[swores]

> "Folding, sorting, and putting away clothes is a time consuming daily task in a house with young kids, that cant be done by any robot that isn’t humanoid."

I don't understand what about that task needs it to be humanoid?

It obviously needs various abilities that humans have - being able to move around, being able to control multiple "limbs" to manipulate the clothes, etc. But why couldn't it look like R2-D2 rather than C-3PO? Why couldn't it be a flying drone that has 4 clothes-folding arms? Or... whatever non-humanoid design could be conceived that works best?

The only "need" for it being humanoid would be if the kids (or adults, or animals) found it more acceptable to be around.

[jncfhnb]

The human world is generally designed for the human form. You don’t need four arms to do most tasks, but you often need two. You often need fingers to manipulate objects in specific ways. You can’t realistically fly while safely doing mundane tasks. You probably need legs to traverse areas. You generally need your hands at the height level of a typical adult.

The limitations of R2 are pretty obvious if you try to imagine it. there’s probably some optimizations that could be made but it’s a sensible start imo

[swores]

You've described reasons that a humanoid is a good form factor for creating a general use robot, but still nowhere close to the claim I replied to that sorting/folding/putting away clothes "cant be done by any robot that isn’t humanoid".

But even your reasons for preferring a humanoid are all reasons why humans are better than current-technology non-humanoid robots, not unarguable facts that humans are the ultimate design. As a couple of examples:

> "You probably need legs to traverse areas."

Even if legs are definitely needed, the animal kingdom shows that human legs are far from the only choice. Why only two? Why not legs that are 90% of the height of the robot rather than human proportions? Why not legs with the equivalent of 20 knees rather than 1 knee, or legs that feature wheels that are sometimes used, or...

> "You can’t realistically fly while safely doing mundane tasks."

Not if you were to take any existing consumer drone and add robot arms to it, sure, but there's no scientific reason it can't be made with future improvements to technology. We already have drones that can automatically avoid bumping into things, and that can counter the effects of wind to stay in the same position, and we have drones that would be safe to walk into (ones with covered blades, where the only injury risk is it flying into you hard enough). There's no reason that a future version couldn't be just as stable hovering in the air while doing something as being on the ground - it just needs to extend its stabilisation algos so that it's not just countering the wind, but also pushing in whatever directions required to counteract forces caused by whatever its doing. And it also doesn't even have to be flying while doing the task, it can fly to the clothes, then unwind its leg (or legs) and stand there while doing its work, or...

Humanoid is obviously appealing for the simple fact that, if it's developed to the point that it has the same (or better) physical abilities as a human (including balance etc) then we know it can fit into anything humans do because we already do it, and because we've built a world around us for human-shaped people. But thinking there couldn't be alternative form factors that are just as good if not better is just lacking imagination on the subject of what technology will be able to do in the coming years - especially when not talking about a general purpose "can do anything a human can do" robot but about specific tasks (such as the clothes sorting & folding that we're discussing).

[jncfhnb]

That claim is pointless. People are not going to purchase a dedicated clothes folding robot. The point of a humanoid robot is general problem solving. That is the whole value prop.

Obviously you can design better forms for specific tasks, but people don’t want some zany futuristic world populated by dozens of task specific robots.

[swores]

Nobody was arguing there should or shouldn't be a robot that only folds clothes. The subject you replied to be about was whether or not a robot for the purpose HAS to be humanoid to work or not. You've just been arguing different points.

But even for general purpose robots, my points above stand that future tech will mean plenty of non-humanoid shaped robots could be just as effective as general purpose robots as humanoid ones.