| ▲ | tootie 5 hours ago | |
We build our living spaces against the constraints of the human form, but that still doesn't imply the human form is optimal for anything. There's no reason a robot traveling over smooth surface should have legs instead of wheels or treads. There's no reason to have a head. Some kind of arm is a common design feature, but certainly no reason to have two. No reason to be symmetrical. A domestic robot may be constrained in terms of scale (ie see things at counter height) but not shape. | ||
| ▲ | famouswaffles 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | |
>We build our living spaces against the constraints of the human form, but that still doesn't imply the human form is optimal for anything. We build just about everything we expect to interact with against the constraints of the human form, not just living spaces. And yes we because we built those spaces for the human body, the human body is by definition the optimal choice. >There's no reason a robot traveling over smooth surface should have legs instead of wheels or treads. There's a reason. The robot becomes useless for any surface that isn't smooth. What's it going to do about stairs ? You're not going to make a bespoke solution that generalizes for us better than 'feet that work'. Do you think it's better to built a million different complex robot bodies for every situation ? That defeats the purpose of being general purpose. | ||
| ▲ | hgoel 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
Really, the requirements are for the robot to move in predictable ways (if something looks like an arm, it ought to move like an arm, etc), and to have enough strength to be useful for difficult/tiring tasks while somehow also not being dangerous if something does go wrong. | ||