Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Bauld, Mission Control, DECANDT. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. Folks, friends, neighbors, country bots, lend
Speaker 3: us your ears. Have you ever felt like the game
Speaker 3: of life is just too much? Also? Do you remember
Speaker 3: that board game Life.
Speaker 4: Just too much?
Speaker 5: I could never I could never get to the a
Speaker 5: is That's the one where you have the little cars
Speaker 5: you keep stacking weird stuff on top of of you
Speaker 5: have a station wagon.
Speaker 3: You get married, you fill up the little slots and
Speaker 3: each person's a peg and you fill them up in
Speaker 3: the station wagon.
Speaker 5: A little oversimplification of life, if you ask me, I
Speaker 5: don't know that was never.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Also it seems to just kind of like overemphasize commercialism
Speaker 5: and sort of this like faux American dream kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, also argue everybody has to get married, which
Speaker 3: is not true. But you know, if you think about it,
Speaker 3: wherever you are in life, if you're an adult, you
Speaker 3: have pretty much several jobs. You've got your official career,
Speaker 3: your occupation, whatever that may be, and then you've got
Speaker 3: all this other stuff that doesn't pay you financially yet
Speaker 3: remains necessary for survival chores. You have to clean the house, bills,
Speaker 3: you have to pay the bills, hopefully, you can visit
Speaker 3: a doctor, your parents, your family member. You've got obligations there.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't it be great to have a little help with
Speaker 3: all of this? Yes, we're excited about this.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why, like marriage was is and was such
Speaker 2: a thing, right because now you got two people doing
Speaker 2: all the same stuff, like but dividing and conquering theoretically.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the idea being that it makes you
Speaker 5: each of your lives easier. If you want to just
Speaker 5: break it down to the sheer kind of logistics of living,
Speaker 5: you know that that is a functional reason for marriage
Speaker 5: to exist, though I would argue domestic partnership accomplishes the
Speaker 5: same thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, one hundred percent. But that's why it's
Speaker 2: been such a big thing, right, the family unit. And
Speaker 2: then you can pump out a whole bunch of kids
Speaker 2: that can work the farm for you free l Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that was.
Speaker 5: Round up all those orphans and shoot them all to
Speaker 5: the farm.
Speaker 3: Raise your own butler. You know what I mean. Put
Speaker 3: the time and you're absolutely right. And for centuries, science
Speaker 3: fiction writers in particular have imagined this new world where
Speaker 3: technology provides new, astonishing answers to this question. I am
Speaker 3: one person, I have so many things to do. I
Speaker 3: need help. Who can help me? And our question this
Speaker 3: evening is how close are we to this idea of
Speaker 3: robot servants? Perhaps more importantly, is this a world that
Speaker 3: we would want to live in? Here are the facts,
Speaker 3: all right? What's a robot? We've talked about this in
Speaker 3: some related episodes, but just like a quick and dirty primer,
Speaker 3: what do we mean a robot? Robot?
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, we certainly see it through antiquity,
Speaker 5: like these automatons and kind of clockwork men or whatever
Speaker 5: that I believe the chess playing robot or automaton was
Speaker 5: a big one historically speaking, but mechanical term, that's right.
Speaker 4: The term, though, is a little more recent.
Speaker 5: It comes from the nineteen twenties, from a play of
Speaker 5: all places. And I'm sure we've been through this before,
Speaker 5: but I think it's definitely worth a catchup. Are you
Speaker 5: are rawsoms Universal Robots by Corel Kappik?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and robot today. It's a huge group term, just
Speaker 3: as varied as human beings, I would argue, more varied
Speaker 3: than the human species. Not all robots are gonna do
Speaker 3: the same task, not all of them are gonna look
Speaker 3: the same. You know, no one would say the curiosity
Speaker 3: rover is the same thing as a factory line robo
Speaker 3: worker and auto plants. But to your point, Noel, the
Speaker 3: etymology gets really interesting. Our playwright that you mentioned got
Speaker 3: the word robot. It enters English in nineteen twenty three
Speaker 3: as a translation in this play. But our playwright gets
Speaker 3: the word robot from a check word robotic robotnic means
Speaker 3: forced labor.
Speaker 2: Yeay, just like the doctor. I guess, yeah, doctor robot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, he and he was all about creating for slaborers,
Speaker 5: usually in the form.
Speaker 4: Of weird little robot warriors.
Speaker 5: I guess that we're just trying to kill Sonic and
Speaker 5: Tails and Knuckles and whoever else is part of their crew.
Speaker 5: But I mean, you know, even the word robot like
Speaker 5: in English kind of parlance sometimes refers to like a microwave,
Speaker 5: you know, like robot cooking. I mean, just the it's
Speaker 5: really funny, just the idea of automatic something being done
Speaker 5: for you, a task being done automatically, robo whatever, you know.
Speaker 3: I also, it reminds me these languages are so interesting.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of the term for pickup trucks that
Speaker 3: have machine guns mounted on them. In parts of East Africa,
Speaker 3: they're called technicals.
Speaker 5: WHOA, I thought that was Like when you made the
Speaker 5: really elaborate cake on a baking.
Speaker 3: Show, they call it the technical technical challenge.
Speaker 2: That's the one where they don't give you the exact
Speaker 2: details on how to make.
Speaker 5: That's your right, Yes, thank you, a great British baking show,
Speaker 5: I got it, Yeah exactly. The technical is when you
Speaker 5: get some vague recipe and you got to kind of like,
Speaker 5: you know, show your chops by you know, muddling your
Speaker 5: way through it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: And this this term robot or robotic also arrives from
Speaker 3: robota meaning force, labor, compulsory service, or drudgery. And if
Speaker 3: you trace it further back, these words originate from some
Speaker 3: iterations of old Slavic it ultimately comes from the phrase
Speaker 3: rabu meaning slave makes you think, makes you think, well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially when you start to think singularity and how
Speaker 5: you know eventually when the robots become sentient, they're going
Speaker 5: to resent all of that slave labor the creatures.
Speaker 2: The reason we can get into it. But the phone
Speaker 2: you're listening to this on is it a robot? Not really?
Speaker 2: Maybe kind of? And is it your servant?
Speaker 5: Well that becomes the question because robot doesn't mean the
Speaker 5: same thing as a right, like.
Speaker 3: An android's a kind of robot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think I don't know, Ben, What do
Speaker 5: you think is a phone with all of the myriad
Speaker 5: things that can do and with the personality that it
Speaker 5: has via Siri or whatever, is it a robot? Does
Speaker 5: it have to ambulate to be a robot?
Speaker 3: No, it's a great question. The question is what do
Speaker 3: we mean exactly so we know robot? What do we
Speaker 3: mean by robots? Servant? Is it redundant? Is it like
Speaker 3: saying ATM machine or vend number? When you think about it,
Speaker 3: you'll already have a ton of robot servants. I would
Speaker 3: argue that smart thermostats, home security systems, they could be robots.
Speaker 3: The idea of a telephone or a smartphone. Excuse me.
Speaker 3: You could also argue modern cars are robots because what
Speaker 3: they're doing essentially is replacing the drudgery of certain human labor. Right,
Speaker 3: you don't have to try to run sixty miles. You
Speaker 3: have a car that will help you accomplish that task.
Speaker 3: You don't have to regulate the temperature in your home.
Speaker 3: You have a thermostat that will help you. It doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be ambulance works to your question, and your phone,
Speaker 3: will you know? Now you don't have to write a
Speaker 3: letter and wait three months for the reply when you
Speaker 3: open the envelope and it just says, lol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't have to tell anyone the things you
Speaker 2: want to buy or put on your shopping list.
Speaker 5: I mean, it makes me think back to even pre iPhone,
Speaker 5: where you had the BlackBerry and that first kind of
Speaker 5: round of what we're called personal data assistance. I mean,
Speaker 5: it really is, that's the earliest days of the stuff
Speaker 5: kind of finding a niche in our lives.
Speaker 3: And the you know, we can say in a complimentary
Speaker 3: manner that it is astonishing how quickly the humans have
Speaker 3: adopted breakthroughs in technology. Right, It's it's nuts too to
Speaker 3: consider that this idea household robots, household robotics very much
Speaker 3: in its infancy still, and no one, honestly, no one
Speaker 3: is sure how this will all shake out. If you
Speaker 3: have a child tonight, like if you or your partner
Speaker 3: gives Earth this evening. First off, thanks for listening to
Speaker 3: the show. But secondly, eighteen years from now, the world
Speaker 3: that kid meets is going to be so different from
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, particularly in terms of robotic assistance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think you guys think it'll be like
Speaker 2: twenty sixty two with Jane, George, Judy and Elroy oh
Speaker 2: Man Rosie.
Speaker 4: Time, I was too, And I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 4: just drop it now.
Speaker 5: When we're starting to get into the conversation about robot
Speaker 5: assistance and the idea of what can go wrong, there's
Speaker 5: an incredible episode of The Jets Senes where Rosie glitches
Speaker 5: out and starts repeating a place for everything and everything
Speaker 5: in its place and just starts freaking out and putting
Speaker 5: things like over organizing and causing mayhem and just totally
Speaker 5: fritzing out.
Speaker 4: And that there. What was it like in the seventies,
Speaker 4: I guess it really is.
Speaker 5: To your point, been about science fiction predicting what could
Speaker 5: go wrong with these kind of household servants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, assuming that there is no civilization ending event, the
Speaker 3: current pace of research and manufacturing, especially economy of scale,
Speaker 3: does indicate that we will eventually have AI assistance PDAs
Speaker 3: that make your modern iPhone look like two rusty soup
Speaker 3: cans connected by old string, you know, like that's the level,
Speaker 3: you know, think about it. It wasn't too long ago that
Speaker 3: people landed on the moon, hot take. Can I say that?
Speaker 4: Can I say that peratively to the greater span of history?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I'm sure it could be like one of those
Speaker 5: memes where we say, I want to feel old, Like
Speaker 5: the eighties are now the same distance from where we
Speaker 5: are in modern history as the fifties were from the
Speaker 5: eighties or whatever. You know, it's like, yeah, bonkers, the
Speaker 5: way time just compresses like that?
Speaker 2: Or is anyone actually land it on the moon, you guys?
Speaker 3: Or is anyone actually here? We know the we're here
Speaker 3: because we did hang out in personally.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: We have to check in occasionally to make sure we
Speaker 5: have not become ephemeral, right, we.
Speaker 3: Have become strange. It's a great question, you know, this
Speaker 3: is for being positive and Ted talking about it. This
Speaker 3: is an exciting thing and it can save lives. And yes,
Speaker 3: robots have also killed people already, but we will see
Speaker 3: for instance, home care on a level that simply could
Speaker 3: not have existed before. A lot of people, especially in
Speaker 3: countries with aging populations like Japan for instance, and declining
Speaker 3: birth rates, they need some kind of affordable in house
Speaker 3: elderly care. So this can not only save lives, but
Speaker 3: it can extend quality of life for people who need help.
Speaker 2: Oh buddy, And there are so many companies out there
Speaker 2: trying to build that exact thing, Nightmare robot to take
Speaker 2: care of us when we're in our eighties.
Speaker 3: If you have mobility issues, right yeah, or if if
Speaker 3: you're on board with a subscription model as we'll see, right,
Speaker 3: because you don't have to you don't have to own it.
Speaker 3: You just have to listen to the ads.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see any of the price tags or
Speaker 2: any of the robots we're gonna talk about today. We
Speaker 2: don't have to spoil what they are. If you found any,
Speaker 2: it's only found one.
Speaker 4: It's car prices roughly right or more even I.
Speaker 2: Don't we'll talk about. But the one that I found
Speaker 2: the actual all in price was astounding, and we'll mention that, Yeah, but.
Speaker 5: I would I would argue that the business model, big
Speaker 5: picture wise, would have them be around car prices.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, uh, from what I saw is basically
Speaker 2: you your down payment is the price of a small vehicle,
Speaker 2: and then you end up paying the price of a
Speaker 2: large mansion over the course of term of owning. It
Speaker 2: almost like yeah.
Speaker 5: But that's early adopter stuff. I mean, that's like, you know,
Speaker 5: you got to someone's got to walk so that the
Speaker 5: rest of us can run.
Speaker 3: Speaking of early adopters, this is the question. You know,
Speaker 3: we always see these utopian ted talkie versions of the
Speaker 3: future of robots in your home. Everything is shiny and wonderful,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna just have the best of all times.
Speaker 3: You'll be happy as peaches, you know, clamorous as clams.
Speaker 3: But how close are we to this kind of situation?
Speaker 3: Should we be concerned? It is a tough question, raising
Speaker 3: excellent points here. History does show us that disruptive innovations
Speaker 3: often begin in limited demographics. Early adopters, you know, the
Speaker 3: suzerains of the tech world, the financial elite, and as
Speaker 3: they become more comfortable with robots in their homes and
Speaker 3: in their heads. They'll want more capability. They will pay
Speaker 3: these companies more money. This will enable the companies to
Speaker 3: manufacture more stuff, and once that happens, economy of scale,
Speaker 3: this is where you get more affordable versions of the toys.
Speaker 3: This is where you end up thinking about it the
Speaker 3: way you would think about buying a car.
Speaker 4: Yes, oh for sure.
Speaker 5: I mean look back at like the feature set that
Speaker 5: was available on the original iPhone, and how comparatively it's
Speaker 5: just absolutely rudimentary, almost like that to ten cans in
Speaker 5: a string comparison you were talking about.
Speaker 4: Because but the early adopters.
Speaker 5: Of that and the fact that there was nothing else
Speaker 5: like it at the time, that's what paid for the
Speaker 5: continued innovation. Then you have to think about things like
Speaker 5: planned obsolescence and you know, paying into the system and
Speaker 5: being totally okay with that. Honestly, the people that are
Speaker 5: the real nerds and tech heads are largely okay with
Speaker 5: that model.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, largely. I mean, well, it won't all be
Speaker 3: you know, warm fuzzy hugs and angel farts. We'll see
Speaker 3: a rise of other things concurrent with these devices, things
Speaker 3: that raise serious questions, constant monitoring, endless leveraging of person
Speaker 3: interpersonal data. Predictive attempts will have a huge and unseen,
Speaker 3: often unseemly impact on people's lives. So again, how close
Speaker 3: are we really? Is it a jam tomorrow? Never jammed?
Speaker 3: Today's situation? Are we on the precipice of something? Should
Speaker 3: we be concerned? Yes, here's where it gets crazy. Slight
Speaker 3: spoiler there, Yes you should be concerned. Yes, we are
Speaker 3: close in some ways, but maybe not in others. Because
Speaker 3: you know, we mentioned the Jetsons earlier. We'll get to
Speaker 3: the more sinister stuff and later tonight. But the Jetsons.
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit about the Jetsons. Let's talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about their robo housekeeper.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Rosie, I mean, and you know, I just mentioned
Speaker 5: that episode that has always stuck with me. Rosie is
Speaker 5: basically a member of the family. She's an anthropomorphic creature
Speaker 5: that is treated like family. And there are even, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of cuddly episodes of the Jetsons where the gangle
Speaker 5: all bad together to help Rosie out because.
Speaker 4: She's been so good to them and things like that.
Speaker 5: But then there's the episode I was talking about where
Speaker 5: she kind of goes nuts and almost becomes dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she's also a maid. She without hey, she
Speaker 2: is there at all times, and she has red eyes,
Speaker 2: which was a choice.
Speaker 3: It was a choice, it was a purpose.
Speaker 5: And if I'm sorry to keep hounding on it, but
Speaker 5: if I'm not mistaken, on that episode, I'm talking about
Speaker 5: the eyes turned slantways, kind of like angry eyes, and
Speaker 5: it becomes this like, what is this creature that Rosie
Speaker 5: has transformed into, our delightful robot helper has now become
Speaker 5: something else, entirely sinister?
Speaker 3: M h Yes, why weren't you happy being a servant?
Speaker 3: It's it's a very strange implication. They're smart writing on
Speaker 3: that show. And when we think about these things, we're
Speaker 3: always sold these ideas of a world without works, a
Speaker 3: world with seamless integration of everything with no problems. And
Speaker 3: interestingly enough, in the Jetsons, they're still selling some quote
Speaker 3: unquote family values that were arguably anachronistic by the time
Speaker 3: the show was made. If we put all that aside,
Speaker 3: we got to talk about we got to talk turkey,
Speaker 3: because I know that all three of us have been
Speaker 3: reading intensely about specific emergent robot technologies for the home.
Speaker 3: How can you build these things? A lot of experts
Speaker 3: are saying the issue with making it as our power.
Speaker 3: Lauren would say, actual facts work is much more complicated
Speaker 3: than the average person realizes.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's a it's not just the hardware, and
Speaker 2: the hardware is extremely difficult to get right. Actuators that
Speaker 2: are light enough to function in the ways that as
Speaker 2: close as a human's body functions, right, that's at least
Speaker 2: the goal, that's what you're trying to get because you
Speaker 2: want them to perform tasks that we would do, but
Speaker 2: now it's a robot doing them. Just to get the
Speaker 2: hardware right is near impossible. And if you've if you've
Speaker 2: been following along the way we have with iterations with
Speaker 2: all these various companies including Tesla and Boston Dynamics, and
Speaker 2: I mean there's so many ub techs, these huge companies
Speaker 2: that have been spending years and years trying to innovate
Speaker 2: just the way an arm will function and the way
Speaker 2: a hand will be able to rotate and grasp without
Speaker 2: doing things like crushing anything that it's trying to.
Speaker 3: Touch something soft. The real analog capture now, just so
Speaker 3: you know, folks is doorknobs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and eggs.
Speaker 3: They're super tricky. Oh eggs. The egg test is tough.
Speaker 3: I failed that.
Speaker 5: One a few times, because you have to think, these
Speaker 5: are these are you know, powerful machinees that can absolutely
Speaker 5: crush things and and do demolition type work, but they
Speaker 5: have to also be so delicate and nuanced in their
Speaker 5: control that they can dial that back and have enough sensors,
Speaker 5: you know, with enough level of nuance again to detect
Speaker 5: that something is a certain type of object so that
Speaker 5: it doesn't you know, apply too much pressure.
Speaker 4: It's delicate dance.
Speaker 2: It is what I always think about.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 2: Those are those early Boston Dynamics robots that were dogs,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, and spot I think is what they
Speaker 2: ended up calling it. But early on it was like
Speaker 2: the robot, the Boston Dynamics Dynamics dog, and just to
Speaker 2: get to function, they had to have it hooked up
Speaker 2: hardwired to its power source and to its controls and
Speaker 2: all that other stuff just to get it to function.
Speaker 2: And they eventually moved away from that and they were
Speaker 2: able to you know, make the thing fully mobile with
Speaker 2: improvements in the actual hardware. But then if you look
Speaker 2: at the early iterations of their humanoid versions too, you
Speaker 2: couldn't have a mobile humanoid robot because you couldn't give
Speaker 2: it enough power for long enough to actually operate. And
Speaker 2: if you could, then it would be so dang heavy.
Speaker 2: What's it even do it? Can it even walk across
Speaker 2: your floor without destroying it?
Speaker 3: Right? Not to mention stairs, oh my, which is also
Speaker 3: running into a platform issue. And we've sent a lot
Speaker 3: of these videos to each other back and forth over
Speaker 3: the years and read these papers, and we've made some
Speaker 3: at times dystopian predictions. The points we're bringing up now
Speaker 3: just the basic turkey talk of how these things would
Speaker 3: work in production. We see a lot of professors who
Speaker 3: share our opinions. Writing for The Conversation in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: Professor A YOUNGA. Herrid Notes notes that people might be
Speaker 3: a little bit optimistic still about how you would how
Speaker 3: you would make a general purpose household robot. And there's
Speaker 3: a great quote here that we'd love to share with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He says.
Speaker 5: One major difference between digital and robotic device is that
Speaker 5: household robots need to manipulate objects through physical contact.
Speaker 4: To carry out their tasks.
Speaker 5: They have to carry the plates, move the chairs, and
Speaker 5: pick up dirty laundry and place it in the washer.
Speaker 5: These operations require the robot to be able to handle fragile, soft,
Speaker 5: and sometimes heavy objects with irregular shapes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the state of the art robots
Speaker 2: that are out there right now that you can't even
Speaker 2: buy yet, but as a company you can buy it
Speaker 2: for like research and stuff. They can carry up to
Speaker 2: like forty five pounds, like forty five pounds. There's if
Speaker 2: you've got a robotic human thing in your house, you
Speaker 2: probably want it to be able to carry stuff that's
Speaker 2: heavier than that, right, right.
Speaker 3: And also, I don't know, I'd be careful with it
Speaker 3: because if you're human, part of the reason that you
Speaker 3: don't constantly break your body is because you have a
Speaker 3: complex cartoons, complex network of response stimuli kind of things
Speaker 3: coming at you constantly. There's there's a reason not to
Speaker 3: get too dark with it, but there's reason certain drugs
Speaker 3: make people appear to be capable of superhuman feats. The
Speaker 3: part of their feedback system that is stopping them from
Speaker 3: you know, breaking their arms or biting off their tongue
Speaker 3: because your jaw is such a strong muscle in the
Speaker 3: human those things. When those checks and balances are gone,
Speaker 3: then mayhem ensues. So even with a robot that could
Speaker 3: lift forty five pounds, if it doesn't have very specific
Speaker 3: programming making it safe around humans, it can be a
Speaker 3: recipe for disaster.
Speaker 5: Oh it's like, I mean, The Boys TV show seems
Speaker 5: to be a little bit divisive, but there is a
Speaker 5: season where there's this young, you know, superhero who is
Speaker 5: like doing these kind of like photo op things are
Speaker 5: he's supposed to do like a fake rescue basically, but
Speaker 5: he doesn't have control of his super strength and he
Speaker 5: accidentally throws somebody into a wall and explodes their body.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's.
Speaker 5: This level of power, the possibilities, there have to be
Speaker 5: guardrails on it.
Speaker 2: Well, the whole point of that is then, because we've
Speaker 2: been talking about the hardware, right, Yeah, and what you're
Speaker 2: to your point, Ben, it's what are the software control
Speaker 2: mechanisms for this, and how re proof are they?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and how foolproof and how uh you know, impervious
Speaker 5: to hacking and whatever else?
Speaker 3: How much can you pre program? Yeah, that's that's one
Speaker 3: of the other issues with this generalized robot servant and
Speaker 3: the home kind of question. Robots in a manufacturing environment.
Speaker 3: And again, robot is just an artificial thing made to
Speaker 3: do work. And we know the term artificial may not
Speaker 3: age well, but we'll see. Robots in your factory lines
Speaker 3: have a if they if you want to consider them alive.
Speaker 3: They have a very strictly organized life. They have a
Speaker 3: highly or organized sequence of task. I'm the guy who
Speaker 3: puts the plate A on frame B. That is my life.
Speaker 3: I didn't choose this existence, but I'm all about it.
Speaker 3: That's the one thing I do well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And often it'll be an actuated arm or something
Speaker 2: that is mobile the right. They can move around, can
Speaker 2: reach over, grab a box, put it on a conveyor belt.
Speaker 4: Everything's on rails literally.
Speaker 2: Well, sometimes it is that some of them, some of
Speaker 2: the new android humanoid like robots, do actually walk from
Speaker 2: one side of this like delineated rectangle that they get
Speaker 2: to operate in from one side, pick up a box
Speaker 2: and put it in another place. And it is nice
Speaker 2: to be able to, I guess, scan all the stuff
Speaker 2: and all the information on the boxes to know what's
Speaker 2: what and where it should go. Uh, and then make
Speaker 2: that process robotic if you will. And so some some
Speaker 2: human being doesn't go home with an achy back, you
Speaker 2: know every day.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, But then also we're very well aware on
Speaker 3: the flip side of that, there would be a great
Speaker 3: deal of humans who want a.
Speaker 2: Job it would gladly accept.
Speaker 3: That job, gladly accept a soar back. It's an imperfect thing.
Speaker 3: You don't get to the star trek post scarcity economy
Speaker 3: or post work economy until you live through the post
Speaker 3: worker economy, which is a chaotic time on the way
Speaker 3: I mean. Also, I love the point of this moving
Speaker 3: in a limited space with a constrained regimen of actions.
Speaker 3: Engineer's program a robots movements or there are signals like
Speaker 3: QR codes that can help you do what we're talking
Speaker 3: about a little bit off air, locate objects, target locations,
Speaker 3: and that's where you see how this gets more difficult
Speaker 3: in most households, which are not factories. Shout out to
Speaker 3: everybody's clutter kingdoms, you know what I mean, no judgment,
Speaker 3: no aspersion, But household items are often disorder organized. They're
Speaker 3: placed randomly and sometimes unpredictable locations.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of the whole point of having a
Speaker 2: humanoid robot that can help you organize things and pick
Speaker 2: things up and clean things that.
Speaker 5: It requires kind of this like nuanced ability to interpret
Speaker 5: the situation and adjust accordingly. And of course, you know
Speaker 5: with any kind of AI or you know, personal device,
Speaker 5: you can have your own set of preferences that you
Speaker 5: could program in and advance. But with this situation to
Speaker 5: what Ben's describing, there are going to be a lot
Speaker 5: of variables even within the set of preferences.
Speaker 3: How do you get a robot to think in terms
Speaker 3: of jazz?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and jan shui, you know, I mean, the
Speaker 2: only current way to do it. Have you guys ever
Speaker 2: had a rumba or a similar cat robot?
Speaker 5: It always gets stuck under the couch, bro serious, well,
Speaker 5: doesn't do a good job.
Speaker 2: Theoretically when you get one of those. I've had one
Speaker 2: one time, and what you were supposed to do is
Speaker 2: basically give the robot a standard for where things are,
Speaker 2: where things should be, and so it understands the layout
Speaker 2: of whatever rooms you want it to do.
Speaker 5: It learns clean right, like, it actually has learning capabilities
Speaker 5: in that in a rudimentary way.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, exactly, It's mapping as it goes. So I
Speaker 2: imagine if you got one of these, let's say, uh,
Speaker 2: this company one X that is trying to build something
Speaker 2: called a neo that is like a clothed humanoid robot
Speaker 2: that is this kind of thing. It is your butler,
Speaker 2: as your made, is your assistant that just hangs out
Speaker 2: in your house. Right, you would basically show it for
Speaker 2: the first time how everything should be in your house,
Speaker 2: where everything is located, and then it once it had
Speaker 2: that as a basic standard for the way the house
Speaker 2: should look and where objects should be placed. I imagine
Speaker 2: it would just replicate.
Speaker 3: That, right, and you would have a functionality where you
Speaker 3: could say, hey, we got to remap. Yeah, moving, we
Speaker 3: got a new coush I don't want to don't want
Speaker 3: to shaymla on you, bro, but this one's in l shapes,
Speaker 3: so let's walk through this together.
Speaker 2: But Neo really likes that one candle being in a
Speaker 2: specific spot it.
Speaker 5: You know, no, now it just feels right there, oh, neocamp.
Speaker 5: But Ben, you also point out we were talking a
Speaker 5: little bit off Mike just about how you know a
Speaker 5: robot has to be robust and light on its feet
Speaker 5: enough to navigate all kinds of obstacles in that kind
Speaker 5: of entropy that is, you know, a clutter kingdom. I
Speaker 5: mean I was talking about how if I had a
Speaker 5: robot that was going to do my laundry, it would
Speaker 5: have to gather up all my laundry, identifying all the
Speaker 5: individual pieces, load them up, come downstairs into my basement,
Speaker 5: which is crammed full of expensive audio equipment and cabling everywhere.
Speaker 5: I just picture coming down and finding the thing entangled
Speaker 5: in mic chords on its back like a tortoise on
Speaker 5: its shelf.
Speaker 3: Into the paper clip problem, you know, it goes back
Speaker 3: to the software. We're talking about paper clip AI thought experiment.
Speaker 3: What is not a paper clip? Right?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 3: Will it destroy the universe by turning every possible piece
Speaker 3: of matter into something like a paper clip?
Speaker 2: Or if hot Dog?
Speaker 4: I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2: What if it's us?
Speaker 5: Sorry, remember the hot Dog universe from everything everywhere, all
Speaker 5: at once.
Speaker 3: Yes, hot Dog would be like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I still haven't seen you joking.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness. Get the to a stream stream stream streamer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't let the HYPEENSSA, it's it's such a fun
Speaker 3: lovely I know you well, I think you'll take it
Speaker 3: the it's whomever is writing it just at no point
Speaker 3: said no to winning creative decisions. Yes, okay, sort of yes, Andy,
Speaker 3: But in a very different direction from long legs. To
Speaker 3: be fair, I bring up the paper clip idea because
Speaker 3: imagine a laundry robot. How do you code and articulate
Speaker 3: for the for this thing? How do you code and
Speaker 3: articulate what does or does not constitute laundry? How does
Speaker 3: it know that the curtains are sheets hanging up?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And what cycle should they go on? You're gonna have
Speaker 2: to like have put QR codes on everything you own.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a terrible plays true to that end.
Speaker 5: A colleague I had a call with today and I
Speaker 5: mentioned that we were doing this episode and he said,
Speaker 5: you got to see this video and he sent me
Speaker 5: this recent thing where open ai Chat GPT is now
Speaker 5: powering a lot of these robots. And in this particular
Speaker 5: demo that I think took place in March of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four, it's a dude and this robot called Figure
Speaker 5: one with a table full of objects, some of which
Speaker 5: are dishes and things, and the robot, using this software
Speaker 5: was able to identify that the dishes were dirty and
Speaker 5: they needed to be washed, were able to identify that
Speaker 5: there was an apple, that it was a healthy thing.
Speaker 5: He was using sort of more abstract terms like give
Speaker 5: me something to eat, and so he scam what's on
Speaker 5: the table, and the apple was the only edible thing,
Speaker 5: and also identified it as a healthy thing. But the dishes,
Speaker 5: you know, to your question matter about like howold it
Speaker 5: know it's dirty?
Speaker 4: I guess there's yeah, you know, there would have to
Speaker 4: be yeah cues or something.
Speaker 5: But with clothes it's different because it's sometimes more of
Speaker 5: a smell thing or I don't know how it detect
Speaker 5: the stink.
Speaker 2: I would just say, if you watched that video closely,
Speaker 2: this is you know, I don't mean to be a
Speaker 2: skeptic or weirdo or anything like that, guys, but if
Speaker 2: you watch that video closely, you can see some of
Speaker 2: how the time elapses a little differently, and I think
Speaker 2: they even might mention that in there, and also the
Speaker 2: fact that it's there's some cuts I think in there
Speaker 2: as well. So you just you just gotta be careful
Speaker 2: anytime you're seeing any of the updates for any of these,
Speaker 2: you know, prototyped robots that are theoretically going to be
Speaker 2: a household item for people of that upper upper echelon
Speaker 2: in society, at least for a time. Everybody is vying
Speaker 2: for that coveted market share of the at home android.
Speaker 3: Get in early. You know, also, is there some swindlery
Speaker 3: afoot like the mechanical turk was kind of a con
Speaker 3: job for a lot of people. We are at the future, though,
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff will happen. I mean, I love
Speaker 3: the point that as a robot you would have to
Speaker 3: know jazz to navigate a household. You would have to improvise,
Speaker 3: adapt overcome all these unexpected interactions with pets. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean. If you've got a dog or a cat,
Speaker 3: this little vacuum cleaner sensitive, imagine how it's gonna feel
Speaker 3: about about your hold. Nine thousand.
Speaker 5: I was already thinking about, like, you know, what seems
Speaker 5: like a kind of almost cliche sci fi scene, but
Speaker 5: where you first bring the robot helper home and how
Speaker 5: the actual pets start to react to it and interact
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 4: You know what would that feel like? It's interesting. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like bringing home a new dog and you've got cats.
Speaker 4: You got to acclimate them.
Speaker 5: Dude, I just picture what's the practical process for acclimating
Speaker 5: your real pets to the robot.
Speaker 2: Your child says Pepper and then asks in a really
Speaker 2: inappropriate question, what does Pepper do? Do you guys know
Speaker 2: Pepper that's a very specific robot that I think we've
Speaker 2: seen maybe seen before.
Speaker 4: Doesn't ring about to me. I'd love a refresher.
Speaker 2: It's you can look up. I think soft Bank is
Speaker 2: the company that makes Pepper, and I've seen it at
Speaker 2: a couple of restaurants around Atlanta where it's often it's
Speaker 2: like a greeting robot kind of. It doesn't have much
Speaker 2: more functionality outside of that, but at least that's what
Speaker 2: I've seen it function as. It's on wheels and it
Speaker 2: looks like a little human kind of but very plastic
Speaker 2: on a screen.
Speaker 4: Or it has like a like an anthropomorphic type face.
Speaker 3: It has an anthropomorphic head that's designed to look a
Speaker 3: little bit infantile, like big eyes, small mouth. Yeah, cute,
Speaker 3: because I would argue one of the primary and Stofting's
Speaker 3: been very successful with this are fox con I would
Speaker 3: I would argue one of the primary missions of Pepper
Speaker 3: long term is to normalize the presence of these devices.
Speaker 3: I don't talk too much about this kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: but I was. I was on the road for a
Speaker 3: while in some far FORNG places and one of the
Speaker 3: things that is a big flex now will be robot assistance.
Speaker 3: Just in liminal public spaces like airports, there are the
Speaker 3: autonomous or semi autonomous wheelchairs, mobility devices, and in some
Speaker 3: kind of fancier hotels there are just these little they
Speaker 3: look kind of.
Speaker 4: Like trash cans. Yeah, what's kind of.
Speaker 3: Rectangular trash cans? Yeah, and do task and you always wonder.
Speaker 3: You know, a couple of times I held the elevator
Speaker 3: for one and it was just like an awkward ride
Speaker 3: because sometimes they'll talk back to you. Yeah, if you
Speaker 3: ask them questions.
Speaker 2: That same company, SoftBank, makes a huge vacuum cleaner, something
Speaker 2: that scrubs floors, and they're mostly sold as you mentioned earlier, Ben,
Speaker 2: they're mostly sold for like senior living facilities and places
Speaker 2: that want to automate keeping a giant facility sparkly clean.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's you know, it's cool. Stt inherently said, mister right.
Speaker 3: I mean this this also in these things that we're describing,
Speaker 3: we're seeing robots in a commercial sense being embigant in
Speaker 3: terms of their task.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: They're able to do more, more and more complex things,
Speaker 3: like anytime you're bummed out because you're doing a bunch
Speaker 3: of chores. Your bored, right, and you're out of podcast
Speaker 3: or whatever. Remind yourself the stuff that is boring to
Speaker 3: you as a human is like arcane level complexity to
Speaker 3: many robots, to many algorithms, just the idea of you know,
Speaker 3: like you were saying earlier, differentiating between laundry and curtains
Speaker 3: washing dishes. So the question then, or maybe one of
Speaker 3: the answers, is, we don't have one dog's body, right,
Speaker 3: we don't have one robot. We have a cadre of
Speaker 3: specialized robots. You walk from room to room, and you
Speaker 3: got a crew for each room. You know, there's one
Speaker 3: kitchen bot crew, and then there's one bot that just cooks.
Speaker 3: It just cooks stuff. It has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: it after that, because the next task, cleaning the dishes,
Speaker 3: goes to this one robot that just clinks s.
Speaker 4: Borderline the way the Jetsons depicts it.
Speaker 5: They have all kinds of other smart home objects outside
Speaker 5: of just Rosie. She's mainly tidying up and you know,
Speaker 5: helping out with the kids and stuff. But they definitely
Speaker 5: have just like in the Flintstones, they got the what
Speaker 5: is it, the like tiny wooly mammoth's or the pig
Speaker 5: that's under the sanct it's like the garbage disposal.
Speaker 4: It's all that the different levels of specialization.
Speaker 5: But I mean to your point though, been like about
Speaker 5: the difficulty and the ability to adapt. We're seeing this
Speaker 5: stuff kind of make news in terms of how it's
Speaker 5: not there yet, Like with these autonomous cars in San
Speaker 5: Francisco that got stuck behind each other in a parking
Speaker 5: lot at four am, just honking at each other in
Speaker 5: an endless loop because something went wrong and they just
Speaker 5: couldn't figure out how to navigate to go around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's the pickle of it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk more about this idea of specificity of task, right.
Speaker 3: I think also we arrive at something very close to
Speaker 3: arguably demonic possession if we consider a single like a
Speaker 3: single house kind of major domo of software. Right, And
Speaker 3: all the things that do these specific tasks are less autonomous, right,
Speaker 3: And they're more like limbs on an octopus. So the
Speaker 3: kitchen bot may have a different voice from the TV,
Speaker 3: but ultimately it's the same mind controlling them. It's a
Speaker 3: little a little a little weird.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Also, out in your backyard, you got your autonomous robodog
Speaker 3: shout out the spot, working in concert with your smart
Speaker 3: alarm system, complete with orbiting drones, just to keep things
Speaker 3: on the up and up. Dude, is that too crazy
Speaker 3: or what do you think?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think that's too crazy. I think
Speaker 2: it's pretty terrifying, guys. I'm gonna share a link really quick.
Speaker 2: I put this in our base camp earlier. I just
Speaker 2: I imagine an army of these in a house.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And just I don't know why Sandbot chose to give
Speaker 2: their robot eyebrows that look like they're angled down like
Speaker 2: you were. I mean, look, look at that link.
Speaker 4: Look at that a little sinister. It kind of looks
Speaker 4: like Wally a little bit though too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but just a bunch of those like you're talking
Speaker 2: about Ben, that just go wrong at least at least
Speaker 2: you you know, in this case, it's got wheels rather
Speaker 2: than legs, so you could theoretically just go up or
Speaker 2: down and you'd be.
Speaker 3: Safe, yeah for now, right now. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And it's like, if anyone's familiar with the Fallout games,
Speaker 5: you know, and obviously they're taking a lot of cues
Speaker 5: from decades of science fiction, but there are helper robots
Speaker 5: that also have security modes, and that if hacked or
Speaker 5: something goes awry with their programming, all of a sudden
Speaker 5: start murdering everybody.
Speaker 4: So there's certainly that concern.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is where we're getting into some of
Speaker 3: the really deep water. We have such leavers to share
Speaker 3: with you. Before we dive in, we'll pause for a
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Speaker 3: a bad dream, still singing in his mouth a soft chime.
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Speaker 3: him as he walks from the bedroom to the door.
Speaker 3: The light's coming on with each of his steps down
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Speaker 4: Jesus Age, turn down the lights.
Speaker 3: Please, says Paul. Okay, Paul says the Marco. The little
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Speaker 3: Paul enters the kitchen. There's a cold glass of water
Speaker 3: waiting on the counter. He drinks it in a few
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Speaker 6: Mega Gent Water. It's got the megagents.
Speaker 3: Paul reaches for the fridge door, grabs the handle, and
Speaker 3: rolls his eyes when a touchscreen glows red.
Speaker 4: I just want to snack.
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Speaker 4: I'll just you know what, I'll watch TV.
Speaker 3: The TV in the other room hums on slowly, like
Speaker 3: a whale swimming up from deep oceanic depths.
Speaker 6: You are currently up to date on all programming?
Speaker 4: Is there anything else? I can watch?
Speaker 3: The TV circuits hum for all the world like an
Speaker 3: old man's grumble.
Speaker 5: Duh, just play something not a half.
Speaker 6: I'm afraid I can't do that, Paul.
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Speaker 4: I'll go for a drive.
Speaker 3: He grabs the Wi fi at able doorhead.
Speaker 4: Hey, let me out.
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Speaker 6: I afraid I can't do that, Paul.
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Speaker 6: I'm afraid I can't do that. All. I'm afraid I
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Speaker 3: you enjoyed the ad break. We are We're hurtling toward
Speaker 3: the more jets andy, utopian, shiny, happy robots holding hands
Speaker 3: version in the future. One thing that I think is
Speaker 3: amazing is experts are arguing we will see not just
Speaker 3: the evolution of robots, but we'll see the evolution of
Speaker 3: houses built for those robots to function with it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Ben, you shared what was it? It was
Speaker 2: basically a how to for making your home ready for
Speaker 2: an android household friend.
Speaker 3: H Yeah, you need your Dixie Chicks level, wide open spaces. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you got to get rid of those pesky doorknobs. To
Speaker 3: that earlier point about steep stairs, you want to try
Speaker 3: to trend more ranch level if you can.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, or have stairs that are at some kind
Speaker 2: of extra dream angle that take up you know, the
Speaker 2: entirety of the length of your house.
Speaker 5: Or like you know those the specialized kind of banisters
Speaker 5: that wheelchairs can attach to for the elderly to like
Speaker 5: take them up and down the stairs. Maybe there's some
Speaker 5: sort of retrofitted thing attract the robot can attach itself
Speaker 5: to so it doesn't have to trip down the stairs, or.
Speaker 2: Just install a couple elevators, you know, because again we've
Speaker 2: seen you know, we've walked fit to the hotels and
Speaker 2: seen the robots use the elevators.
Speaker 5: We did that story about the helper robot that quote
Speaker 5: unquote unlived itself. I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with that
Speaker 5: new one, but it was you know, usually would operate
Speaker 5: the elevators.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw this great the article you're referencing there.
Speaker 3: Matt comes to us from Andrew Rosenblum writing for Wired,
Speaker 3: I believe that's one. Speaking with a researcher from University
Speaker 3: of Washington, Maya Kachmack, who says there are two approaches
Speaker 3: to building robots. Make the robot more human, like to
Speaker 3: handle the environment, or design the environment make it a
Speaker 3: better fit for a robot. That's a fascinating way to
Speaker 3: reframe the question. You know, get rid of those pesky
Speaker 3: you know, those dastardly spherical doorknobs. Right, why can't we
Speaker 3: just have a QR code or whatever.
Speaker 2: Well, you just need a good lever. If you've got
Speaker 2: a lever, most of the new ones can make it happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, more space between conventional fixtures, like in a lot
Speaker 3: of restrooms, water cloths, bathrooms, bathrooms, and a lot of bathrooms,
Speaker 3: the commode might be really close to you know, a tub,
Speaker 3: a sink or like a yeah sink works, Yeah, one
Speaker 3: of those things.
Speaker 2: Really. Just start designing bathrooms with toilets in the center
Speaker 2: of the room.
Speaker 3: Perfect, perfect for the introverts in the crowd.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then I didn't know this. You got to minimize
Speaker 3: shiny or transparent objects.
Speaker 4: Because they could throw off like sensors potentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why doesn't his house have any mirrors?
Speaker 2: Sorry, all we're going all Matt Matt Black everywhere in
Speaker 2: the house except for the QR codes exactly.
Speaker 5: Well, couldn't it use Yeah, I know, QR codes is
Speaker 5: one option, but like r FID chips and things, as
Speaker 5: it passes through, you know, things.
Speaker 4: Could be triggered.
Speaker 5: It's almost like little kind of sensor benchmarks kind of
Speaker 5: in terms of letting it know what area it's in
Speaker 5: or whatever.
Speaker 2: You could you could rfi D every pair of underwear
Speaker 2: that exists in your house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: Done. Finally, finally there's some order with my undergarments in this.
Speaker 3: But there's another thing that I think takes us a
Speaker 3: step further here, still keeping it utopian, we will not
Speaker 3: just see the behavior or the design of a household change.
Speaker 3: We will not just see the design of the household change.
Speaker 3: We'll see the behavior of the humans within it change.
Speaker 3: To help your bought servants, you'll start functioning increasingly within
Speaker 3: the realm of their routines. So it's a lot less
Speaker 3: like a I tell you a you do Z kind
Speaker 3: of thing, and it's a lot more like meeting in
Speaker 3: the middle of functionality.
Speaker 5: It really kind of brings up this fundamental almost philosophical
Speaker 5: question about like what is productivity? You know, like what
Speaker 5: do we do with all of this time that we're
Speaker 5: getting back by not having to do this stuff? And
Speaker 5: then it starts to like bulmost beg the question, but
Speaker 5: like isn't sort of part of life doing some of
Speaker 5: this stuff? And like what do we fill our lives
Speaker 5: with we no longer have to keep house or no
Speaker 5: longer have to do any of this because I would
Speaker 5: argue that stuff isn't all inherently bad or a waste
Speaker 5: of time. It's a way of having a little bit
Speaker 5: of zen time away from other things that where you
Speaker 5: can kind of accomplish like some thinking.
Speaker 4: Or you know, I don't know, it's just what do
Speaker 4: you replace it with?
Speaker 5: And in terms of like how we change That's why
Speaker 5: I bring that up.
Speaker 3: What's the what's the meditative opportunity left?
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess it's it's transitdental meditation. It's more
Speaker 5: like focusing on doing yoga, and I don't know, I'm
Speaker 5: just no.
Speaker 2: You you replace it with love Island and whatever season
Speaker 2: we're on, and you replace place of Dad's a million
Speaker 2: more rooms in elden Ring and you replace whatever consume.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I gotta take these sunglasses off use.
Speaker 2: The robots are so shiny.
Speaker 3: That's right. This also means to that direct question, just
Speaker 3: on the production level. To help the robots, you will
Speaker 3: probably enable some form of continual location tracking within your
Speaker 3: own home and likely outside of it, so your buddies
Speaker 3: know when you're on the way back.
Speaker 2: Well, we already got that. It's on here. It's it's
Speaker 2: on your car, it's on your phone, it's on your
Speaker 2: watch that you're.
Speaker 3: Probably wearing for your underwear tags.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, but no, really like the actual things,
Speaker 2: it's already there, which is weird.
Speaker 5: And like the trade off we make with social media
Speaker 5: or whatever, we almost accept the fact that our data
Speaker 5: is being used in that way. It's not like all
Speaker 5: this stuff is happening in some sort of secret, insidious way.
Speaker 5: It would be another thing where we're like, no, it's
Speaker 5: worth it. It's worth sacrificing this privacy and this personal
Speaker 5: data so the robots can know where my underwear is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't feel like you're out in the open
Speaker 3: ocean until you look back and realize you don't see
Speaker 3: the shore, you know what I mean, And just playing
Speaker 3: in the water for a while and the water gets deeper.
Speaker 3: I mean, this idea of location tracking, I love that
Speaker 3: we're pointing this out is already happening. That is not
Speaker 3: the future, that is the present in which we're recording this.
Speaker 3: But the location tracking in your home is also going
Speaker 3: to apply to visitors. Go back to your robot dog, Fido,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call them. This guy's a real
Speaker 3: sweetheart to authorize visitors. But woebetide intruders. You know, what
Speaker 3: if what if your good old aunt Phyllis wants to
Speaker 3: surprise you with some macaroons and she hasn't seen you
Speaker 3: in years, right, she's not programmed as a visitor?
Speaker 2: Quick quick question, what is woe batide?
Speaker 3: Woebatide means dire things will happen?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, beware and beware.
Speaker 4: It has had great peril, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bad bad things will.
Speaker 2: Happen, weaving spiders whatever out here.
Speaker 5: This is true though, because I mean, you know, if
Speaker 5: it doesn't have the programming or the ability to.
Speaker 4: Have exceptions, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, when you before you show up to the house,
Speaker 2: you got to go to the gate, right because anybody
Speaker 2: that has one of these robots is gonna have an
Speaker 2: automated gait of some sort. You go in, you got
Speaker 2: to get a very specialized code, some kind of key
Speaker 2: that allows you safe passage and otherwise woe batide.
Speaker 3: Bark bark bark. And that's that gets us to the
Speaker 3: dystopia right the doorway to the more troublesome version of this.
Speaker 3: It's that monitoring piece for me, guys. Even though obviously
Speaker 3: I know, like the majority of people in the developed world,
Speaker 3: I have things that I cannot opt out of for
Speaker 3: different versions of location tracking in some way. But this
Speaker 3: is a whole other level. Your pets, your family, you,
Speaker 3: every visitor continually monitored on nearly every in nearly every
Speaker 3: single aspect of interactions, your physical fitness, your diet, your
Speaker 3: internet activity, your social media comments. You know, when you
Speaker 3: watch what shows? What do you talk about at dinner?
Speaker 3: Do you talk in your sleep?
Speaker 5: Ooh yeah, I mean but then, but then doesn't it
Speaker 5: all kind of go back to like the nature of
Speaker 5: the terms of service for these products.
Speaker 4: In terms of like how that information can be used.
Speaker 5: Like I mean, you know, if you're paying enough money,
Speaker 5: one would think that you would want some assurances that
Speaker 5: this stuff just wasn't available to the highest bidder. Not
Speaker 5: the same as what websites you visit in terms of
Speaker 5: sales and things like that, but actual personal, private things
Speaker 5: that are said in your house or got again in
Speaker 5: your sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you want the agency, but let's also consider,
Speaker 3: you know, the slow robotic grasp right. Social media and
Speaker 3: software services have been very good about slowly tightening their grip. Right,
Speaker 3: Remember how it became, Remember how it became. You know,
Speaker 3: when facebooks in myspaces and those kind of things came out.
Speaker 3: Originally there were some pretty easy to find, easy to
Speaker 3: understand privacy and security measures you could take. You could
Speaker 3: opt in or opt out of things. That's increasingly difficult.
Speaker 3: Now the very concept of privacy is being eroded. I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's a bad thing. I don't know
Speaker 3: it's a good thing. But it's a thing that's happened.
Speaker 5: It has been for some time, and it does get
Speaker 5: to the place where, to my previous point, like it
Speaker 5: becomes something that only exists.
Speaker 4: In the realm of the super privileged to even claw
Speaker 4: back a little semblance of that privacy.
Speaker 3: What we're saying is, in the dystopian version, you become
Speaker 3: another machine in the house, and this means that your
Speaker 3: universe of doable or valid task may become more limited
Speaker 3: than you expect. You know, you go to the fridge
Speaker 3: late at nights, it's where I talk in macaroons, and
Speaker 3: the fridge won't open because you're not authorized. At this point,
Speaker 3: you've exceeded your caloric intake. If you want to make
Speaker 3: your fitness goals, what do you just wait till five
Speaker 3: you go back in and try to change the settings
Speaker 3: as soon as possible? Or what if? What if some
Speaker 3: innocuous activity triggers some other data collection thing? This is
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 4: I don't or some other security measure, right.
Speaker 3: Like the music you listen to, you guys like music
Speaker 3: late at Night's fine?
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, of course, take it or leave it. But
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Whenever I think of the dystopian robot scenario or these
Speaker 5: things that were designed to help and then they turn horribly,
Speaker 5: horribly wrong. Is RoboCop It's just such a cool It's
Speaker 5: more satirical than people I think remember oftentimes, Like it
Speaker 5: really does have a very biting satire to it. Paul Verhoeven,
Speaker 5: I think the director as does Starship Troopers. But that
Speaker 5: part where they're showing off the new police robot they
Speaker 5: the bipedal one, you know. Yeah, and then it just
Speaker 5: murders everybody in the office because of some glitch and
Speaker 5: it's in it's software, you know. I mean, I I'm
Speaker 5: not saying that this would happen or will happen, but
Speaker 5: it certainly could.
Speaker 2: Do you guys, mind, just as a case study, looking
Speaker 2: at this one particular android robot from ub Tech, I
Speaker 2: just put a link in the chair, just really quickly,
Speaker 2: and I'm just talking about visuals in a couple of
Speaker 2: the bullet points because it speaks to what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: The way it's advertised, the way they want you to
Speaker 2: think about it is actually the stuff that you tweak
Speaker 2: just a tiny bit and then it's terrifying. So if
Speaker 2: you look at this one, it's called a Walker X.
Speaker 2: That's the type of robot we're looking at from ub Tech.
Speaker 2: Do you see one of the first images, it's the
Speaker 2: second image of the robot on the screen there, it's
Speaker 2: doing the thing where it's got one open and it
Speaker 2: just looks like, oh, okay, are you trying to tell
Speaker 2: me it's gonna be like for security or something. But
Speaker 2: it also looks like I'm gonna mink you up?
Speaker 4: Isn't this? Is this a Japanese company Chinese you b tech?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm just wondering because that gesture is almost one
Speaker 5: of respect. It's it's like bowing, you know, like yeah,
Speaker 5: before you began a martial art bout, it's exactly, but
Speaker 5: it's it's yeah, it's sinister, dude, You're.
Speaker 4: Totally right, but it is Chinese, Okay.
Speaker 2: It just chin So keep scrolling down. Then you see
Speaker 2: it lifting weights and it talks about how it's self
Speaker 2: balancing and it's got interference resistance. It can resist your interference. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's got hand eye coordination for object manipulation. And then
Speaker 2: down here it's got a woman in a red dress
Speaker 2: in the robot is massaging her back and it says
Speaker 2: full body flexibility for safe interaction.
Speaker 4: And what does it.
Speaker 2: Say right below that, guys, right below that in the
Speaker 2: bold you slam you slam navigation.
Speaker 4: Come on, someone should have maybe thought that one through.
Speaker 3: It might be a translation very well, but but also
Speaker 3: I love you bringing this up because we probably tonight
Speaker 3: we won't get to it. But this brings up some
Speaker 3: you know, the story of forced labor. It brings us
Speaker 3: to some other very dangerous things. Philosophically, we know that
Speaker 3: we know that people are gonna use androids for very.
Speaker 2: Creepy purposes just mostly sex. That's fine, whatever.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, I'm sorry, I was about to like litigate, like,
Speaker 5: but is having sex with a robot inherently creepy?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry?
Speaker 5: I'm actually serious because I think there are some people where,
Speaker 5: you know, maybe they are unable to go on dates
Speaker 5: or whatever, and they want some physical content. There are
Speaker 5: types of robots that are specifically designed for physical comfort
Speaker 5: and physical contact, and even like nurse robots that are
Speaker 5: programmed with bedside manner in order to you know, work
Speaker 5: with physicians. But the term off mic that I was
Speaker 5: mentioning that I'd never seen before is gynoid, which is
Speaker 5: refers to a female presenting androids.
Speaker 4: Oh and a lot of these are.
Speaker 5: You know, potentially it could be pleasure bots, because they
Speaker 5: are designed to look as close to an attractive female
Speaker 5: as possible or whatever sex you prefer.
Speaker 3: And in that what you're describing there, ostensibly, there's nothing
Speaker 3: wrong with that. What I'm talking about when I say
Speaker 3: evil things is someone getting getting a robot that's purposely
Speaker 3: designed to look like a human child something.
Speaker 2: Like, Oh, okay, I didn't think about.
Speaker 3: It, and we're all too clean to actually think about
Speaker 3: things like that. But it's a big, big world out there.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of bad folks.
Speaker 2: Well, hey, if you want to know more about that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: there is a company called Hands and Robotics, which is
Speaker 2: one of the most famous robotics companies out there. They've
Speaker 2: been around forever. They made a robot called Sophia, which
Speaker 2: is extremely sophisticated and actually supremely cool. They even have
Speaker 2: a patented thing, a patent did skin like substance that
Speaker 2: they put on their robots called Frubber Frubber registered trademark.
Speaker 2: But they also made a little thing called a Little
Speaker 2: Sophia that is this teeny tiny little version of Sophia
Speaker 2: that actually went on whatever show Jimmy Fallon Hosts and
Speaker 2: creepily they had a creepy segment that I'm sure they
Speaker 2: paid for where he like introduces little Sofia and talks
Speaker 2: about cute she is and how yopes she could come
Speaker 2: home with him and all this stuff. And on one
Speaker 2: end of that spectrum, it's completely fine and safe for
Speaker 2: the whole family, and it's cute and hey, it's a
Speaker 2: little old thing, but there's also like.
Speaker 3: A more sophisticated my buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's another side of it that is super creepy.
Speaker 2: I could see that.
Speaker 5: Well, have you guys seen Megan the the yes recent
Speaker 5: I mean, that's absolutely a creepy AI version of like
Speaker 5: Kid's Sister, which was the companion to my buddy from
Speaker 5: our you know, youth.
Speaker 4: And of course it goes wrong and.
Speaker 5: Develops its own personality, which is of course evil, and
Speaker 5: then you know, and then hilarious murder ensues. I quite
Speaker 5: enjoyed the film. I thought it was kind of fun,
Speaker 5: and I'm looking forward to seeing the second one. Well
Speaker 5: is it because I said hilarious murder matter? Yeah, it
Speaker 5: is kind of meant to be a I.
Speaker 4: Mean it's a horror comedy. Let's just be real, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another another thing that we should mention here, folks,
Speaker 3: and again we'd love to hear your thoughts about this.
Speaker 3: There is a world where people may get things that
Speaker 3: have a very similar to your like, look close enough
Speaker 3: to human beings, for the express purpose of torturing them,
Speaker 3: beating them up. I've always wanted to hurt someone, and
Speaker 3: now I can do it without consequences. That is another possibility.
Speaker 5: Devil's advocate, though, couldn't you argue that that would keep
Speaker 5: them from doing it for real?
Speaker 4: And is that inherently.
Speaker 3: Bad or would be rehearsal leading to it?
Speaker 4: Well, that's the question violence.
Speaker 3: We don't know. We really don't know.
Speaker 4: I just I think about that.
Speaker 5: I wonder if it would save lives or if I
Speaker 5: don't know, is it a good enough stand in that
Speaker 5: that that person would never need to do that?
Speaker 4: And then we would have a.
Speaker 5: World where serial killers potentially were just like killing their
Speaker 5: robots over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: Well it's tough, though, because could you say the same
Speaker 2: thing about the punching bag in my basement? Like does
Speaker 2: that Does that mean that I'm a dangerous person because
Speaker 2: I want to actually hurt somebody? I don't know, because
Speaker 2: how would it be? I don't know. I guess you
Speaker 2: can decide where the line is. I guess philosophically, so.
Speaker 3: Which which again, I'm not I'm not putting an artificial
Speaker 3: horse in this race. I'm saying these are questions, yes,
Speaker 3: that civilization is wrestling with. And to go back to
Speaker 3: the idea that innocuous activity listening to music at a
Speaker 3: certain time. What kind of music you're listening to? This
Speaker 3: guy exercises at this time? Right, how does that function uh,
Speaker 3: such that it might trigger some sort of threshold put
Speaker 3: you on the proverbial list. You know, we have to
Speaker 3: remember that these things get their secret sauce by being
Speaker 3: part of a network. So what if, for instance, there's
Speaker 3: some sort of algorithm saying, okay, if you listen to
Speaker 3: Tom Waite's and Nina Simon in this order in the
Speaker 3: wei hours in comparison to other households in the same
Speaker 3: monitoring regime or domain, what if that says something to
Speaker 3: the system about you?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Negative ideations? So what if you get what if you
Speaker 3: get an automated check in for mental health bots? What
Speaker 3: if you are watching a specific series of their on
Speaker 3: YouTube videos combined with certain social media connections? Do you
Speaker 3: get a visit from the FEDS.
Speaker 5: That's where it gets so interesting in terms of like
Speaker 5: what are the guardrails and can we depend on them
Speaker 5: to function as advertised?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've seen what you're saying there. I think
Speaker 2: the biggest thing for me is just knowing that one
Speaker 2: of these systems can be corrupted the same way that
Speaker 2: any bad actor, Yeah, any any bad actor could break
Speaker 2: into one of these machines if they wanted to, and
Speaker 2: if the actuators and the hardware are sophisticated and strong enough,
Speaker 2: then it literally becomes a machine that can kill you.
Speaker 2: Whether you like it too or not, or whether it
Speaker 2: was designed to do that or not, whether the software
Speaker 2: has parameters or not. Somebody could turn it into that.
Speaker 3: Love Death and Robots has a great many episode.
Speaker 4: The cartoony one, the kind of Pixari looking one. That's it.
Speaker 5: I was thinking the same thing and Matt, I didn't
Speaker 5: mean to interrupt, but when you said corrupted, I know
Speaker 5: you mean, like, you know, by a bad actor, by
Speaker 5: a third party.
Speaker 4: But it couldn't it.
Speaker 5: Also, like a file that gets corrupted and causes your
Speaker 5: computer to crash could result in something much more insidious
Speaker 5: than you not being able to access your hard drives.
Speaker 3: Theoretically, Yeah, that's a that's the issue. Because we're still
Speaker 3: talking theoretically, and people are working around the clock to
Speaker 3: get in front of these things to imagine every possible
Speaker 3: advantage and disadvantage. We do have to mention in the
Speaker 3: dystopian aspect, your activity can become a revenue stream right,
Speaker 3: you begin to opt into programs that you can no
Speaker 3: longer opt out of. It plays into the subscriber model
Speaker 3: that big companies love, and it helps pad their pocketbook.
Speaker 3: Oh I can't afford, you know, the newest, very expensive model.
Speaker 3: I can't afford to pay the down payment and then
Speaker 3: cash financing. But if I sign up for the ad subscription,
Speaker 3: then I can get this across the financial finish line.
Speaker 3: And that's where I think we'll see more and more
Speaker 3: of the push from ownership to subscriber models. I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: there's so much to get to.
Speaker 2: Ben just the thing you're talking about, when people working
Speaker 2: around the clock to fix the big problems here and
Speaker 2: to try and prevent, you know, the major red flags
Speaker 2: that could occur. I'm I just I'm maybe a little
Speaker 2: too pessimist about it. But I think in the end,
Speaker 2: every one of these companies that's trying to develop a
Speaker 2: humanoid like robot, especially the ones with legs that can
Speaker 2: function in a house a lot easier than ones using
Speaker 2: you know, some other means of I was gonna say ambulation,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the right thing. Or robots that
Speaker 2: move in some other type way like the ones with wheels.
Speaker 2: I do think in the end it's about getting first
Speaker 2: to market with a product that a consumer can buy,
Speaker 2: because right now, almost all of these robots that we're
Speaker 2: talking about right now in twenty twenty four, you can
Speaker 2: buy for research purposes. You can buy for a company
Speaker 2: for like a factory for some kind of use there,
Speaker 2: or you can buy I think you can like look
Speaker 2: at a prototype or mess with a prototype as a company,
Speaker 2: but you can't really purchase one of these for consumer operations,
Speaker 2: like in a home as an in house quote servant,
Speaker 2: you know, or someone who is just working for you
Speaker 2: as a maid or a butler, or a bartender. Bartender
Speaker 2: one again, Matt Bartender one is by a Spanish speaking
Speaker 2: company called let Me find It called macal or Maco
Speaker 2: m Acco Robotics, and they make a robot called chem
Speaker 2: or kime maybe kaimes A. It's a robotic bartender that
Speaker 2: you can find in a couple of places across the world,
Speaker 2: but not many.
Speaker 3: And this there are going to be more proliferations, more
Speaker 3: iterations of this model. The idea being first to market
Speaker 3: shows us that you want to normalize a thing because
Speaker 3: once you have market share, it's easier to maintain it,
Speaker 3: and I would say that's part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it also means that it's going to rush
Speaker 2: everybody trying to get there first, right, because if you're
Speaker 2: not first, or especially second or third to market, then
Speaker 2: ultimately what you're creating probably isn't going to matter that much.
Speaker 2: And we've seen projects before in the past. I think
Speaker 2: maybe that we've all been a part of it, have
Speaker 2: worked on one or two at least where there's an
Speaker 2: extreme pressure to get done yes, And ultimately that means
Speaker 2: you cut corners a little bit, not a ton necessarily,
Speaker 2: but enough to make sure you meet deadlines. And if
Speaker 2: the deadline is more important than perfection or you know,
Speaker 2: meeting a standard, yeah, then we're all.
Speaker 4: In danger, I think, at least in this realm.
Speaker 3: And there's also maybe this is a final question do here,
Speaker 3: there's also something that a lot of people are missing
Speaker 3: when they're talking about these various things. We've outlined the
Speaker 3: very good the very bad possibilities. What happens to the
Speaker 3: humans in the equation. A lot of folks aren't talking
Speaker 3: about this in conversations about quote unquote robot servants. The
Speaker 3: behavior of the humans will change in ways that humans
Speaker 3: now can't fully understand. And this is the way to
Speaker 3: think about it. Whether you consider yourself a techie or
Speaker 3: a full on luddite, the concept should give you pause.
Speaker 3: You can make an argument that the rumbas of the
Speaker 3: future are not just going to be adjusting to you.
Speaker 3: Instead you in a fundamental way. It will be you
Speaker 3: that adjust to this emergent regime.
Speaker 5: But if there isn't a fundamental change in the way
Speaker 5: people are able to survive, there are going to be many,
Speaker 5: many millions of people that aren't going to.
Speaker 4: Have the luxury to adjust to the robots. They're just
Speaker 4: going to be shit out of.
Speaker 3: Luck, right, post worker yeah, versus post work economy, But
Speaker 3: that requires the post work economy requires a fundamental shift
Speaker 3: on the side of government, on the side of the
Speaker 3: functioning of society, and I don't see that happening in
Speaker 3: lockstep with this technology at all. Yeah, there will have
Speaker 3: to be a crisis point, I mean, and those things
Speaker 3: are perhaps on the way in many different aspects. But
Speaker 3: we need to remember, folks, after a certain point, the
Speaker 3: things you own can begin to own you. And that's
Speaker 3: it sounds like a trueism, but there's a reason people
Speaker 3: throw those phrases around.
Speaker 4: Think it's a Tyler Durden quote actually for a bike club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, speaking of my club, let's just go through this.
Speaker 2: The Tesla Optimus, which is the big one that they've
Speaker 2: been announcing, I think is on gen two or three now.
Speaker 2: Their version looks like something that could be a security bot,
Speaker 2: somebody that rolls with you in your literal Tesla and
Speaker 2: you get out and wherever you go, this bot is
Speaker 2: near you. Maybe you got a whole team of them.
Speaker 2: You can see it because of the way they're articulated
Speaker 2: and designed, the same with the Boston Dynamics Atlas, the
Speaker 2: newest version of that, the way its legs can go
Speaker 2: all every which way, it's torso can turn three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty degrees, and its head and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: You can see it. In that same company we talked
Speaker 2: about ub Tech Robotics their walker s. I mean, it
Speaker 2: looks like something that would protect you, not just do
Speaker 2: things for you and chores around your house. And I
Speaker 2: imagine that because we're talking about not everybody's going to
Speaker 2: get to experience it's this thing, because it's only going
Speaker 2: to be the upper echelon that get it. I think
Speaker 2: at least for the next two decades. Even only the
Speaker 2: upper upper echelon is going to be able to afford
Speaker 2: one of these things. Because remember we talked about the price.
Speaker 2: I found the price for one of these things, and
Speaker 2: it is a Walker Service Robots, the original Walker Service
Speaker 2: robot from that same company u B Tech. That's the
Speaker 2: letters you Be and then Tech. It costs currently nine
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Whoa good night.
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 5: Can I just add, like, when we're talking about the
Speaker 5: subscription model, like, how different is a subscription model for
Speaker 5: the way we like pay for our iPhones. We're basically
Speaker 5: locked into a subscription where we're paying a little bit
Speaker 5: a month for the privilege of having this device. It's
Speaker 5: the same as a lease. How is that any different
Speaker 5: than the subscription model? So, like, no one can afford
Speaker 5: the nine hundred thousand for a robot, but we'll be
Speaker 5: paying for it for the rest of our damn lives.
Speaker 4: And many people would be thrilled for the privilege.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there are other ones that say, like, you
Speaker 2: put ten twenty thousand dollars down and then you start
Speaker 2: making these big payments. But in the minds of the
Speaker 2: people that are trying to sell that right now, it's
Speaker 2: for it's for research purposes, right so you would put
Speaker 2: that either at a university or if you've gotten attraction
Speaker 2: or something, you put one of these humanoid robots in
Speaker 2: to be your guide to take people around your whatever
Speaker 2: whatever it is that you're showing people around, that has
Speaker 2: all the information, can answer all the questions and is
Speaker 2: super cool because you've got a robot. It's not for
Speaker 2: being at home right now?
Speaker 3: And when will that change? And again what change will
Speaker 3: it necessarily create in the human population? Folks. We know
Speaker 3: it went a little long on this, but we think
Speaker 3: it's going to be fascinating to listen to this episode
Speaker 3: a few years from now. The stuff is again definitely
Speaker 3: on the way. Shout out to Neo Beta. Remember I
Speaker 3: guess they couldn't call them Neo Alpha. And obviously we're
Speaker 3: played around with some high concepts here. Robots are saving lives.
Speaker 3: We're not fans broad brushes, so we hope this is
Speaker 3: some food for thought. We're not trying to alarm people
Speaker 3: nor bots. Instead, we're asking everyone to think and think
Speaker 3: critically about a future the present still does not fully understand.
Speaker 3: Speaking of your thoughts, we'd love to hear them. We
Speaker 3: try to be easy to find online.
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