot would include a mini fridge. So you can grab one whenever it’s next to you. And it’s next to you when you call it.
(Tubes in the walls? Are you going to live in Swiss Cheese? You’d need holes everywhere to accommodate wherever you happen to be)
That sounds good, but it’s kind of limited. Some people had wired computer networks built into their homes, and then wifi came along it wasn’t needed anymore. You could have an automatic tube that delivers cans of beer to your couch, and then your favorite brewer switches to bottles and it doesn’t work anymore (or if it does, you have to get up off the couch to throw the bottle cap away). A general-purpose robot could learn to do new tasks. In a world built for humans, a human-shaped robot would fit in very well, and could take on a lot of tasks, someday.
This video makes that point and shows what’s being done today.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I work for that company. I dont speak for them in any official way, and I’m limited to talking about topics that they have publically released.)
I wasn’t aware robots were prone to back trouble. It’s lifting with it’s legs and maintaining a straight back and good posture.
That robot has a pretty limited ability to bend at the waist, it mainly can only lift with its legs.
Yeah, but try getting up off the floor in the way the robot did at the very start using your greater human flexibility. Not gonna happen. That droid’s legs are strong compared to its weight.
@Robot_Arm. That is truly amazing stuff. It seems like it’d be really cool to work in that space.