Y Combinator Shattered My Robot Loving Dreams

In other words: software will replace robots when there's no need to have an actual robot, just software. Erm, yes.<p>When your iPhone can assemble a car, do the dishes, or <i>actually explore</i> Mars, let me know.

Software is incredibly powerful, but it the robotic revolution is still coming. Obviously software cannot explicitly deal with physical objects as easily as a robot can. I mean, you can have software that will find you the cheapest maid service out there and send them to your door while your at work, but the software can't clean your house.<p>Robots are taking much longer then we first thought because the problems are much harder then we first thought (pg talks about this is one of his essays on AI).<p>As of right now, humanoid-consumer viable robots are too weird, slow and clumsy to be of real value. Look up some willow garage (google-backed) on youtube for what I mean. But certainly within my lifetime, we will have something that will be able to fold your clothes, do the dishes and cook you breakfast, all before you get out of bed.<p>It may be nothing like what the writer was thinking of back in the 80's. I could see a set of robotic arms mounted on the ceiling in the kitchen, which could cook, clean, and then get out of the way, resulting in no awkward robot-human interactions. I don't know what the technology will be, but it will be coming.

Perhaps all of us have our own idea of why, exactly, we found The Jetsons' Rosie useful and appealing. For myself, the appeal is removing the need for a human to do any sort of physical grunt work to perform a task.<p>With software, I still have to open a browser tab and punch in dates, times, and locations on a webpage. I still have to physically go to the grocery store [1] and redeem the coupons I've purchased.<p>How about software that takes my email exchange, extracts the agreed-upon travel dates, books the cheapest ticket, and automatically prints out my boarding pass? Ah, it was all software until the printer - robot.<p>Or something that mines the types of foods and groceries I like, orders them for me, and delivers them to my doorstep? As a grocery store manager, I might want a robot to pick the products off the shelf and transport them to the customer.<p>I can't Babelfish a conversation I'm trying to have with a friend. I want those translators that they have on Star Trek. Hardware. Hardware which runs software, sure, but how am I supposed to translate Chinese using Babelfish on my cell phone?<p>I still have to physically scrub and place the dishes from the kitchen sink into the dishwasher. Hell, I even have trouble getting them from my desk to the sink!<p>So I say let's have more robots! But not robots that substitute for human interaction, but robots that keep us from the monotony of everyday tasks.<p>[1] <a href="http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-kenyon.html" rel="nofollow">http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallac...</a>

for someone that thinks they are creating the future of toys, this is incredibly shortsighted. This post shows a lack of vision. Why would I even want to go to hipmunk, when a robot will get the ticket, pack my bags, make sure they are at the airport where they need to be, and all I'll have to do is board a plane. Aisle50, i don't want just deals, I want someone to either pick them up or deliver them, put them away, and automate this process for me every week.

I think this one's a bit of a stretch.

Is there a sense in which software is what is holding back robots? We have all watched pretty cool robots in videos rolling around, walk on two legs, etc. What we need is awesome AI to put in the existing hardware. Any experts want to chime in?

best collection of software &#60; having an assistant that does everything + the software.<p>In the future, why do it yourself, if you can delegate it to a robot and focus on more important things.

so maybe it is so. but humans will get API and will act like machine. (until maybe they are replaced by better machine, or parts that make them human are removed.). DNA is machine anyway.

I'm still waiting for my android powered android.

Where has this guy been for the past 20 years? I was child of the 80's, and a teen of the 90's. And it has been pretty clear to me for a long time that the concept of cyberspace and virtual reality would be the eventual endpoint of the computer revolution. Robots always were a 60's thing, even in the 80's.