[lifetimerubyist]

The end goal is to have these things be general purpose do all sorts of jobs everywhere. Civilization is designed around human anatomy, so if you want to replace humans with a drop-in robot replacement in as many places as fast as possible then a humanoid robot is how you’re going to do it. It’s also probably more cost effective to design 1 robot that does everything, than design 1 robot specialized for 1 task. Specialized robots will fill in gaps, but humanoids will be the vast majority of the AI-based robot workforce.

[imtringued]

I don't know why this keeps getting repeated. Honestly I'm taking the exact opposite bet and am going to work on making it as easy as possible to build specialized robots and machines.

People seem to misunderstand how easy it is to build a humanoid robot and how hard it is to program robots in general. Even if you build a humanoid robot that is perfectly general purpose mechanically, you will still need to program it like a computer that just happens to have arms and legs.

[diamond559]

Yeah and it has to be more cost efficient too, these things take multiple car batteries that have to be recharged more than daily. None of this makes any sense, it's just fantasy land for tech bros.

[Breza]

I think we'll start seeing humanoid robots doing boring things in controlled settings within a decade. Imagine that Hyundai built a robot that can empty a Hyundai dishwasher and take out the trash from a Hyundai trash can. I could imagine senior living communities and college dorms using them to go from room to room to keep things tidy.

[lifetimerubyist]

These are the Model T of androids my dude.

[rg0ne]

This, and ease of transition. I imagine if you're buying a robot for a factory/complex/rig/jobsite, you would want one that can access anywhere a human can. You can't just rebuild a factory for a couple robots

[diamond559]

Does the robot need to eat its robot lunch in the breakroom and share some robot memes w/ its robot bros? We already have robotics in factories, when they are more efficient than humans the factories are retrofitted or rebuilt around the new machines.

[MagicMoonlight]

But not everyone is Amazon. A small business isn’t going to rebuild their leased building, but they’d happily pay 50k for a robot.

[diamond559]

Why does Hyundai need "general purpose" bots, do they want to create a robot civilization? They don't need a robot to "do everything", they need robots to efficiently make cars. What do you even mean "do everything? Does it need to take the bus home and make love to its robot wife, walk its robot dog around the block? It doesn't need legs, you have drunk the koolaid, snap out of it. AGI isn't around the corner and your fantasy robot world isn't real.

[arjie]

Perhaps the gap in the discussion is that Hyundai Motor Group is a big chaebol and seemingly is involved in many things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group

Considering that, either of two things would be sufficient for them to make general purpose robots:

* It will be one of their numerous business lines and provide substitutable labor for the others, not all of which are in car construction

* Considering they are in things from credit cards to railways to steel, they would like to add a new product line of selling robots to other customers

None of this is outrageously out of line. Various companies start with some business lines and end up with others. This is particularly common in Korea where Samsung wasn't always a semiconductor company. Hyundai themselves were in construction first. Closer to home, Amex was a logistics company. These things happen. Perhaps you are familiar with Softbank which was a PC software publisher and is now an investment company.

[diamond559]

So let me get this straight, you think they'll have one robot that what, flies around to each job site and does each different job? This makes 0 sense, you are not thinking like an engineer. What you are dreaming of is fantasy land, again, wake up you are delusional.

[Breza]

I see two different things going on. First, there's some market for humanoid robots, and Hyundai is spending a small amount of its R&D budget exploring the options.

Second, I have to imagine that there are spillover effects for their other robots. Being able to make legs that are nimble is good for the ability to make grabber arms for industrial robots. So even if the humanoid product line goes nowhere, they could end up with better material handlers.