Why Making Robots is So Hard

Gary Marcus at NYU recently posted an interesting article on Why Making Robots is So Darn Hard.  In it, he explores why consumer robots have not appeared to advance as quickly as computers, and why we don’t yet have Rosie the Robot cleaning our homes and cooking our meals.

I do think, however, he’s overlooked the incredible advances in humanoid robotics made by the hobbyist community in the last ten years.  Perhaps that’s because most of those advances have been made in Japan (and more recently, Korea).  The first Robo-One robots could barely stay on their feet for more than a few seconds.  By 2009, we had hobby humanoids as big as a small adult human, able to lift their creators and transform into cars.  And today, we see bots like Real King Kizer, which are only about a factor of 2 away from the fictional robots of Real Steel.

Gary’s article is well worth a read all the same.  Check it out, and feel free to weigh in with your thoughts below.