this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.
You're changing the problem that is being solved. The CURRENT work process is to use a human with all the benefits and detriments of a human. The idea would be to drop one of these Atlas robots in without changing the work or work environment. Perhaps there is a more efficient human doing the work from 8am-5pm and only some work needed from 5pm-8am. An Atlas robot would be perfect use case here. You don't have to redesign the work or the environment for a human or robot to switch out to do the same work.
What you're describing is changing the nature of the task or the environment to optimize for a robot.
Boston Dynamics already has that robot. Its called Handle:
As you can see, its a wheeled robot with an arm, but this robot couldn't do the task that the Atlas robot can in the video because it doesn't have the fine motor control or fingers to grasp the engine covers, nor does Handle have the ability to deal with those soft pliable racks where Atlas is placing the covers.
Yep, it's no more than a stress test for a robot to keep it's balance in motion, coupled with some partnership and a nice PR showcase of what it can do in a humanized scenario that we meatbags can relate to.
Moving stuff in a predictable fashion is easily done with forklift\suction cup robots on rails that can ride floors and climb shelves while being powered from the line 100% of time. Iirc Boston Dynamics did such robots too. Making robots carry stuff around on legs sounds like a c/crazyideas material.
What they can do then though is use this amount of R&D to build a robot that does need all of that. From automatic surgery machines to rescue scouts and, yes, killbots. Both rough terrain and sensitive tasks need a self-regulating system to orchestrate the motion in all these motors right.