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Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by cm2187 on Sunday May 29, 2016 @06:53AM (#11795892)
That may be the case in certain part of the world (or even of the US) but if you think of London or New York, a typical household can certainly not afford to have someone full time taking care of these things. Western economies have been converging toward rather egalitarian societies where domesticity pretty much disappeared (and who would be the domestic to the domestics?).
Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by notahacker on Sunday May 29, 2016 @07:13AM (#11795941)
Living in London I can hire cleaners and people to move stuff at very affordable hourly rates (the fact there's not an extremely popular Uber-type service for it says something about the demand...) and get food delivered whenever I want. And I'd expect sufficiently motivated humans to be considerably better at those tasks than a generalist robot.

I suspect that the purchase, maintenance and software licence costs of an extremely complex piece of machinery with incredible AI isn't going to compare that favourably with a minimum wage human anyway, even spread out over a few years.

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by ZoeZoeBee on Monday May 30, 2016 @09:10AM (#11801120)
Minimum Wage Human Capable of operating 24/7 in the $15/hr world is $131,400.

>McDonald's former CEO Ed Rensi: "It’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries."

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by notahacker on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:53PM (#11802538)
Since we're talking about whether there's a mass market for domestic robots, that quote supports my point more than yours. A robotic arm consisting of non-novel technology capable of doing nothing more than bagging chips according to a set program costs $35k.

As a householder, I don't need someone to bag chips for me 24/7. Having someone spend an hour cleaning my flat once a week would be quite useful. Unfortunately, the robot arm doesn't have enough moving parts or AI to do that, and even if it could, I could hire someone on a $15 minimum wage to do that on a weekly basis for 44 years for the same price as the robotic arm.

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by cm2187 on Sunday May 29, 2016 @07:18AM (#11795954)
For the cost, you could say the same with all the technology packed in a smartphone or a laptop. The fact is it has become very cheap once it is mass produced.
Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by notahacker on Sunday May 29, 2016 @08:05AM (#11796057)
Cars, on the other hand, remain expensive. A robot with sufficient versatility to cook, clean and walk the dog is significantly more mechanically complex than a car and likely exposes manufacturers to similar liability issues.

And if the hardware costs mean it's not a mass market product, the software licences aren't going to be cheap either.

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by TeMPOraL on Sunday May 29, 2016 @12:49PM (#11797030)
I doubt the price of cars is driven in big part by actual costs. Also, at least in my area, you can buy good enough used cars for as little as $400, which isn't very much money. A lot of people drive in cars that cost less than a decent PC.
Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by robotresearcher on Sunday May 29, 2016 @05:03PM (#11798212)
Cars cost more than $400 to build. The used market does not pay for the existence of things.
Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by robotresearcher on Sunday May 29, 2016 @05:02PM (#11798206)
Cellphones have no moving parts and do not exert large forces on things. High quality high power motors are expensive and will always be expensive compared to the consumer electronics we are used to.

Roomba etc can be cheap because the forces are small and required accuracy is low. An arm that can e.g. load a dishwasher or plug itself into an electrical socket is another beast. Consider that to lift 1kg payload the arm also has to lift itself, and arms typically weigh several kilograms.

Mass producing robots will help costs, but they will still be expensive like a car, not like a TV.

Re:Boston Dynamics employees were frustrated by Google's pla... by cm2187 on Sunday May 29, 2016 @08:36PM (#11798949)
Probably. But you wouldn't buy one of these robots every year. You would replace them at the same rythm as any other mature technology (fridge, dish washer, etc). Obviously not the early models, but democratisation is not about the early models.