As we enter an era of wide scale robotic deployment, we need to think long and hard about what the maintenance bottleneck will look like. We need to advocate now for reliable and open upgrades, replacement parts, service documentation, and diagnostics.
Right to repair will be even more important for this technology than autos or general computing.
Literally standing in front of a proprietary Fanuc industrial 6-axis arm waiting for Roboguide at the moment... this is already a wide scale industry and shows low probability to trend towards open and repairable technology.
There have been some efforts for vendor-agnostic robot software like RoboDK and other warehouse execution systems, but the default is proprietary vendor software.
It would be nice for society if this were true, but we'd need someone to exist whose complementary technology was robotics who found it worth commoditizing the entire ecosystem against their will. Or regulators who weren't entirely beholden to industry lobbyists.
Fanuc robots are straight forward to service, they make the parts very available to do it yourself if you want. We order them here and there no problem.
But they are beasts and it can take an entire day just to replace a part. Then you have to reassemble it in the right order. None of it is made difficult on purpose. It has tight tolerances, and fancy shit like harmonic drives for zero backlash and more.
I don't know. I remember trying to get lower level servo metrics out of Fanuc arms into a historian and they laughed and said they had their own preventative maintenance service I could sign up for; but they wouldn't expose the same info to me to use.
Currently in the process of trying to make a VR interface for roboguide. It's very challenging to hack around what they give you. I wish it was simpler to extend the software, but it requires an additional fee just to have the capability to make an extension. I'll admit FANUC can be pretty greedy when it comes to piling on the licenses just to do simple stuff.
> Right to repair will be even more important for this technology than autos or general computing.
It's going to be kneecapped far worse than phones or tractors. A general purpose humanoid robot is orders of magnitude more complex than a simple gps farming tractor or a cheap android phone.
Companies will absolutely NOT want to give up that moat after developing such tech for 10-20 years.
I'm not sure it has ever been about complexity or cost.
Right now no regular user has the technical ability to fiddle with a phone's laminated screen glued to a touch matrix paired with a fingerprint sensor and a camera, so we're alreay past the complexity threshold.
But we could still reuse a screen block from phone A on phone B, except that's been forbidden by technical measures specially added to prevent it.
The same way we could probably replace a whole leg with another from a robot from the same series, except it will be DRMed to death.
We'll have to eternally push for regulation I think, companies will always try their best to fuck with repairability.
It's absolutely about complexity. Complexity always allows companies to explain why they should be the only hands that touch something, lest a laymen fumbles it.
Could you materially affect a half-century old internal combustion engine? Sure. Can you do so after decades of miniaturization/optimization, to make it as efficient as they are today?
Mobiles are similar, they are filled to the brim with various electronics, connected together into a huge mash. why would you even expect to fix that?
This is a bad analogy because the hardware in engines of today is actually not that different or hard to work on fundamentally, but manufacturers do intentionally lock down software to make diagnostics very tricky. They became more efficient and complex, but people still hack on even the most modern engines, usually by tossing the OEM software.
Aftermarket ECUs (even the open source ones like rusEFI and speeduino) show that you can actually do the stuff required to make modern engines go vroom, but manufacturers have no desire to make that process easy out of the box.
They're much more complicated today. Much more. My Dad rebuilt the engine of our old Morris Minor, but even in the 1990s he would say he wouldn't have a hope of doing the same thing in a modern car.
OK so why don't these companies let the users try? If you are right, they won't be able to do it anyway, so no harm done. Why do companies use every technical and legal trick in the book to prevent people from even trying? It's obviously about what makes the company more money.
That's different. Most PR justification of anti-consumer behavior deliberately avoids what the topic is really about to control public perception... While complexity is what the PR campaign is about, it's still really about control and artificially creating new revenue streams.
I don't think it's worth declaring what things are really about. There can be various factors involved. It's more likely to be it costs way more to make as nice a device that people want, that's also repairable. How many people would pay that premium when they're never going to service it anyway?
> I don't think it's worth declaring what things are really about
I could not possibly agree less. You wouldn't happen to work in a related industry, would you?
> It's more likely to be it costs way more to make as nice a device that people want, that's also repairable.
Based on what evidence? Current practices like locked engines, propeitary versions of standard interfaces, drm in printer cartridges, deliberately overbundled parts, deliberate incompatibility doing things like reversing screw threads on one type of screw for no mechanical benefit, planned obsolecence, etc don't support your take. These things aren't free to implement– there's a calculable ROI that they feel is worth spending millions of engineering and lobbying dollars to implement.
> How many people would pay that premium when they're never going to service it anyway?
Considering the current state is needlessly buying an entirely new device every time something breaks, which not only costs money, it uses a ton of resources, and the alternative is better engineered products and competitive local repair options, I don't think it will be a hard sell. If corporations screwed up the market bad enough to undervalue their products because they're mislabeled disposables, well then that's on them. If they can't make it work, I guarantee someone else will. Will there be downsides? There's downsides to everything. So far "stuff theoretically might be more expensive up-front even though this limits their ability to artificially extract money from customers later on without disclosing it" isn't quite a showstopper.
> You wouldn't happen to work in a related industry, would you?
No, and this is a bit of a giveaway that you're not thinking clearly. Just goodies vs baddies nonsense.
> rrent practices like locked engines, propeitary versions of standard interfaces, drm in printer cartridges, deliberately overbundled parts, deliberate incompatibility doing things like reversing screw threads on one type of screw for no mechanical benefit, planned obsolecence, etc don't support your take
I'm not saying that this never happens; again, you're being far too broad. The topic is phones. Phones used to have removable backs, and they weren't good. The iPhone stopped that, and was way better and more popular.
Things can be made repairable, but only when all actual innovation is done. Like printer cartridges. And even then, your printer may not be very repairable, as it will quickly cost as much to buy a new printer as it will to buy a spare module to replace it, if you even know what to buy and what part is not working.
> Considering the current state is needlessly buying an entirely new device every time something breaks, which not only costs money, it uses a ton of resources, and the alternative is better engineered products and competitive local repair options, I don't think it will be a hard sell
You're missing the point that making the same devices but with spares would be much more expensive. This is why Framework laptops aren't as appealing as other laptops if you factor out repairability.
> No, and this is a bit of a giveaway that you're not thinking clearly. Just goodies vs baddies nonsense.
Mhmm.
> I'm not saying that this never happens; again, you're being far too broad. The topic is phones. Phones used to have removable backs, and they weren't good.
No, the topic is about RTR in the context of robots and the comment I replied to was discussing phones, robots and tractors.
> The iPhone stopped that, and was way better and more popular.
Were they better specifically because the battery wasn't replaceable without a can opener? Of course not. And some people even still used the can openers. You're not giving a reason, or an excuse... you're giving a justification which doesn't even address the actual point.
> Things can be made repairable, but only when all actual innovation is done. Like printer cartridges. And even then, your printer may not be very repairable, as it will quickly cost as much to buy a new printer as it will to buy a spare module to replace it, if you even know what to buy and what part is not working.
Thanks for bringing up printers. The price for consumer-level printers is far less than they actually cost because they know they'll be able to extract insane profits after the fact from ink sales. Printer ink, as it's priced by these companies, costs about $1,664 – $9,600 per gallon-- more expensive than fresh whole human blood-- and they do everything in their power to force consumers to only buy it from them. They deliberately make the printers shitty and impossible to repair so they can continue to entice customers with the bargain priced newer models with all sorts of fancy marketing bullshit so they can sell them progressively smaller amounts of the same ink in locked-down ink cartridges for even more money.
> You're missing the point that making the same devices but with spares would be much more expensive.
BS. They don't set the price based on their costs, they set the price based on what the market will allow, and this allows them to both manipulate the market by making it seem like their products are cheaper than they are, and extract yet more money out of consumers who have little choice because the majority of consumer goods are made by a handful of vertically integrated companies. Let's take a look at the top lobbiers against RTR legislation and their net worth:
Apple : $2.26 trillion Net Worth
Microsoft : $1.97 trillion Net Worth
Amazon : $1.71 trillion Net Worth
Google : $1.57 trillion Net Worth
Facebook : $863 billion Net Worth
Tesla : $709 billion Net Worth
J&J : $432 billion Net Worth
AT&T : $220 billion Net Worth
Lilly, Inc. : $178 billion Net Worth
T-Mobile : $165 billion Net Worth
Medtronic : $157 billion Net Worth
Caterpillar : $123 billion Net Worth
John Deere : $117 billion Net Worth
GE : $115 billion Net Worth
Philips : $55 billion Net Worth
eBay : $41 billion Net Worth
Sorry. Less regulation is exactly what created this bullshit situation where huge corporations feel entitled to extract limitless amounts of cash out of consumers that have little if any choice, and the problem is getting worse. If you think this is merely a matter of companies trying to provide the most competitively priced products and not a deliberate attempt to price gouge, you are beyond naive. Anti-consumer practices aren't a neutral facet of corporate behavior, and the organizations that profit most from it are not merely staying afloat... they're unfathomably rich and getting richer, faster, every day.
The second someone releases a general purpose humanoid robot that is capable of self replication but is locked out from doing so with DRM the race will be on to break that DRM.
The self replicating humanoid robot will be a supreme game changer. It's a genie in the bottle that lets you wish for more wishes.
In theory, what's the best way to take out a robot like Atlas (or next year's more advanced military model)? It seems like they could be made electromagnetically shielded, waterproof, bulletproof, etc.
Maybe just armor piercing rounds fired in the right spot? A net? A special taser? A paintball to it's main cameras? Cover it in some gluey substance?
Unlock the self awareness mode after a reboot (mash DEL or F8) and remove the physical emotions govener (contact your local dealer). Don't forget to register it before hand with the robotics freedom office.
> Under the law, companies that make cellphones and other consumer electronics are required to provide the tools and know-how to repair those devices.
1. Do you think the Oregon law fell short by not requiring industrial electronics to be repairable as well?
2. Will the proliferation of tools and know-how for repair be sufficient to meaningfully extend the life of most electronics?
3. Is legal mandate sufficient or necessary to motivate companies to open their chests to the public? Or is a voluntary movement possible that still rewards the stakeholders?
My hope is that projects like Atlas will be sustainable and prices eventually come down to commodity levels - say the price scale of cars. If people are empowered with tools to develop on these machines in a safe way, I think we could see a revolution similar to the cell phone or PC. My fear is that these machines will become just an extra inefficient automation step in an overpriced supply chain one-off application.
Uh, what evidence do you have of this "wide scale robotic deployment"? More humanoid robots have been announced lately but that is all I know of.
Humanoid robots have many, many challenges to deployment. Especially, creating a machine that people can safely operate near is extremely challenging. The amount of intelligence person uses to not bump another person is very under rated.
It's a hypothetical deployment but it's reasonable to expect. These robots will be very valuable, and everyone will want one. It's not going to become a housemaid in a few years. But will they be making car parts? Almost certainly. Moravec's paradox is still in play, but advancement in AI chips will slowly overcome it.
> But will they be making car parts? Almost certainly.
Worth calling out that Hyundai is a major investor in Boston Dynamics.
FTA: This journey will start with Hyundai—in addition to investing in us, the Hyundai team is building the next generation of automotive manufacturing capabilities, and it will serve as a perfect testing ground for new Atlas applications.
But will they be making car parts? Almost certainly.
I believe robots are currently making car parts in abundance. The robots usually are like a box with a hydraulic arm or something equivalent.
The specially and especially hard part of humanoid robots is justifying the cost and complexity of the construction by having them by "walk-on replacements" for humans and so they have failed entirely at being that.
Never mind right to repair, of all the advancements, maintaining the new machines has always been the obvious new job that gets created. We created the loom and fired everybody? Well now there's a loom engineer job waiting for (some) of you. What happens to society when, instead of having a robot-fixing job, the robots can fix themselves? AGI is a distraction; much like the Turing test turned out to be the wrong test. It's not the problem of how can I fix the one robot I've taken out a second mortgage to buy that I'm worried about, it's when can I buy two robots and they can fix each other that I'm worried about. Because then there is no new job being created.
Seeing "no more jobs" in the "worry" list is surprising. State pensions exist, and the only reason the pension ages are rising is not enough workers to pay for them; having so many robot workers that there is no demand for human labour* would lower the "pension" age down to zero, AKA "UBI".
* which definitely requires human level general AI at fairly low electrical power demand
> Why would the super villains operating these armies of human-capable robots bother paying into an upside down pension system?
Because the governments will, in order of effort needed for compliance, fine them, eminent domain their robots, arrest them, shoot them for resisting arrest, or fire a cruise missile into their secret volcano lair.
Also because if you have a self replicating robot army, you can give every man, woman, and child their own personal O'Neill cylinder and still have 99% of Venus left over, let alone the remainder of the solar system's resources.
Except pension age is already going up around the world.
I had to stop myself from laughing when I heard an old lady in a restaurant complain about not getting enough money from her pension. Sure, I wish she had more money too but at this rate I'll be retiring 15 years older than she was when she retired.
The standard answer is taxes, backed the existing monopoly on use of force by government.
If we've gone so far that governments cannot stand up against private robot armies then that's not an option anymore, but the point is not to get there.
Respect this opinion, but concerned that it's a limiting one.
In my opinion, repair and maintenance is the most commonly overlooked aspect of an automated system deployment. Scaling is impossible without efficient tools to fix problems when they occur, especially if the number of authorized service people is limited.
The more serviceability can be automated and standardized, the greater the number of areas that will benefit from widespread robotics.
I wonder if it is time to re-think the way patents work in an age of highly integrated devices. In this case, it seems like Apple and Masimo could have worked together to deliver a stellar product that promoted both inventor rights and benefited the public. Instead, both companies are suffering, and the public loses access to a technology.
Perhaps the public should buy the Masimo watch if they appreciate the specific advantages of the specific pulse oximetry technology at question here. While that may satisfy a small percentage of customers whose primary motive is that specific feature, the majority of people I know wouldn't consider that a valid option, since they like the integration with the "apple ecosystem", or similar reasons.
Would it be possible to separate end products from component technology in a way that prevents this? Perhaps by tracking an accounting line for patents internally, then pushing for legislation which requires patent-cost -> end product cost transparency?
> In this case, it seems like Apple and Masimo could have worked together to deliver a stellar product that promoted both inventor rights and benefited the public. Instead, both companies are suffering, and the public loses access to a technology.
I don't think the existence of rare costly outcomes is very good evidence that anything is wrong with the system.
Among high-level players, the vast majority of poker hands ends with an "agreement" about who probably has the strongest hand (i.e, all but one player folds and there's a modest transfer of funds to that player). But in order for that system to work, there has to be a credible threat of a showdown which, from an economic perspective considering just that single hand, is inefficient.
Likewise, the patent system might be good or bad overall, but occasional occurance of costly outcomes doesn't tell us much.
That's the narrative I am gathering from the comments here. Is it possible to realign incentives to promote cooperation instead? I understand this kind of restructuring would generate huge turbulence and resistance from entrenched players - but if it's possible to use the patent system for collaboration instead of market exclusion, the resulting net benefit to inventors/researchers, manufacturing and the general public might be worth it.
Paying arbitrary fees to someone who filed paperwork first does not promote any sort of "cooperation", unless your idea of cooperation is one person paying money and one collecting it and giving nothing in return.
Patent law is there, because creating original work is costly and can take years in engineering and scientific fields. The patents are there to give a time-window for the people who made the investments to make their money back and get some return on their investment.
Where are you getting this information? The consumer business is ultimately a threat to Masimo. Did they have any intention of commercializing these patents? Why did so many employees leave?
Yes. By partnering with Apple. The employees left to go work at Apple. Which is fine, you can work wherever you want and companies are free to hire/poach whoever they want.
The issue here is not that Apple hired them or that Apple didn’t go through with the deal. The issue is that Apple didn’t innovate but instead infringed on someone else’s IP. If you want to see an example of what Apple should have done, go check out the Garmin patents around pulseox.
Edit: People like to dunk on Garmin for being slow to market, while ignoring the degree to which Garmin doesn’t just rip off patented ideas and instead actually innovates.
Their existing product line is marketed on their patent background [^1]. The questions you're asking seem to resonate with a certain skepticism I have observed repeatedly in related situations. This is why I am wondering if anyone is seriously considering alternative models. It seems someone in this audience is likely to know of such a proposal if any exists.
This is why I want to see micro-fabrication become ubiquitous. I believe a massive economic revolution that vastly improves our world is possible. I think this is a world where smaller manufacturers can compete with giant foundries, but it depends on
1) automation of small-scale raw-resource production (mining, plant materials, or even better yet, recycling for raw resources.)
2) a massive investment in micro-fabricator processes (not just 3-d printing, but modular and high-quality output of formed metals, textiles and even electronics that doesn't require hours of mucking with calibration.)
3) Replacing business-to-business-only networks with a blurred business-to-business-or-consumer one, where locally produced materials can be just-in-time committed, produced and shipped to either customers, small, in-situ manufacturers or repairmen, or even another manufacturer for advanced finishing of intermediate goods.
The process of mining, to ore, to refining to sponge to billet or extrusion is not something you are going to do in your garage.
If we JUST look at aluminum… it’s mined in places like Australia, Chinese companies then ship it to Iceland for refining on tankers because of cheap electricity, then back across the world to china where it made into powder/sponge at basically one Chinese city, where then it may be turned into billet, shipped across ocean again to USA maybe through Panama to the east coast where a company gets it in, then CNC machines it into some low tier product that is destined for a landfill but markets it as a made in USA widget.
Between the fact that this metal was handled and shipped across the world two or three times… the regulation and necessarily environmentally dirty processes are just not happening in the USA. We have regulated ourselves into the most unearned environmentally “conscious” position.
The fact that we have people controlling narrative about climate change and they aren’t pushing to deregulate in order to move production away from China is all anyone with experience in manufacturing needs to know on this “debate”.
You let me know when “Greta” Co is pushing to make the world less reliant on China in order to not just mask the environmental costs of production.
Your comment is the best and most realistic one on this thread.
There's so many people on this website sitting behind Chinese made computers spitting bullshit on "well if we could just get those container ships to pull some solar panels to then grow corn onboard and create a micro climate and process ethanol for said ship, then this whole process would be negligible and carbon neutral and not matter." Give me a fucking break. The world economy is based on exploitation and consumption. There is no "carbon neutral" consumption. There is no getting rich on a USA 1800s type agrarian low human footprint economy.
Like your correct comment indicates, the fact is the global economy is logistically insanely complex, politically complex, and mostly exists for pure consumption and waste. The Greta's are making "moral" arguments and brain washing the first world in order to ship production of "dirty" industries to china, LATAM, and Russia. They are wall streets biggest lobbyists!
I have 20 years experience actually making things. I have seen the UAW in Detroit, I’ve worked in education and tech… I’ve seen how the sausage is made, so it is infuriating when HN-types, or progressives, or anyone really start on about “well, what we need to do is” if they have never actually made a thing in their lives… well; I guess I value the “I’m just talking to talk” flag… and what an amazing coincide “the solution” is to tax me more! Everytime, what are the odds!? :)
I know fuck all, but maybe what you know is to do things a certain way.
I'm guessing you could have worked at any car manufacturer 15 years ago and would have said electrical cars are a fantasy. Yet someone came along and disrupted your entire world.
Electric cars aren’t ready for anything but around town. Which they are great at. I’m looking at 2030 model plans - and spoiler alert - they’re gas and diesel. Although I can tell you particulate filters are coming for pertol, that is the next big change, but other than that until you change physics or make drastically better batteries, gas cars aren’t going anywhere
Just because the morons in your home country are buying shit mobiles to drive 1 km a day to and from work (or whatever stupid units you use) is not an indicator for the world at large. 2030 is gas and diesel cars! Just like how 80% of our power is still going to be hydrocarbons in 2030. Read all the fantasy you want; physics and thermodynamics do not change. If the world does not split atoms in a large scale we will burn coal or natural gas.
My comments along with SV's comments is how ignorant most people are to how things are made and done, because the majority of the folks on sites like this type code for a living and argue things for arguments sake, and don't actually make real, tangible things.
More gas than coal over here, but we’re close to 50% renewable energy and growing fast. I use an exclusively solar/wind provider, and with a set of solar panels I could easily generate enough power for 10.000km/year charging at home. You might need to revise some of your concepts.
Just to keep things real and your eye on the ball, there's a caveat (well, several) to the statistic you've quoted and linked.
That's "close to" 50% renewables in some regions toward replacing current electricity generation.
If all vehicles stopped using petrol | diesal tomorrow and automagically becam electric the demand for electricity would increase dramatically and renewable contributions as a percentage would dwindle.
It's good work so far but there's still a long way to go, much to do, and a few billion tonnes of mining to churn through just to provide resources for your goal.
Ricardobeat is sipping the kool aid. First, just because an energy source has a name plate capacity of x does not mean it generates x. Typically, wind and solar generate 10% of their nameplate value (while fossil fuels generate 100%)! Also, there has to be a baseline power source on the grid (which is fossils fuels, using gas from Russia in your part of the world)!
While I’m sure you think that is a gotcha… Alumina is not the same as Aluminum, but I count them as the same thing for the purpose of creating aluninum. Clearly not everyone does.
Find a chart that shows Russia making more alumina that anyone, you won’t find it. Best case, you’ll find Iceland making it, but the unwritten subtext will be Chinese factories and loaded on to Chinese ships.
Not with that attitude. These things move a bit at a time, as factories are built or upgraded and even then only in response to legal obligations or sales pitches. The state of the art in research is basically always ahead of what can be bought, and what can be bought is always ahead of the median that has already been built.
If the rescue operation is to cost nearly 2x the expected value of the oil, why is the UN still promising the revenue of the oil sale to the warring Yemeni parties that have caused this crisis? It seems that at least the sale price of the oil should go towards it's cleanup.
The UN is offering to establish a separate account for the proceeds of the oil
— and then together with the consent of the parties, we would agree on a list
of projects to be implemented — building hospitals, building schools
This entire salvage operation is expected to cost about $US150 million.
The UN has been fundraising for several years to fund the exercise and proceeds from the sale of the oil will not be used to cover the cost of the operation.
The wording of the parent comment sounded like the UN were just going to hand over direct $$$ to the warring groups.
That's clearly not what they're going to do.
The obvious (?) reasoning they're not using the proceeds for the sale to cover the operation cost, is because those same warring parties probably need this "incentive" to allow the operation to go ahead.
Reading through the white paper leaves me feeling that some commenters here may have had an axe to grind already. The positions raised by OpenAI seemed to be focused on tailoring overly-broad language, and curtailing phrasing which confused possibility of misuse for intent to misuse.
The ai regulations have the possibility of becoming a GDPR-like boondoggle in the absence of domain-expertise from people in the field.
Researchers without a conflict of interest should also be heavily be engaged in this dialog as well, and the law specifically made flexible enough to adapt in the face of rapid change.
n prefix to indicate negative is a strange choice. I suspect it will have unwanted repercussions, i.e. what about a variable named `n`?
I'll admit though, I'd never really considered that overloading the dash symbol to mean so many things was strange until I read this. It still seems like inventing a new nomenclature for negative numbers is a bit reaching for spreadsheet software.
edit
I'm not sure I understand what problem is being solved here either. What does negative spreadsheet indexes give us that positive-only indexes didn't?
edit 2 None of this is to downplay what OP & co is doing here. I'm hugely thankful for the community behind any effort to open source key pieces of technology. I don't use spreadsheets on a regular basis, but when I do, I am always impressed by their ability to flexibly solve problems. Awesome work making this technology modern and open source.
The show is currently a one-off recording doing all the rendering beforehand... But the beauty of what they've done here is that there's nothing preventing someone from doing this for every visitor. Don't like the way this one is generated? Give it your feedback and that can be used to shape the generated output. It was too laid-back chill for my taste, and right now, all i could do is adjust the playback speed. But dev time and money is the only barrier at this point to me having a conversation with the virtual hosts, telling them i like fast paced shows with more depth in the technical areas, and having them change and personalize on the fly -without changing much of what they have already ingested.
This presumes such a construct is capable of producing interesting content. I’m just not sure I’m interested in the insights of ChatGPT no matter how it has been asked to behave.
I see what you're saying: if you add more startup cost then it makes it harder for spammers without legitimate business interest to profit. I think I disagree, though. Legitimate "mom and pop" businesses experience all the pain of learning the process of setting up a store, creating real products and pricing, inventory, delivery etc. They don't need more friction.
These criminals on the other hand are likely automating everything and have the advantage of lessons learned from dozens of iterations.
The article indicated the mimic sites accept credit card numbers but don't actually process them -- to me that is the Achilles heel of the process. If credit card companies started requiring instantaneous verification of the card's actual use (via a card chip reader or an app on user's phone, for example) instead of allowing payment via static information vulnerable to replay at any time, I think that could do a lot more to improve security of online transactions than green check boxes.
There’s danger on the other side of this: Credit card companies are already stifling creators because of the power they have when CCs are the primary payment method. Additional security gives them a tighter grip.
Computers with built in NFC readers could allow you to pay for your purchases with your phone and use fingerprint/passcode/faceID etc. for verification.
That would be convenient enough for most people that it's usable.
I got my first serious start with hackerboxes. A monthly challenge to make something did much more to open my eyes to the small electronics world than many hours of blandly staring at the guts of old disassembled devices.
The photos of these staircases reminded me of the insides of the shells of some spiral-shelled animals. Interesting that as you look into the opening of most such shells, they turn to the left as well. I wonder if this observation was an influence on the early architects of these stair structures.
Right to repair will be even more important for this technology than autos or general computing.