33 points by lewiswatson 5 days ago | 4 comments
krasin 1 day ago
Somewhat related: a teardown of a Unitree Go2 robot dog by iFixit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjVbW6Fc11Y

TL,DR: Unitree is making a real attempt to make their robots to be at least somewhat repairable, but these robots are still very difficult to work with due to glued connectors, tight cable managements, hundreds of screws, lack of availability of spare parts, lack of documentation, etc.

ricardobeat 1 day ago
This is first-generation commercial hardware.

    "Acme Corp is now selling the Alcubierre drive, but it is very difficult
    to work with due to glued connectors, lack of spare parts and documentation"
krasin 1 day ago
It's far from the first generation. Unitree has been selling robot dogs for over 6 years now and I remember them being a lot less refined. See, for example, what Unitree was selling in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFJUkrCQzx8

They just need a few more iterations.

YZF 1 day ago
This reads like something from a Sci-Fi book.
Teever 1 day ago
The key in my mind to all of this is a humanoid robot that can repair itself or construct a copy either from parts in a warehouse or from a fabrication shop if need be.

Full self replication of a machine either from sand to silicon or through some yet to be developed process inspired by biology will be a fundamental change in how we do everything.

It will be akin to the assembly line and interchangeable parts in how it changes manufacturing.

MoonGhost 1 day ago
> Full self replication of a machine either from sand to silicon or through some yet to be developed process inspired by biology will be a fundamental change in how we do everything.

Not any time soon. This requires the whole economy to build the core parts like microprocessors. It's sure possible even on lifeless rocky planets but will require a lot of resources from Earth to begin with.

There is also a biological way. Here we can start with lobotomized and chipped monkeys. But on other planets this requires the whole ecosystem.

jansan 1 day ago
Here is a very short video of the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLZ2gp1XszU

sampton 1 day ago
Oh good they dressed up the dog too.
aaron695 1 day ago
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