I robot on wheels would have a tough time in my house. If I’m in the home office and I want it to get me a beer from the beer fridge, a human for with feet and hands would be useful.
If it was just a chef, I would expect it might have its own mixer attachment. If it was more general-purpose robot assistant, then whatever is available.
I don’t think robot humanoid slaves are necessarily a viable idea at all, but they are an idea.
Look, a robot that could climb stairs would be useful for a lot of things. But like your example with the airplane, it doesn’t have to have legs; it can climb stairs some other way.
More like simpler than more efficient. We simply haven’t had the technology to make something as mechanically sophisticated as animals.
As noted above, walking on two legs is a lot more complicated. So if there’s a market for walking robots, they’ll most likely have four legs.
hmmm … we converted THE WORLD into what you call THE REAL WORLD by putting out millions of miles of bands of asphalt so it can be easily used by wheels …anywhere those bands are NOT, wheels have all kinds of problems.
My WAG would be: its quite beneficial/potentially interesting everywhere you can’t go easily with wheels … which still is about 90% of the worlds surface …
True. In fact, a “centaur” configuration would probably be best for robots operating in human spaces. Is anyone doing that?
One of human’s great evolutionary advantages of getting bi-pedal was freeing the hands for a myriad of tasks. Maybe a centaur with an additional pair of arms/hands?
So eight limbs?
Did have centaurs have six limbs? I think I’m out of my depth here. I only remember that they used to be very confrontational and, well, rapey.
looks like 6 limbs …
.
(there seems to be conflicting reports on where the rapey parts actually are located) … here is somewhat of a gamut of possibilities.
ETA: ninjaed …
Centaurs had 6. Sort like llamas with brains & 2 arms. But robots can have 4 for locomotion and 23 more for manipulation if that’s the ideal number.
The marginal difficulty of limbs on robots is substantially zero compared to the marginal difficulty on biological units. Those bio-loozers!
My Scoutmaster used to say that if you can get there in a car it isn’t the wilderness.