We are decades away from being able to build a general bipedal robot that can snake out a plugged toilet or dig a trench or nail shingles to a roof. It's just not a rational goal yet. Aim lower.
And we're further away since nobody bought Schaft from Google, and Schaft was shut down. They had the best humanoid.
But so many of the little problems have been solved. Batteries are much better. Radio data links are totally solved. Cameras are small and cheap. 3-phase brushless motors are small and somewhat. Power electronics for 3-phase brushless motors is cheap. 3D printing for making parts is cheap.
I used to work on this stuff in the 1990s. All those things were problems back then. Way too much time spent on low-level mechanics.
You can now get a good legged dog-type robot for US$12K, and a good robot arm for US$4K. This is progress.
I'd just note that "decades away" means "an unforeseeable number of true advances away" - which could mean ten years or could mean centuries.
And private companies can't throw money indefinitely at problems others have been trying to solve and failing at. They can it once and a while but that's it.
This is correct. Right now our best and brightest can only build demos that fall apart the moment something is out of place. Humanoid or even partial humanoid (wheeled base) robots are far from ready for general purpose deployment.
But so many of the little problems have been solved. Batteries are much better. Radio data links are totally solved. Cameras are small and cheap. 3-phase brushless motors are small and somewhat. Power electronics for 3-phase brushless motors is cheap. 3D printing for making parts is cheap.
I used to work on this stuff in the 1990s. All those things were problems back then. Way too much time spent on low-level mechanics.
You can now get a good legged dog-type robot for US$12K, and a good robot arm for US$4K. This is progress.