> “Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers are the triple axis for a great leap forward.”
Not the best wording... I wonder how serious this announcement is.
winstonlee · 2026-06-29 23:32:10 UTC
It's from the president's speech. Too lazy to look up the actual text but I guess he meant "pillars", a common metaphor in East Asia. In English axis and pillar are distinct but in East Asia the line is blurry.
For example, the Japanese word 軸 (jiku) is used to mean the "axis" of a graph, but it is also used in business to mean the "core pillar/backbone" of a strategy (e.g., 経営の軸 keiei no jiku, literally "the axis of management," but conceptually "the pillar of management").
jazzyjackson · 2026-06-29 23:36:07 UTC
The speech was delivered in Korean so this is a choice by a translator. I don’t speak Korean but I asked an LLM and it says …
the phrase used is "대도약" (daedoyak), which literally means "great leap forward" or "great jump forward." This is NOT "대약진" (daeyakjin), which would be the direct translation of China's "Great Leap Forward" (大跃进).
yongjik · 2026-06-30 04:28:08 UTC
To expand a bit, even saying 대약진 _daeyakjin_ "great leap forward" wouldn't have turned many eyes, because _dae_ is just a common prefix ("great") and _yakjin_ is also a common word meaning "leap forward, push forward, improve". The word simply doesn't have the same connotation of the English phrase "Great Leap Forward", which is almost always used for the infamous Chinese movement.
If a Korean speaker wanted to talk about that Chinese movement, they'd use the full name, 대약진운동 (大跃进运动): the great leap forward movement.
summerlight · 2026-06-29 23:38:22 UTC
Looks like a lazy translation; the president used a word "대도약" while the Chinese campaign that you're referring is translated into "대약진운동".
Mistletoe · 2026-06-30 01:36:54 UTC
Top signal.
HSO · 2026-06-30 15:48:56 UTC
typical western main character syndrome
whatever1 · 2026-06-29 23:27:10 UTC
I wonder how Germany missed the semi manufacturing train? They had literally everything: universities, manufacturing culture, expertise and supporting supply chains, cash.
I forgot, they also had ASML, freaking next door!
cherryteastain · 2026-06-29 23:48:55 UTC
They had a large memory manufacturer, Infineon, who spun out their memory division as Qimonda which then went bankrupt [1]. They were the 2nd largest in the world at one time apparently. Looking back, it's easy to say the German govt should have thrown them a billion or two to keep them afloat. However, state intervention was very unpopular at the time in economic circles, and there was much furor over bailouts following the 2008 crisis.
Japan has an even sadder story. They were the DRAM top dog for a very long time. South Korea entirely ate their lunch.
Wow, 7000 patents and all their IP and documentation
cherioo · 2026-06-30 00:47:23 UTC
It’s CXMT (memory) not SMIC (logic)
est31 · 2026-06-30 00:35:52 UTC
Infineon still exists as a semiconductor manufacturer. Their stock has gone crazy since start of the year as well.
rfw300 · 2026-06-30 06:33:09 UTC
Germany’s austerity policy after 2008 may be one of the largest economic blunders in history. It would be one thing if they merely committed self-harm, but they also used their pull in the EU to drag the rest of the continent down with them.
Reminded of Matt Yglesias’s excellent headline from 2010: Angela Merkel Lucky the Bar for “Worst German Leader” is Very High
kakacik · 2026-06-30 06:54:36 UTC
One thing that I will never understand - how can german population not see through all that socialist bullshit she produced, promises undelivered, how much long term harm she generated across whole Europe (not just EU). Hard push for (now visibly) failed immigration at all costs, nuclear energy rollback (and she was nuclear physicist at least by her studies) and subsequent buying of foreign coal-based electricity, fragmentation of EU.
She literally licked putin's boots well into Ukraine war and still thinks licking his ass is the correct course to solve war in Ukraine (which started 2014 and it was pretty nasty already back then, the world just didn't care also thanks to her).
She is by far the biggest catastrophe modern Europe encountered after Hitler. She helped remove any proper fighting chance for the top dog Europe had for 21st century. She singlehandedly caused proper hate against EU in large parts of (not only) eastern EU population, and hence the rise of populist left or right wing politicians whose whole success story was just point at her failings and criticize, enough to get 20-30% of the votes and even win elections, repeatedly. She literally made people like Orban or Fico.
She still admits no mistakes, even wants to become german president. How effin' out of touch with reality she is.
tonyhart7 · 2026-06-30 10:05:37 UTC
okay, that is going too far
she has its flaws but remember that people vote for her, so its not only her fault
kakacik · 2026-06-30 10:41:24 UTC
Yes people voted for her, she is still very popular. Doesn't change anything I said about her negative impact on entire continent that is extremely visible.
Maybe she did tons of good so it somehow averages out, but I certainly haven't heard about it (now is your time to defend her), everybody saw consequences of her disastrous policies that affected entire bloc.
tonyhart7 · 2026-06-30 10:53:56 UTC
its only hindsight, most people at those time didn't really foreseen the outcome later
kakacik · 2026-06-30 11:21:16 UTC
This is untrue, entire eastern EU screamed like crazy against such immigration when she started importing immigrants en masse, "wir schaffen das". France faced the same with entire communities from Maghreb, most didn't work, 0 integration even after a generation or two spent in Europe, they knew language only if it was also their native one. Nobody in the east wanted that, entire political blocs before elections formed on opposing this and other fun EU moves (remember banning regular lightbulbs without good-enough LED replacements in entire EU market? Pepperidge Farm remembers... Or cutting down most of Borneo ancient rainforest to have effin' EU-subsidized bio fuels that ruin car engines quicker? Same story, I know this is EU but Germany is by far the strongest voice in and these are typical merkel moves - big moves regardless of consequences and picking up pieces later).
East had no prior experience with migrants due to living for decades in effectively prison camp guarded by soviets, no travel or other exposition to other ways of life. We were very monolithic cultures (and still mostly are).
The voices were completely ignored and overruled by behemoths like Britain, France and most powerful voice in the bloc - Germany.
Don't revision past, I lived through it, saw masses of people getting absolutely mad pissed off and feeling helpless and unheard with arguments which over time proved them mostly correct.
I don't hold those opinions myself, some of our best friends are muslim immigrants but oh boy go to the eastern EU without camera and ask random folks on the street outside capitals, or just listen to them. Or look at election results, this gave russians and their constant influence very good arguments since they position themselves as 'guardians of traditional family values in society', regardless of how its true or not (clue - its not but thats detail here).
tonyhart7 · 2026-06-30 15:26:42 UTC
You are racist
dtoma · 2026-06-30 11:31:49 UTC
> all that socialist bullshit she produced
... what? How's that the first thing that comes to mind about her, before "neoliberal", "conservative", or "austerity"? For that matter, when has the CDU ever been anywhere near socialist, in Germany or in the EU parliament?
100% agree we're still dealing with the fallout from her policies though.
atwrk · 2026-06-30 08:12:57 UTC
> Looking back, it's easy to say the German govt should have thrown them a billion or two to keep them afloat. However, state intervention was very unpopular at the time in economic circles, and there was much furor over bailouts following the 2008 crisis.
Absolutely, Germany essentially abandoned its position in industrial leadership solely due to neoliberal ideology. Just compare the trajectories of Germany and China in the last 20 years. One country planned and implemented a proper industrial policy, the other hummed and hawed about the infallibility of the market and thus essentially just gave up.
ksec · 2026-06-30 13:01:40 UTC
There were plenty of other DRAM manufacture before them as well. But the Boom and bust cycle wipe out those who weren't big enough or adequately prepared.
Nearly every single DRAM cycle we go through the same thing. People are saying memory are so cheap we are going to get 32GB/ 64GB / 128GB very soon. Just like they did 2-3 years before. Then every single DRAM up cycle they were earning insane amount of money, with this one being exceptionally high. Not only covering their previous lost but also extra profits. And every single time people cry out price fixing.
And every single time, Interviewer, financial reporters or share holders will ask TSMC's CEO Morris Chang the same question, and this is before TSMC was even well known in Tech cycle, will they make DRAM given it is just Fabs, TSMC could do it. And every single time in the past 20 - 30 years Morris had to explain the whole thing again.
Frankly speaking I have been rumpling about DRAM being commodity on HN for nearly 20 years. It is the first time I have seen a few comments finally picking this up as shown in the current top comment.
paulmist · 2026-06-29 23:49:53 UTC
IIRC Taiwan took a page out of Singapore's playbook and went all in on electrical engineering and adjecent fields. It was very much a long-term strategy. Germany probably didn't feel nearly as much pressure, and was already very strong in all industry.
gruntled-worker · 2026-06-29 23:56:02 UTC
Chip fab locations have traditionally had more political than economic importance. Matrix multiplication chips and RAM have been the recent exception, while TSMC has long been the geopolitical exception. ASML's location only matters to the extent that it gets ordered not to sell to someone.
ETH_start · 2026-06-30 02:58:06 UTC
According to late Intel founder Andy Grove, having domestic manufacturing, including chip fabrication, is very important for a country's ability to innovate.
Memory has only really recently become lucrative. Germany still has heavy machinery, trains, drilling machines etc all of which will be needed for a long time regardless of whether the "bubble pops" or not.
tw04 · 2026-06-30 00:04:31 UTC
Most of those now need memory to function. At some point it becomes a national security issue.
fennecbutt · 2026-06-30 00:08:55 UTC
That's not really a gotcha, because my train doesn't need a TB of dram.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 00:23:53 UTC
Heavy machinery is starting to. Computer vision for robots is a big deal, and takes quite a bit of processing power. Robotic mining, earthmoving, and even construction equipment is exactly where Germany will innovate. Not to mention drones - Rheinmetall needs DRAM...
woadwarrior01 · 2026-06-30 00:05:08 UTC
The AMD spinoff GlobalFoundries has a fab in Dresden.
GuB-42 · 2026-06-30 00:08:38 UTC
> I wonder how Germany missed the semi manufacturing train?
My best guess is that the connecting train was operated by the Deutsche Bahn
linzhangrun · 2026-06-30 01:31:21 UTC
lmao
repler · 2026-06-30 00:18:19 UTC
Siemens?
jdw64 · 2026-06-30 00:57:26 UTC
Realistically, when it comes to the semiconductor market, there aren't many viable options outside of East Asia. I don't mean this in the sense that East Asians were somehow "chosen," but rather that the semiconductor industry inherently requires a large number of highly educated employees working together. The problem is that the working hours inevitably end up being very long. If you actually go work at one of those facilities, you have to wear a "cleanroom suit" (bunny suit), and it's physically demanding. What I'm saying is, you need highly educated personnel who can be mobilized at any time when a problem breaks out in the middle of the night, and who can be hired at relatively low cost. East Asia has a massive educational infrastructure — schools are very large-scale and the system is extremely well-developed — making it hard for other regions to compete. And indeed, the average working hours in countries that do semiconductor manufacturing are extremely long
In other words, it's an industry where you have to grind white-collar workers as if they were blue-collar laborers.
fakedang · 2026-06-30 01:25:30 UTC
I believe some of the earliest Intel fabs were in New Mexico (Shiprock and Rio Rancho). What combination of the above did New Mexico have?
When New Mexico and Germany had fabs, South Korea was still a developing country ruled by a brutal dictatorship.
What happened was simple - both Taiwan and South Korea and now China took concerted steps in investing into their semiconductors businesses. South Korea did this indirectly through favourable arrangements for the industry players via the chaebol system, while China and Taiwan did this with more direct government investment into the industry.
Sure, you can't just dump money into the industry and become a semiconductor player, else the Middle Eastern countries would have tried that ages ago. Yes, the talent being locally present is important but you're once again bringing up tired tropes about Asian working culture as being relevant.
jdw64 · 2026-06-30 01:30:58 UTC
I'm not saying Asian culture is the main factor. Yes, it's true that authoritarian governance driven by dictatorial regimes and chaebol politics has played a strong role, but fundamentally, the long working hours are simply inherent to this business.
You brought up the New Mexico story quite well, but that place is notorious for the exploitation of Navajo women's labor. In the first place, the factory was occupied and shut down by the American Indian Movement. You know full well that this is a story about the exploitation of Native Americans, so why are you bringing it up like that?
The history of Shiprock itself is, at its core, a history of "cheap, obedient labor." You frame it only as state-led investment, but the reality is that the culture behind it is complex.
What my post is pointing out is not that "Asian culture is superior." What I'm pointing out is the harsh working conditions in Asia — where working hours are extremely long, and even highly educated workers are inevitably subjected to grueling hours. Why do you think TSMC's Arizona fab in the U.S. keeps getting delayed? The U.S. invested money through the CHIPS Act, but American engineers refuse to accept the "military-style 24/7 on-call readiness and brutal shift work" that exists in Taiwan. TSMC founder Morris Chang himself has pointed this out before.
What I'm saying is that the educational infrastructure is so well-established that it's easy to produce a large supply of highly educated workers, and that these highly educated workers then have to be submissive to inhumane working conditions. This isn't about Asian superiority — it's actually pointing out something bad about Asia. But from the context of your comment, it seems like you misunderstood me as saying "Asian work culture is superior" and replied based on that assumption. That was never my intention.
Before you leave a comment, I'd ask you to show some basic respect to others.
nl · 2026-06-30 04:01:46 UTC
This is extrapolating from a single example of something that has worked and the conflating correlation with causation.
There are plenty of places with highly educated cheap workforces who work hard. Eastern European culture is almost identical down to the whole "tiger mom" stereotype.
The US is full of the "military-style 24/7 on-call readiness and brutal shift work" - at the high end silicon valley is built on this, and at the low end every single non-unionized factory is this.
TSMC has never built a fab outside Taiwan. Of course there will be problems.
jdw64 · 2026-06-30 06:20:25 UTC
There were probably many complex factors at play. Personally, I think the biggest one, as TSMC's Morris Chang said, is the inhumane working conditions imposed on highly educated workers. But there were likely also issues around permitting and regulatory procedures, as well as the overall cost structure.
As you said, if it were just about labor, other countries would probably have some supply of it as well. But in the case of Eastern Europe, there was likely American pushback against the European continent. As you know, semiconductors today can't be made entirely by a single entity. They're connected through a chain of trust. If Europe were to move beyond just producing semiconductor equipment and start directly manufacturing semiconductors through fabs, it would easily become a competitor to the U.S. rather than a supply chain partner.
In fact, the semiconductor chain is deliberately fragmented so that no single player can monopolize it.
On top of that, the U.S. is using South Korea and Taiwan to contain China. Under the ideology of protecting foundries from Chinese aggression and industrial attacks, the U.S. is sending the signal that it can cut off the supply chain. Eastern Europe, on the other hand, is tied up with the EU, making it much harder for the U.S. to control.
In the end, what matters when the consumer nation, the U.S., outsources production is how securely it can relocate it. Look at what happened to Japan's semiconductor industry. It was crushed through the 1986 agreement. The U.S. simply does not tolerate the emergence of an independent manufacturing hub that possesses sovereign economic power.
What matters is whether the U.S. can maintain control while keeping the price low.
numpad0 · 2026-06-30 05:53:10 UTC
Feels like the real clash happening here is that the reality is suggesting that the values of mean educational level of the bottom 99% of workforce outweighs that of the top 1%, and that being uncomfortable to some so much so that there has to be something else. But isn't that just it?
There's a story in one of Feynman's memoir where he figures out that pausing the live system and debugging its physical RAM stack is turning out to be more time consuming than simply scheduling a new corrected task, on some particular 1940s mechanical supercomputer he was assigned to as a tech. It might not have taken Feynman to notice that, but you can assign Feynman for that, and it worked for the Manhattan project.
The parent comment isn't (just) reiterating the tired tropes, but pointing out that East Asia has an "educational base" similar to industrial base that supports its high tech. I don't think that much is so strange way of thinking. The state of ME countries(maybe except Iran) soft proves it - they don't believe in such a thing. And they don't have a semiconductor industry. Pure coincidence? I doubt it.
(And on "This isn't about Asian superiority — it's actually pointing out something bad about Asia." from jdw64, yuuup 100% it is quad plus bad - IMO a thing about East Asia is that there's zero inter-national mobility due to the notoriously high language barrier, so competitions are closed to within borders, and the bar just drift skywards indefinitely because of that. There was a massive domestic hiring freeze in Japan during the 90s that made "janitors with a PhD" actually not so rare, but none of them hit the global labor market or started companies - the Japanese bar for janitors just went up to PhDs. It is said that success of Japanese 7-11 was partially attributable to that event, that, when you happen to have all the cashiers manned 24/7 with top scientists, you can just throw million different tasks and they can handle it perfectly, put aside whether they're happily doing it)
tomkat0789 · 2026-06-30 02:04:33 UTC
I’ve always wondered what is unique about semiconductors that PhDs need to work like assembly line workers. I’m sure they’re not solving partial differential equations all day, but what’s so different between different batches of chips?
bee_rider · 2026-06-30 02:12:52 UTC
I think it’s more like highly skilled technicians, to scale up. Plus PhDs and other scientists to do the simulations and analyze the data for new designs.
jdw64 · 2026-06-30 02:15:25 UTC
The industry inherently deals with extremely hazardous chemicals, and on top of that, during semiconductor production, there are many things that have to be recorded and tracked.
A lot of the processes are automated, but at the points where automation hasn't reached, there are quite a few things that are genuinely complex to handle.
sbierwagen · 2026-06-30 05:46:40 UTC
Answer: they don't, they just work them into the ground because they can.
Mainland China also has the 996 schedule for office workers purely as a cargo cult ritual, forcing people to sit at a desk at midnight and pantomime doing work.
jdw64 · 2026-06-30 08:11:50 UTC
You're not wrong, but from what I understand, the issue really comes down to on-site personnel and supervisory staffing.
As for the 996 culture, I agree to some extent. My Chinese friends hated it too. But in China, there's this thing called neijuan (involution / the rolled up scroll).
there are just so many job seekers that people are forced to endure it. What neijuan means here is "Eating one's own flesh" basically knowing that this competition is damaging to everyone involved but doing it anyway.
elil17 · 2026-06-30 09:09:15 UTC
The people in the fabs aren't PhDs, they're extremely skilled technicians. They may have a similar number of hours of experience/training as a PhD, but that training is in troubleshooting automation systems, not doing research.
brcmthrowaway · 2026-06-30 01:15:32 UTC
Germany is done.
throwaway219450 · 2026-06-30 01:18:35 UTC
Intel was supposed to build a fab in Magdeburg, which would have been great, but apparently the reason it was canned (2025) was they couldn't secure enough customers.
neonstatic · 2026-06-30 02:04:04 UTC
The Germany fetish still going strong I see.
tonyhart7 · 2026-06-30 10:20:02 UTC
people don't want to admit that German is fell off
dist-epoch · 2026-06-30 06:19:30 UTC
same thing that happened to Japan/US: they financialized their economy, companies moved from making things to pushing papers and outsourcing the making to China
kakacik · 2026-06-30 06:47:10 UTC
> I wonder how Germany missed the semi manufacturing train?
Socialism or more its german variant, a system that can spend much more than more capitalistic power holders can ever earn and doesn't really plan well for future. Just look at it - very protected jobs, stifling bureaucracy, very hard to fire people, brilliant folks are definitely not compensated accordingly compared to (below) average peers - more often than not they earn the same. Its not agile economy nor workforce by any means, in contrary.
The feeling that the German Way (TM) is The Right Way, regardless of situation. If it worked in the past, it will in future, right. That leads to stagnation, complacency and when competition leap frogs them by the mile, surprised puzzled looks and wondering how it all happened.
zipy124 · 2026-06-30 09:18:51 UTC
Not just ASML, but Zeiss the optics company is German and optics are one of the most important parts of lithography.
Regardless there are fabs in Germany, I know of at least 7, most located in Dresden. They mostly focus on older larger nodes, since for the German auto/industrial sectors that is all that is required. It's a much bigger industry than other European nations, especially like the UK which only really has one main fab in Newport.
luke5441 · 2026-06-30 10:58:14 UTC
The whole semi manufacturing(/electronics) supply chain moved to Asia in the 1980s.
E.g. Siemens tried to compete but lost back then in the manufacturing part.
sometimelurker · 2026-06-30 15:09:19 UTC
apparently bosch semiconductor exists. whatever theyre doing over there they should do more of it tho, I want cheaper ram
yieldcrv · 2026-06-29 23:27:12 UTC
Better spend it now, people won’t need greater than 1.5tr parameter models
and battery powered consumer devices will be able to run those and lower sufficiently capable models by then, distributing the need for compute away from capital projects
the glut will be enormous
yes, immortalize this phrase just like the 640kb ram phrase, I’ll stand by it
busymom0 · 2026-06-29 23:48:10 UTC
> 1.5tr parameter models
Curious, what's this based off of?
dolebirchwood · 2026-06-29 23:46:59 UTC
Why humanoid? Surely there must be a superior physical form factor than one mimicking human anatomy. Is it just supposed to be more psychologically acceptable?
Retric · 2026-06-29 23:51:49 UTC
Human spaces are built for humans. Outdoors cars and quad coppers are a great form but constrained by stars, doors, and low ceiling makes them a poor fit.
Alternatively a 2 foot tall or a 20 foot tall humanoid robots aren’t particularly useful. But a good enough 5-6 foot tall humanoid robot can be swapped into an assembly line wherever a human is currently working without redesigning that workspace.
redorb · 2026-06-29 23:52:32 UTC
There are just a few reasons - humanoid make sense, mostly for multi purpose tasks - where if you want a robot to be multi-job, do almost everything a human can do at work --
If you want a weld you need a 1 arm robot, if a robot to weld, then stack, then push parts on a cart across the factory - then sweep up, then etc.. etc.. perhaps a humanoid is alright.
There will definitely be too many people comfortable with ownership / master relationship with a humanoid robot that will do their bidding.
jayd16 · 2026-06-30 00:21:09 UTC
I understand the argument but its honestly ridiculous in my eyes. How about a set of arms that can reach into dishwasher and stack dishes and a washer/dryer to fold laundry... Except even without solving the bipedal movement, that doesn't exist at a consumer price point.
Why are we pretending the hardest version of this is close to existing?
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 00:31:03 UTC
It doesn't need to be at a consumer price point first, it needs to replace a human at an existing warehouse or manufacturing role first, and that's achievable in the next two years at this point.
When you have arms that can reach into the dishwasher, you're also going to want them to put away your dishes. And so suddenly they need to get up high. And you're not going to have a SECOND set of arms at your washer/dryer to fold laundry, you're just going to buy a second DLC for your existing robot. And it needs to get between those places, so if you have stairs, wheels don't cut it. You need a bipedal robot very quickly.
jayd16 · 2026-06-30 00:48:46 UTC
Why not buy a second set of arms instead of legs or just a set a wheels?
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 01:00:52 UTC
I feel like if I write two paragraphs, nobody reads the second one...
rkomorn · 2026-06-30 01:06:00 UTC
Maybe they're asking what your argument against buying a second set of arms is, rather than suggesting it as a solution?
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 01:11:14 UTC
Totally, and they ask why not wheels...
I think the key is that none of our actual home use cases can be done with just arms. You don't need your folded clothes sitting in front of your washer and dryer, and a set of arms can't handle folding sheets.
jayd16 · 2026-06-30 01:24:53 UTC
Why not? I would love to have a set of arms that could flip the laundry from the washer to the dryer and then take it out of the dryer and fold it and put it in the basket.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 01:26:42 UTC
I understand that particular use case sounds cool! I really do.
And then you want them to put away your dishes, and they can't, even though it's just a software update, because they're across the house. And they're BIG, so you don't have room to store two anyway.
And they were $20,000, so...
stickfigure · 2026-06-30 02:23:45 UTC
Back around the turn of the (20th) century, electric motors were expensive. It was not uncommon to buy one motor that could do multiple things, like this vacuum/grinder/buffer/blower/pulley:
If we start making robot arms at scale, they're going to get cheap.
I'm also not sure people are really going to want bipedal robots walking around their home, blocking the hallways, recording you in your underwear, etc.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 02:35:15 UTC
Sure, an electric motor is like 10cm on a side. A set of robot arms that can fold laundry are like a 100cm cube. Most people aren't going to have space for two of them.
And the arms need cameras too...
stickfigure · 2026-06-30 03:44:11 UTC
A washer+dryer is pretty huge already. Seems like it could get some robot arms without changing the form factor dramatically.
That said, I think this is way farther off than anyone thinks. I want to know what the maintenance schedule looks like for robot arms. Looks like a lot of small moving parts. Probably a lot of plastic gears.
In an industrial setting, sure, maintenance is just an expense. But wheels require less maintenance and factories can be designed around the robots.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 11:47:12 UTC
Plastic gears? I sure hope not!
As I said, maybe earlier in this thread, I've now seen a laundry folding robot work, but I think loading a dishwasher and then putting away dishes is going to come first.
jayd16 · 2026-06-30 01:17:26 UTC
Use wheels and buy two if you have to...the Roomba solution. Besides, why do you need to solve stairs the hardest way possible, a fully bipedal robot, before it moves past vapor?
scheme271 · 2026-06-30 01:04:40 UTC
Stair climbing systems that work using wheels exist. Google stair climbing wheelchairs for a few examples.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 01:16:12 UTC
I am familiar, I'm a big fan of Dean Kamen's work. So far, we haven't seen a single wheeled stair climbing vacuum cleaner, even though the original iBOT is 23 years old.
That solves the horizontal mobility problem. And then you have cabinets - and wheels don't solve the vertical mobility problem. So then you need a scissor lift on those wheels, or a hydraulic lift.
The robotics nerds always end up back at bipedal because it's vastly simpler once you're already solving arms.
imtringued · 2026-06-30 07:51:57 UTC
Ok, so your idea is to sell a machine without software and then hand wave the software part away by saying it will be released at a later date? Sounds like a scam to me. You'll just end up with another AMD situation where the company is only interested in selling the hardware and has zero interest in developing the software, because it costs money and can only ever generate revenue by selling more hardware, which will make the hardware focused company feel vindicated in deciding to not put effort into the software.
Schiendelman · 2026-06-30 11:47:59 UTC
My idea? No. I'm pointing out that if you release something capable of loading a dishwasher and putting away dishes, it could be as little as a future software improvement to make it do something else.
adrian_b · 2026-06-30 05:14:12 UTC
For multi-purpose tasks, human hands and arms are excellent, but only 2 are too few for many tasks. Humans very frequently need to have specialized gripping tools in order to accomplish tasks that cannot be done with only 2 arms, or they must work in pairs.
A good mobile multi-purpose robot should have 3 arms, or 4 arms for symmetry.
Human legs are normally not necessary. A mobile robot would just need some means to raise and lower its wheels, so that it could step when ascending or descending stairs.
A human head is not useful. The place for the "brain" of a robot is in its "chest", because robots do not have the limitations of living beings, where the very slow propagation speed of the nervous signals forces the nervous systems to be concentrated in the proximity of the main sense organs.
Instead of a head, one should have a couple of mobile arms with video cameras at their end, somewhat like the mobile stalks of crab eyes.
Of the components of a human, only the hands and arms are models useful to imitate. Cephalopod-like arms would be even more versatile than human-like arms, but it is likely that they would be much more expensive at similar performances.
Having the size of a human and human-like hands and arms is good for working in environments designed for humans, but having the shape of a human has no purpose.
password54321 · 2026-06-29 23:56:05 UTC
A lot of training data being collected is coming from people. You have companies paying people to do chores while recording themselves.
goretghh · 2026-06-29 23:56:15 UTC
Because it's what Elon and China say that matters. There are exceptions but Korea is not the land of creativity. At all.
newsclues · 2026-06-30 00:36:40 UTC
Because you can use existing physical equipment with automation, until it’s ready for a full replacement
ElFitz · 2026-06-30 01:01:27 UTC
> Why humanoid? Surely there must be a superior physical form factor than one mimicking human anatomy.
There probably (certainly) is. But if you want to build a multi-purpose platform, you’ll soon be faced with a dumb challenge: nearly all interfaces (door knobs, taps, electric switches, cutlery, sponges, every single button out there, pillow cases, wrenches, hammers, signs…) are made for humans. Placed at human hand level. At human eye level.
Nearly all environments (houses, streets, sidewalks, factory floors, offices, toilets, bathtubs,…) are made for humans. Wide enough and tall enough (or short enough, for bathtubs) to accommodate human bodies.
So until we can find one or more form-factors superior enough to justify we adapt everything around it or them, betting that the easiest way to build a single multi-purpose platform able to do most things (and not n platforms for n+ use cases) is to borrow the shape most things are made for wouldn’t surprise me. Plus, you get a wider market.
And then, once you have happy-ish customers, figure out which of these human attributes and shapes aren’t actually needed to do the job.
numpad0 · 2026-06-30 03:52:26 UTC
Those require a hand on a stick. The stick isn't so interesting. Humanoid robots are the stick part, and actually not THAT interesting.
ElFitz · 2026-06-30 05:33:56 UTC
Never said it was interesting. Just that it’s easier to sell tech that fits your customers' environments than to get customers to overhaul their environment to fit the unproven tech you want to sell them.
imtringued · 2026-06-30 07:36:03 UTC
Most fixed infrastructure like switches and buttons that can be operated with a single hand are amenable to any robot with at least one hand. We've had Sawyer demonstrations operating tools clearly designed for humans for more then a decade ago and Mobile Aloha had demonstrations showing how it can operate the switches of an elevator just fine. None of these are humanoid robots.
The moment you have mobile tools, whats the point in forcing the robot to hold them using a human hand? You can put them on a tool changer now or have a gripper that works for the specific task. Why does a robot need to hold a wrench using a humanoid hand?
>Nearly all environments (houses, streets, sidewalks, factory floors, offices, toilets, bathtubs,…) are made for humans. Wide enough and tall enough (or short enough, for bathtubs) to accommodate human bodies.
Uhm, now we're getting into stupid territory. All of those environments have flat floors. Flat floors are not an environment that are exclusively built to accommodate human bodies... The flat floor is designed for ultimate flexibility. It can be used for anything. Furniture, wheelchairs, wheeled robots, furniture on rolls, animals, and also humans.
All of the environments you've listed should preferrably be wheelchair accessible for disabled people (in terms of locomotion at least).
>So until we can find one or more form-factors superior enough to justify we adapt everything around it
Is this some kind of joke? Factories already make heavy use of UGVs and stationary robot arms and build custom end effectors for them. It's also an extreme strawman to suggest that wireless/electronic interfaces require finding a "superior form-factor" to the point that it feels insulting. There's also often an easy wheelchair accessible equivalent. E.g. a button to activate the electronic door opener at wheelchair level can still be at a comfortable height for standing people.
>And then, once you have happy-ish customers, figure out which of these human attributes and shapes aren’t actually needed to do the job.
So solve the impossible (come on you know it's hyperbole) first, only then can you build a simpler system.
I think its incredibly unreasonable to suggest that you need to solve every single problem ever encountered in human existence to be allowed to solve one much simpler problem.
ElFitz · 2026-06-30 12:16:56 UTC
I think we might be talking past each other.
I’m not arguing that humanoids are the only robots that can operate in human environments, nor that specialized robots shouldn’t exist. We already know they should, and do, and work very well.
I’m saying it depends on what you’re after.
If you want a specialized machine, then by all means optimize the form factor for that task.
If you want a general-purpose platform, then you’re faced with a near-infinite variety of environments, tools, and situations: homes, offices, hospitals, factories, hotels, streets…
Almost all of them were designed around human reach, dexterity, height, mobility and perception.
> The moment you have mobile tools, whats the point in forcing the robot to hold them using a human hand? You can put them on a tool changer now or have a gripper that works for the specific task. Why does a robot need to hold a wrench using a humanoid hand?
It doesn’t. The wrench was just one example among many. Nearly all our tools and interfaces are designed around human hands and bodies. If a different manipulator works just as well across all of them, great. My point isn’t that it must literally be a human hand.
> I think its incredibly unreasonable to suggest that you need to solve every single problem ever encountered in human existence to be allowed to solve one much simpler problem.
That’s not what I’m suggesting.
I’m saying it’s a deployment strategy. Start with the form factor that’s already compatible with the largest installed base of tools and infrastructure. Not because it’s mechanically optimal, but because it minimises the amount of adaptation required from the market.
And enables you to sell to markets you aren’t even aware exist.
If, over time, you discover that hands don’t need five fingers, legs don’t need knees, or an entirely different morphology delivers much better performance, then you have both the experience and the demonstrated value to justify changing the robot, or even convince your customers to change the environment to fit a better robot.
They’re basically trying to go for the "one size fits most" of robotics. And yes, we both know how well that usually fits anyone.
I’m not convinced either, but I can understand the logic.
a_wild_dandan · 2026-06-30 02:06:55 UTC
Backward compatibility with current meatspace tooling.
numpad0 · 2026-06-30 03:54:09 UTC
It's just Internet hype.
m4rtink · 2026-06-30 11:43:57 UTC
Tentacles & shoggothbots pave the way to the future!
GuB-42 · 2026-06-29 23:51:20 UTC
The title sounds to me like: I am going to spend $1000 in groceries and dance lessons. That is, two very different things lumped together.
Memory chips are like groceries, essential commodity parts, a no-nonsense investment. Humanoid robots are like dance lessons, it is cool, it is sexy, and it may pay off in the future, but the value is much less certain.
Comments
Not the best wording... I wonder how serious this announcement is.
For example, the Japanese word 軸 (jiku) is used to mean the "axis" of a graph, but it is also used in business to mean the "core pillar/backbone" of a strategy (e.g., 経営の軸 keiei no jiku, literally "the axis of management," but conceptually "the pillar of management").
the phrase used is "대도약" (daedoyak), which literally means "great leap forward" or "great jump forward." This is NOT "대약진" (daeyakjin), which would be the direct translation of China's "Great Leap Forward" (大跃进).
If a Korean speaker wanted to talk about that Chinese movement, they'd use the full name, 대약진운동 (大跃进运动): the great leap forward movement.
I forgot, they also had ASML, freaking next door!
Japan has an even sadder story. They were the DRAM top dog for a very long time. South Korea entirely ate their lunch.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qimonda
[1] https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/chinas-cxmt-is-set-to-...
Reminded of Matt Yglesias’s excellent headline from 2010: Angela Merkel Lucky the Bar for “Worst German Leader” is Very High
She literally licked putin's boots well into Ukraine war and still thinks licking his ass is the correct course to solve war in Ukraine (which started 2014 and it was pretty nasty already back then, the world just didn't care also thanks to her).
She is by far the biggest catastrophe modern Europe encountered after Hitler. She helped remove any proper fighting chance for the top dog Europe had for 21st century. She singlehandedly caused proper hate against EU in large parts of (not only) eastern EU population, and hence the rise of populist left or right wing politicians whose whole success story was just point at her failings and criticize, enough to get 20-30% of the votes and even win elections, repeatedly. She literally made people like Orban or Fico.
She still admits no mistakes, even wants to become german president. How effin' out of touch with reality she is.
she has its flaws but remember that people vote for her, so its not only her fault
Maybe she did tons of good so it somehow averages out, but I certainly haven't heard about it (now is your time to defend her), everybody saw consequences of her disastrous policies that affected entire bloc.
East had no prior experience with migrants due to living for decades in effectively prison camp guarded by soviets, no travel or other exposition to other ways of life. We were very monolithic cultures (and still mostly are).
The voices were completely ignored and overruled by behemoths like Britain, France and most powerful voice in the bloc - Germany.
Don't revision past, I lived through it, saw masses of people getting absolutely mad pissed off and feeling helpless and unheard with arguments which over time proved them mostly correct.
I don't hold those opinions myself, some of our best friends are muslim immigrants but oh boy go to the eastern EU without camera and ask random folks on the street outside capitals, or just listen to them. Or look at election results, this gave russians and their constant influence very good arguments since they position themselves as 'guardians of traditional family values in society', regardless of how its true or not (clue - its not but thats detail here).
... what? How's that the first thing that comes to mind about her, before "neoliberal", "conservative", or "austerity"? For that matter, when has the CDU ever been anywhere near socialist, in Germany or in the EU parliament?
100% agree we're still dealing with the fallout from her policies though.
Absolutely, Germany essentially abandoned its position in industrial leadership solely due to neoliberal ideology. Just compare the trajectories of Germany and China in the last 20 years. One country planned and implemented a proper industrial policy, the other hummed and hawed about the infallibility of the market and thus essentially just gave up.
Nearly every single DRAM cycle we go through the same thing. People are saying memory are so cheap we are going to get 32GB/ 64GB / 128GB very soon. Just like they did 2-3 years before. Then every single DRAM up cycle they were earning insane amount of money, with this one being exceptionally high. Not only covering their previous lost but also extra profits. And every single time people cry out price fixing.
And every single time, Interviewer, financial reporters or share holders will ask TSMC's CEO Morris Chang the same question, and this is before TSMC was even well known in Tech cycle, will they make DRAM given it is just Fabs, TSMC could do it. And every single time in the past 20 - 30 years Morris had to explain the whole thing again.
Frankly speaking I have been rumpling about DRAM being commodity on HN for nearly 20 years. It is the first time I have seen a few comments finally picking this up as shown in the current top comment.
https://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2011/05...
My best guess is that the connecting train was operated by the Deutsche Bahn
In other words, it's an industry where you have to grind white-collar workers as if they were blue-collar laborers.
When New Mexico and Germany had fabs, South Korea was still a developing country ruled by a brutal dictatorship.
What happened was simple - both Taiwan and South Korea and now China took concerted steps in investing into their semiconductors businesses. South Korea did this indirectly through favourable arrangements for the industry players via the chaebol system, while China and Taiwan did this with more direct government investment into the industry.
Sure, you can't just dump money into the industry and become a semiconductor player, else the Middle Eastern countries would have tried that ages ago. Yes, the talent being locally present is important but you're once again bringing up tired tropes about Asian working culture as being relevant.
You brought up the New Mexico story quite well, but that place is notorious for the exploitation of Navajo women's labor. In the first place, the factory was occupied and shut down by the American Indian Movement. You know full well that this is a story about the exploitation of Native Americans, so why are you bringing it up like that?
The history of Shiprock itself is, at its core, a history of "cheap, obedient labor." You frame it only as state-led investment, but the reality is that the culture behind it is complex.
What my post is pointing out is not that "Asian culture is superior." What I'm pointing out is the harsh working conditions in Asia — where working hours are extremely long, and even highly educated workers are inevitably subjected to grueling hours. Why do you think TSMC's Arizona fab in the U.S. keeps getting delayed? The U.S. invested money through the CHIPS Act, but American engineers refuse to accept the "military-style 24/7 on-call readiness and brutal shift work" that exists in Taiwan. TSMC founder Morris Chang himself has pointed this out before.
What I'm saying is that the educational infrastructure is so well-established that it's easy to produce a large supply of highly educated workers, and that these highly educated workers then have to be submissive to inhumane working conditions. This isn't about Asian superiority — it's actually pointing out something bad about Asia. But from the context of your comment, it seems like you misunderstood me as saying "Asian work culture is superior" and replied based on that assumption. That was never my intention.
Before you leave a comment, I'd ask you to show some basic respect to others.
There are plenty of places with highly educated cheap workforces who work hard. Eastern European culture is almost identical down to the whole "tiger mom" stereotype.
And there are numerous counter examples: Ireland has a huge semiconductor industry: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/semiconductor-compan...
The US is full of the "military-style 24/7 on-call readiness and brutal shift work" - at the high end silicon valley is built on this, and at the low end every single non-unionized factory is this.
TSMC has never built a fab outside Taiwan. Of course there will be problems.
As you said, if it were just about labor, other countries would probably have some supply of it as well. But in the case of Eastern Europe, there was likely American pushback against the European continent. As you know, semiconductors today can't be made entirely by a single entity. They're connected through a chain of trust. If Europe were to move beyond just producing semiconductor equipment and start directly manufacturing semiconductors through fabs, it would easily become a competitor to the U.S. rather than a supply chain partner.
In fact, the semiconductor chain is deliberately fragmented so that no single player can monopolize it.
On top of that, the U.S. is using South Korea and Taiwan to contain China. Under the ideology of protecting foundries from Chinese aggression and industrial attacks, the U.S. is sending the signal that it can cut off the supply chain. Eastern Europe, on the other hand, is tied up with the EU, making it much harder for the U.S. to control.
In the end, what matters when the consumer nation, the U.S., outsources production is how securely it can relocate it. Look at what happened to Japan's semiconductor industry. It was crushed through the 1986 agreement. The U.S. simply does not tolerate the emergence of an independent manufacturing hub that possesses sovereign economic power.
What matters is whether the U.S. can maintain control while keeping the price low.
There's a story in one of Feynman's memoir where he figures out that pausing the live system and debugging its physical RAM stack is turning out to be more time consuming than simply scheduling a new corrected task, on some particular 1940s mechanical supercomputer he was assigned to as a tech. It might not have taken Feynman to notice that, but you can assign Feynman for that, and it worked for the Manhattan project.
The parent comment isn't (just) reiterating the tired tropes, but pointing out that East Asia has an "educational base" similar to industrial base that supports its high tech. I don't think that much is so strange way of thinking. The state of ME countries(maybe except Iran) soft proves it - they don't believe in such a thing. And they don't have a semiconductor industry. Pure coincidence? I doubt it.
(And on "This isn't about Asian superiority — it's actually pointing out something bad about Asia." from jdw64, yuuup 100% it is quad plus bad - IMO a thing about East Asia is that there's zero inter-national mobility due to the notoriously high language barrier, so competitions are closed to within borders, and the bar just drift skywards indefinitely because of that. There was a massive domestic hiring freeze in Japan during the 90s that made "janitors with a PhD" actually not so rare, but none of them hit the global labor market or started companies - the Japanese bar for janitors just went up to PhDs. It is said that success of Japanese 7-11 was partially attributable to that event, that, when you happen to have all the cashiers manned 24/7 with top scientists, you can just throw million different tasks and they can handle it perfectly, put aside whether they're happily doing it)
A lot of the processes are automated, but at the points where automation hasn't reached, there are quite a few things that are genuinely complex to handle.
Mainland China also has the 996 schedule for office workers purely as a cargo cult ritual, forcing people to sit at a desk at midnight and pantomime doing work.
As for the 996 culture, I agree to some extent. My Chinese friends hated it too. But in China, there's this thing called neijuan (involution / the rolled up scroll). there are just so many job seekers that people are forced to endure it. What neijuan means here is "Eating one's own flesh" basically knowing that this competition is damaging to everyone involved but doing it anyway.
Socialism or more its german variant, a system that can spend much more than more capitalistic power holders can ever earn and doesn't really plan well for future. Just look at it - very protected jobs, stifling bureaucracy, very hard to fire people, brilliant folks are definitely not compensated accordingly compared to (below) average peers - more often than not they earn the same. Its not agile economy nor workforce by any means, in contrary.
The feeling that the German Way (TM) is The Right Way, regardless of situation. If it worked in the past, it will in future, right. That leads to stagnation, complacency and when competition leap frogs them by the mile, surprised puzzled looks and wondering how it all happened.
Regardless there are fabs in Germany, I know of at least 7, most located in Dresden. They mostly focus on older larger nodes, since for the German auto/industrial sectors that is all that is required. It's a much bigger industry than other European nations, especially like the UK which only really has one main fab in Newport.
E.g. Siemens tried to compete but lost back then in the manufacturing part.
and battery powered consumer devices will be able to run those and lower sufficiently capable models by then, distributing the need for compute away from capital projects
the glut will be enormous
yes, immortalize this phrase just like the 640kb ram phrase, I’ll stand by it
Curious, what's this based off of?
Alternatively a 2 foot tall or a 20 foot tall humanoid robots aren’t particularly useful. But a good enough 5-6 foot tall humanoid robot can be swapped into an assembly line wherever a human is currently working without redesigning that workspace.
If you want a weld you need a 1 arm robot, if a robot to weld, then stack, then push parts on a cart across the factory - then sweep up, then etc.. etc.. perhaps a humanoid is alright.
There will definitely be too many people comfortable with ownership / master relationship with a humanoid robot that will do their bidding.
Why are we pretending the hardest version of this is close to existing?
When you have arms that can reach into the dishwasher, you're also going to want them to put away your dishes. And so suddenly they need to get up high. And you're not going to have a SECOND set of arms at your washer/dryer to fold laundry, you're just going to buy a second DLC for your existing robot. And it needs to get between those places, so if you have stairs, wheels don't cut it. You need a bipedal robot very quickly.
I think the key is that none of our actual home use cases can be done with just arms. You don't need your folded clothes sitting in front of your washer and dryer, and a set of arms can't handle folding sheets.
And then you want them to put away your dishes, and they can't, even though it's just a software update, because they're across the house. And they're BIG, so you don't have room to store two anyway.
And they were $20,000, so...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw_8FWJuSho
If we start making robot arms at scale, they're going to get cheap.
I'm also not sure people are really going to want bipedal robots walking around their home, blocking the hallways, recording you in your underwear, etc.
And the arms need cameras too...
That said, I think this is way farther off than anyone thinks. I want to know what the maintenance schedule looks like for robot arms. Looks like a lot of small moving parts. Probably a lot of plastic gears.
In an industrial setting, sure, maintenance is just an expense. But wheels require less maintenance and factories can be designed around the robots.
As I said, maybe earlier in this thread, I've now seen a laundry folding robot work, but I think loading a dishwasher and then putting away dishes is going to come first.
That solves the horizontal mobility problem. And then you have cabinets - and wheels don't solve the vertical mobility problem. So then you need a scissor lift on those wheels, or a hydraulic lift.
The robotics nerds always end up back at bipedal because it's vastly simpler once you're already solving arms.
A good mobile multi-purpose robot should have 3 arms, or 4 arms for symmetry.
Human legs are normally not necessary. A mobile robot would just need some means to raise and lower its wheels, so that it could step when ascending or descending stairs.
A human head is not useful. The place for the "brain" of a robot is in its "chest", because robots do not have the limitations of living beings, where the very slow propagation speed of the nervous signals forces the nervous systems to be concentrated in the proximity of the main sense organs.
Instead of a head, one should have a couple of mobile arms with video cameras at their end, somewhat like the mobile stalks of crab eyes.
Of the components of a human, only the hands and arms are models useful to imitate. Cephalopod-like arms would be even more versatile than human-like arms, but it is likely that they would be much more expensive at similar performances.
Having the size of a human and human-like hands and arms is good for working in environments designed for humans, but having the shape of a human has no purpose.
There probably (certainly) is. But if you want to build a multi-purpose platform, you’ll soon be faced with a dumb challenge: nearly all interfaces (door knobs, taps, electric switches, cutlery, sponges, every single button out there, pillow cases, wrenches, hammers, signs…) are made for humans. Placed at human hand level. At human eye level.
Nearly all environments (houses, streets, sidewalks, factory floors, offices, toilets, bathtubs,…) are made for humans. Wide enough and tall enough (or short enough, for bathtubs) to accommodate human bodies.
So until we can find one or more form-factors superior enough to justify we adapt everything around it or them, betting that the easiest way to build a single multi-purpose platform able to do most things (and not n platforms for n+ use cases) is to borrow the shape most things are made for wouldn’t surprise me. Plus, you get a wider market.
And then, once you have happy-ish customers, figure out which of these human attributes and shapes aren’t actually needed to do the job.
The moment you have mobile tools, whats the point in forcing the robot to hold them using a human hand? You can put them on a tool changer now or have a gripper that works for the specific task. Why does a robot need to hold a wrench using a humanoid hand?
>Nearly all environments (houses, streets, sidewalks, factory floors, offices, toilets, bathtubs,…) are made for humans. Wide enough and tall enough (or short enough, for bathtubs) to accommodate human bodies.
Uhm, now we're getting into stupid territory. All of those environments have flat floors. Flat floors are not an environment that are exclusively built to accommodate human bodies... The flat floor is designed for ultimate flexibility. It can be used for anything. Furniture, wheelchairs, wheeled robots, furniture on rolls, animals, and also humans.
All of the environments you've listed should preferrably be wheelchair accessible for disabled people (in terms of locomotion at least).
>So until we can find one or more form-factors superior enough to justify we adapt everything around it
Is this some kind of joke? Factories already make heavy use of UGVs and stationary robot arms and build custom end effectors for them. It's also an extreme strawman to suggest that wireless/electronic interfaces require finding a "superior form-factor" to the point that it feels insulting. There's also often an easy wheelchair accessible equivalent. E.g. a button to activate the electronic door opener at wheelchair level can still be at a comfortable height for standing people.
>And then, once you have happy-ish customers, figure out which of these human attributes and shapes aren’t actually needed to do the job.
So solve the impossible (come on you know it's hyperbole) first, only then can you build a simpler system.
I think its incredibly unreasonable to suggest that you need to solve every single problem ever encountered in human existence to be allowed to solve one much simpler problem.
I’m not arguing that humanoids are the only robots that can operate in human environments, nor that specialized robots shouldn’t exist. We already know they should, and do, and work very well.
I’m saying it depends on what you’re after.
If you want a specialized machine, then by all means optimize the form factor for that task.
If you want a general-purpose platform, then you’re faced with a near-infinite variety of environments, tools, and situations: homes, offices, hospitals, factories, hotels, streets…
Almost all of them were designed around human reach, dexterity, height, mobility and perception.
> The moment you have mobile tools, whats the point in forcing the robot to hold them using a human hand? You can put them on a tool changer now or have a gripper that works for the specific task. Why does a robot need to hold a wrench using a humanoid hand?
It doesn’t. The wrench was just one example among many. Nearly all our tools and interfaces are designed around human hands and bodies. If a different manipulator works just as well across all of them, great. My point isn’t that it must literally be a human hand.
> I think its incredibly unreasonable to suggest that you need to solve every single problem ever encountered in human existence to be allowed to solve one much simpler problem.
That’s not what I’m suggesting.
I’m saying it’s a deployment strategy. Start with the form factor that’s already compatible with the largest installed base of tools and infrastructure. Not because it’s mechanically optimal, but because it minimises the amount of adaptation required from the market.
And enables you to sell to markets you aren’t even aware exist.
If, over time, you discover that hands don’t need five fingers, legs don’t need knees, or an entirely different morphology delivers much better performance, then you have both the experience and the demonstrated value to justify changing the robot, or even convince your customers to change the environment to fit a better robot.
They’re basically trying to go for the "one size fits most" of robotics. And yes, we both know how well that usually fits anyone.
I’m not convinced either, but I can understand the logic.
Memory chips are like groceries, essential commodity parts, a no-nonsense investment. Humanoid robots are like dance lessons, it is cool, it is sexy, and it may pay off in the future, but the value is much less certain.