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Kicking Robots, by James Vincent
(harpers.org)
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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Two things, first thinking the llm stuff will help in robotics doesnt seem to fly, as llms are based on the whole internet and all books, a massive amount of data, data which for menial tasks doesnt exist yet. (And is also harder to get, creating text is easy).
And the story about how humanoid bots are great for working in a warehouse seems also wrong to me, as one of the problems we all have had is that of you are carrying things, the big box you are carrying obscures part of your vision. Different designs would be better for that. (Even a humanoid robot who has eyes on the back of its hands for example). Such a lack of imagination.
you want something to help you in warehouse work? we have a tool for that: it's called forklift
Hello I would like a mechanical slave
they have played us for absolute fools
But paying workers gives workers money, which means you lose. Instead of buying a robot, which gives another capitalist/company money, which means they win. They are the most class conscious class.
This reminds me over an old old furore here in Sweden. A female researcher at a largish university made a study of how cleaners ... cleaned. How bathrooms, kitchens etc were constructed and how workers had to move and lift to do their work.
This was almost universally derided - "who does science on cleaning???", but of course the intent was serious. Lots of people clean, if we design better workspaces, we reduce injuries and RSI etc, and maybe make it easier for less skilled people to clean. But becaseu both the author and the subjected were coded female, the reactionaries had conniptions.
Anyway that won't help humanoid robots. Just thought about it
Edit found an article in Swedish about it, year was 1985. Nowadays bathroom fixtures are constructed after her recommendations
https://arbetet.se/2009/02/26/gudrun-linns-forskningpverkar-hela-byggsverige/