Reasons Robotics Is Hard
This article explores the significant physical and technical hurdles preventing robotics from achieving the same rapid progress seen in software-based AI. It highlights how demo videos often mask the unreliability and lack of generalizability in current humanoid robot development.
Why it matters
Understanding the gap between digital AI and physical robotics is crucial for managing expectations regarding the future of automation and labor.
AI progress is racing along, but virtually all of the visible progress is in the realm of knowledge work, i.e. activities that can take place inside a computer.
In the San Francisco AI scene, there is a widespread belief that robots will soon enter the picture. In parallel with the race to develop broadly capable AI, there is an equally aggressive race to develop broadly capable robots – humanoid machines imbued with physical intelligence. Artificial workers that can cook and clean, fetch and carry… and do everything else, including building more of themselves, leading (in many forecasts) to economic growth best characterized as an “explosion”.
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