this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Two things, first thinking the llm stuff will help in robotics doesnt seem to fly, as llms are based on the whole internet and all books, a massive amount of data, data which for menial tasks doesnt exist yet. (And is also harder to get, creating text is easy).
And the story about how humanoid bots are great for working in a warehouse seems also wrong to me, as one of the problems we all have had is that of you are carrying things, the big box you are carrying obscures part of your vision. Different designs would be better for that. (Even a humanoid robot who has eyes on the back of its hands for example). Such a lack of imagination.
E: mentioned the lack of data being an issue, but I realized it prob is even worse as we dont even have a proper language to describe a lot of movements and feelings, due to reading this https://archive.is/uxzgz
Of all the environments that you might want to rearrange to facilitate non-humanoid labour, surely warehouses are the easiest. There’s even a whole load of pre-existing automated warehousing stuff out there already. Wheels, castors, conveyors, scissor lifts… most humans don’t have these things, and they’re ideal for moving box-like things around.
Industrialisation and previous waves of automation have lead to workplaces being rearranged to make things cheaper or faster to make, or both, but somehow the robot companies think this won’t happen again? The only thing that seems to be different this time around, is that llms have shown that the world’s c-suites are packed with deeply gullible people and we now have a load of new technology for manipulating and exploiting them.
you want something to help you in warehouse work? we have a tool for that: it's called forklift
Hello I would like a mechanical slave
they have played us for absolute fools
But paying workers gives workers money, which means you lose. Instead of buying a robot, which gives another capitalist/company money, which means they win. They are the most class conscious class.
They had robots in galts gulch, which means that all businesses need them. If you aren’t randmaxxing 24/7, can you really call yourself a technological visionary at the vanguard of the libertarian master race?
"vangaurdist libertarians" is so cursed
Did they? Dont think Rand thought that far and the robots were fan fiction.
I can’t find any good sources right now, I’m absolutely not going to find a copy of that particular screed and look up the relevant bits, but I think the oil wells in galts gulch were automated, with self driving trucks, I think? It might also be implicit in the goods that are produced there, but that is drifting a bit into fanfic, I admit.
Anyway, between boston dynamics and the endless supply of rand fans on the internet, it’s very hard to research without reading the damn thing.
If I find a new source, I’ll report back.
I might be able to borrow a digital copy and run a search through it, but im afk for now.
So, curse you for making me check the actual source material (it was freely available online, which seems somehow heretical. I was intending to torrent it, and I’m almost disappointed I didn’t have to) and it seems I’m wrong here… the anconia copper mine in the gulch produced like a pound of copper, and they use mules for transporting stuff to and from the mine. The oil well is still suspicious, but it just gets glossed over.
I’m not prepared to read any more than that, so if there was anything else about automation in there I didn’t see it. I’d forgotten the sheer volume of baseless smug that libertarian literature exudes.
This reminds me over an old old furore here in Sweden. A female researcher at a largish university made a study of how cleaners ... cleaned. How bathrooms, kitchens etc were constructed and how workers had to move and lift to do their work.
This was almost universally derided - "who does science on cleaning???", but of course the intent was serious. Lots of people clean, if we design better workspaces, we reduce injuries and RSI etc, and maybe make it easier for less skilled people to clean. But becaseu both the author and the subjected were coded female, the reactionaries had conniptions.
Anyway that won't help humanoid robots. Just thought about it
Edit found an article in Swedish about it, year was 1985. Nowadays bathroom fixtures are constructed after her recommendations
https://arbetet.se/2009/02/26/gudrun-linns-forskningpverkar-hela-byggsverige/
Sounds a bit like a Swedish heiress to Lillian Gilbreth. My wife has had some mobility issues and has lamented that the work that went into designing more ergonomic and accessible kitchens in the 40s and 50s was largely abandoned and ignored in more recent homes.
Infuriating