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    Los Angeles entrepreneur bets big on robots - His startup, Youmanoids, is betting that robots will become as common as smartphones.
    Futurology

    Los Angeles entrepreneur bets big on robots – His startup, Youmanoids, is betting that robots will become as common as smartphones.

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    1. Gari_305 on

      From the article

      “Possibly one out of every hundred people can have one,” he said. “You’ll see that in the near future.”

      To help make that happen, Alcedo plans to open a mini showroom – a place where people can see the robots in person, learn how they work, and even buy or service them.

      “People don’t know how they look, what they can do,” said Alcedo. “That’s what we’re here for.”

      Right now, prices are steep. The humanoid robot costs around $22,000, while the dog version sells for about $4,500.

      The models we checked out are made by Unitree, a Chinese robotics company known for its lifelike motion.

    2. Hootah on

      I think he’s right on some of his points, but IMO it’s not going to happen as quickly and the US will lag behind other countries who will embrace it first.

    3. pickledeggmanwalrus on

      Just some bullshit to make the common man more miserable and the rich more lazy

    4. mancapturescolour on

      “Detroit: Become… Youman”?

      Anyway, the vision they present in that game seems to overlap with this entrepreneur so I don’t think it’s unlikely that humanoid machines will have a bigger presence in the future. AI will be commonplace, more advanced but I also read speculation that people will still seek out other humans. That human connection will become the true premium (we low-key see that with customer service chat bots already for example).

    5. therealcruff on

      “Possibly one out of every hundred people can have one”.

      Sure sounds as ubiquitous as the smartphone… 

    6. a_o on

      Bipedal humanoid form is perhaps less than ideal for many tasks. they really gotta outgrow vanity as a limiting point of view when designing stuff like this.

    9. Silverlisk on

      One out of one hundred people… In the US?

      Cause I can tell you outright, me and anyone around me wouldn’t get one even if they were 2K cause our houses just aren’t big enough, we have to weave round our own homes to avoid different bits, dog toys, a standing fan, a table, each other etc.

      Then there’s the fact that nearly all of us own dogs that would spend most nights barking at the thing every time it moves and wouldn’t settle down.

      Even if they were perfect and didn’t harm the dogs or us or our stuff by accident, it would be in the way all the time.

      For instance there was a video of a robot putting clothes in a washing machine, but the robot had a lot space, the door was wide open and it was taking stuff from a tiny basket and putting it in a little at a time and that was with someone else standing there handing it some more, that’s essentially useless for me.

      My washing machine door can’t open fully cause it’d hit the fridge, it goes about 40% of the way and there isn’t the space to manoeuvre in the way it was in the video, you just have to shove the clothes in there at the angle whilst leaning over and I only have a large washing basket that’s wedged at the bottom of the bed and has to be lifted at a strange angle so you don’t hit the TV that’s on the wall. There’s more bits along the route, but yeah, basically it’s no good and that’s normal for round here.

    11. Chemical_Shallot_575 on

      There are many companies, big and small, which have been selling robots.

      I even helped lead the development of a little personal robot…which was released 6 years ago.