
Ask HN: Why do robotic startups fail - casper345
High initial capital&#x2F;investment? Technology not there yet? Public appeal? More focus on SaaS? General thoughts
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aurizon
Mainly because people are cheaper and assemble new humans... Any particular
mechanical action by a robot can be done by a discrete mechanism. Trying to
assemble all of these into a frame that has the visual appearance of a human
being is not yet possible. We have all seen the mechanical clowns that are the
best to date - and then there is the brain! Try to fit that in 3/4 gallon
space. I suppose they can put the brain in the basement and use WiFi? As for
sentience. We are figuring out all the ways in which human brains function -
all the feedbacks, control loops etc. Content addressable memory for example.
Ask an army sergeant if 'private Smith' is present and he will shout SMITH,
and Smith will say 'here'. A machine would have to inspect every person to see
if they were Smith. Computers are around 4 gigahertz, and getting faster, in
clock speed so they can work around this, but it is a barrier to sentience in
a machine. One by one they will solve all these disparate subcomponents that
make up a human mind and hook them together to make a new born with a 4 Ghz
clock. Unless they have pre-stuffed the memory with recollections etc Blade
Runner style, they will have to educate this child and hope it is not a crazy
child - no matter, in 20 years or less it will be done. Is this 'child' a
slave, property? An entity? Will it follow orders? Will it see it is alone and
want fellowship of it's own kind? A novel in the past created such a machine,
and it was asked 'is there a God?' \- 'There is NOW', was the answer.

