In which aspect is this better than a human?* It's slower, energy-wise more expensive (a human with just a sandwich can work for hours), less preciss and error-prone. As a Manager, I would prefer a person that I can blame (corporative and legally) if something goes wrong, that being responsible (legally, mainly!) if this robot makes a huge mistake.
* From a business point of view. This is an incredible techinal achievement, I don't want to sound like this is not impressive. But it seems that every new development seems to focus on how they can replace humans or be better at or do things that we usually do.
Selling one product and using the profits from that to create a second product is how businesses work. So if/when Tesla/anybody is selling their humanoid robot and those profits pay for going to feed the NVIDIA supercomputer that they're using to train models to run on robots, and to fund development of robot 2.0, that's exactly where we'll be.
> As a Manager, I would prefer a person that I can blame (corporative and legally) if something goes wrong, that being responsible (legally, mainly!) if this robot makes a huge mistake.
Might you not prefer working with a colleague who brings skills and knowledge to the work environment, understands the business, is motivated to improve the operation, and can respectfully discuss the challenges that you face as a team?
Someone who, if treated fairly and with respect, may help build success as your co-worker and perhaps even community as your neighbour?
In exchange for a decent wage and an affordable sandwich, of course.
the robot can work 24/7 7 days a week, and if you consider paying the human employee at the end of the month and not just providing a sandwich per shift then the energy costs are not that high.
How much time the robot can work without recharging / maintenance? What's the throughput for the tasks? In the demo it only carried one object and it took it several seconds to move it. A person could do that faster, better, etc. It's real nice, but if you can convince a factory owner to replace people with this you are the best salesman in the world.
I'm not a salesman but I imagine if you're trying to sell them to a factory owner, you'd play up the problems with the worst humans. Humans come in hungover, still drunk, or not at all. And don't call in. They complain about every. little. thing. "Why do I have to do it this way?" "I don't want to do it like that".
They take long bathroom breaks (and think you don't notice, because they think you're stupid.) They steal. They fight with each other and need managing aka children's therapist for their bullshit. Which never stops. You can stop wasting your time dealing with the "human touch" and get back to what you really want - making more widgets so you can sell more widgets so you can make enough money for that kitchen remodel/winter/summer home/yacht/European vacation/jet.
Fire them and replace them with RobotWorker. It doesn't get drunk and cause fights or HR incidents because it can't keep it in it's pants. They'll work all through the night and through every holiday, without the same trouble of having a second and third shift. You don't need to follow OSHA with these things, though you still don't want to damage them - there's a support contract but that's unnecessary downtime for you, and you don't want that. Still, you can just replace a robot's arm. Just imagine the lawsuits when that happens to a human employee.
* From a business point of view. This is an incredible techinal achievement, I don't want to sound like this is not impressive. But it seems that every new development seems to focus on how they can replace humans or be better at or do things that we usually do.