I think that the killer app for this kind of technology is a robot that can load and unload a dishwasher, and pick up dirty laundry, sort it, put it into the washer, transfer it to the dryer then fold it and put it away properly.
It doesn't need to be fast at this it just needs to be able to do this. A product that can meet that criteria and all the other things that this entails at the price point of a luxury car will sell like hotcakes to an aging Boomer population that wants to 'age in place.'
Where things start to get really interesting is where the robots have both the hand dexterity and a user serviceable design that allows one robot to fix another. From there a pair of robots with a sufficient amount of spare parts would in theory be able to build in the infrastructure necessary to build more spare parts and therefore could self replicate.
A self-compiling compiler.
ben_w · 7h ago
> I think that the killer app for this kind of technology is a robot that can load and unload a dishwasher, and pick up dirty laundry, sort it, put it into the washer, transfer it to the dryer then fold it and put it away properly.
… Moravec's paradox within robotics: gymnastics that are difficult for humans are much easier for robots than "unsexy" tasks like cooking, cleaning, and assembling. …
> Where things start to get really interesting is where the robots have both the hand dexterity and a user serviceable design that allows one robot to fix another. From there a pair of robots with a sufficient amount of spare parts would in theory be able to build in the infrastructure necessary to build more spare parts and therefore could self replicate.
I think that the killer app for this kind of technology is a robot that can load and unload a dishwasher, and pick up dirty laundry, sort it, put it into the washer, transfer it to the dryer then fold it and put it away properly.
It doesn't need to be fast at this it just needs to be able to do this. A product that can meet that criteria and all the other things that this entails at the price point of a luxury car will sell like hotcakes to an aging Boomer population that wants to 'age in place.'
Where things start to get really interesting is where the robots have both the hand dexterity and a user serviceable design that allows one robot to fix another. From there a pair of robots with a sufficient amount of spare parts would in theory be able to build in the infrastructure necessary to build more spare parts and therefore could self replicate.
A self-compiling compiler.
Yes, but see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44688151
To quote the relevant part of the tweet:
> Where things start to get really interesting is where the robots have both the hand dexterity and a user serviceable design that allows one robot to fix another. From there a pair of robots with a sufficient amount of spare parts would in theory be able to build in the infrastructure necessary to build more spare parts and therefore could self replicate.Idea's been around for longer than people have have the nomenclature to describe DNA, let alone known that we had any or what it did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine
How long do you think it will be before a reliable dish washing / laundry doing domestic bot is on the market? a decade or two?
And how long after that do you think such a device will be capable of clanking self replication?