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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Unless of course Musk decides to use the opportunity to advertise Optimus, be it with actually AI able to do it or teleoperator do it.

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Optimus ins’t gonna be a master welder, electrician, HVAC technician, general contractor anytime soon.

Debatable. Optimus will be programmed by watching thousands of YouTube videos and by indexing the entire NEC. It is entirely possible that a single Optimus can be a master welder, electrician, and HVAC technician. What Optimus can't do is take responsibility for the completion of the work as being done to code. Nor is it clear how much Optimus will cost to buy or operate.

Underestimating humanoid capabilities is a mistake; the real challenge will be the economics and the flow of responsibility. But imagine a future where every structure built has a pov video documenting its construction. I don't like the implication for the trades any more than I like the implication of Claude for putting me out of work either.

Latest LLMs that have good visual understanding (Gemini and GPT) are able to tell if construction work is up to code. You can give it a picture of electrical wiring, plumbing, framing and it will tell you if it's up to code with very good accuracy.

Ok, but if you think that's true, then it would be a huge mistake to put Optimus on two legs instead of a boom lift.

I'm skeptical that Optimus can be productive at anything other than picking up boxes, moving them around, then stacking them.

Won’t stop him from advertising them

Nope, it won't. Won't stop the government from advertising the failed California high speed rail, either. But I think Musk is more likely to deliver on Optimus.

Optimus would have to work well enough in the near future for that not gonna happen

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