Comment by al_borland

Comment by al_borland 4 days ago

10 replies

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The business case for humanoid robots is simple... for lack of a better term, they're robot slaves. Companies or governments can buy them once, pay relatively minimal maintenance fees, and have an army of workers that don't need a salary, never take breaks, never complain, never unionize, and do things faster and more accurately than most humans ever will. Any company that can move to robots, will move to robots.

Imagine the profits companies will have when they can eliminate, or drastically reduce, their single largest expense... payroll. Not only the base pay, but 401K match, insurance, payroll taxes, etc. Poof... gone.

techdmn 4 days ago

I agree with everything you've said. To me the next question is: If nobody has a job, who will buy all the robot-produced goods?

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  • sejje 3 days ago

    Some people will have jobs, even in the most robot-heavy vision.

    I don't know if it's enough people to buy the goods, but robot-produced goods should bottom out on price, closing in on the actual cost of materials/energy.

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    • f30e3dfed1c9 3 days ago

      "robot-produced goods should bottom out on price, closing in on the actual cost of materials/energy."

      I don't think that's really true, or rather it's variably true along a continuum for different kinds of things. Some things sell for close to the marginal cost of production, others close to what the market will bear.

      For two examples, flat-screen TVs seem to be on one end of the continuum, iPhones on the other. Lots of other things are at different points in between. Robots won't eliminate demand for luxury goods, which are not usually near the marginal cost of production end of the scale.

      I don't know what it costs Apple to make an iPhone, but if they could cut it in half while people were still willing to pay $1,000, there's no reason to think they'd lower the price.

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bovinejoni 4 days ago

But why are they in humanoid form? Wheels are more efficient than legs, they have no need for a face. It sure does sound like vibes

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  • jdmoreira 4 days ago

    Because the world has already been built for the "human" interface

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    • Capricorn2481 4 days ago

      It has? I don't think every little thing has. Do I want a robot that has to lift the couch to clean under it, or do I want a robot that can get under the couch?

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TheAceOfHearts 4 days ago

The part that often gets left unsaid or glossed over is what the transition period looks like. At most we get some Underpants Gnomes claim about unlimited abundance without actually engaging with the substance of what happens if this technology gets built and deployed. What do you imagine the political and economic impact will be if a huge portion of the population is left without jobs and the political reality hasn't caught up to the speed with which the technology gets deployed?

Oh no, but Elon Musk tells us that out of the kindness of his heart we're going to have unlimited abundance. The same man responsible for taking away aid from thousands of the poorest people in the world through DOGE's interruption of PEPFAR and USAID.

With a single sentence from him, he could start saving thousands of lives without impacting his wealth in the slightest. He could do that right now.

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