RoboUniverse 2015: Rethink Robotics Baxter

Eric Foellmer of Rethink Robotics, talks about Baxter, an affordable robot that can be easily trained to perform repetitive tasks and flexible enough for many industries.
RoboUniverse is the first professional buyer - seller conference and exposition dedicated to the service robotics industry. The mission of this expo is to accelerate the adoption of modern robotics - service, collaborative and co-worker robots for business, manufacturing, healthcare, education, personal and home based applications.

[@joejee01]

MIT ftmfw

[@creepshowcrate]

These Baxters are highly fallible. They require vigilant babysitting. So what's the point?

[@creepshowcrate]

Beerwoman! These humans who surround the robot go many months without dropping a single tray (many have NEVER dropped one) while the robot drops many every week, and sometimes 2 or 3 a day, scattering the delicate contents across the floor. They also don't stack the trays properly, and need consistent help and supervision. Other than that, they're great!

[@goldensloth7]

Yeah, but they don't need a salary, breaks, time off, or health insurance. They definitely aren't that great an asset without major improvements, though, I agree.

[@creepshowcrate]

Beerwoman! Idk, they periodically go down (breaks) and a day of repairs for one bot is $20,000 (salary and/or health insurance?). The babysitting by a human also pulls said human from performing other productive duties. Major improvements needed, I concur. But shoot, in ten to twenty years, they will be fully realized, "Ex Machina" androids, and those pesky humans, with their breaks, salaries, vacations, and health insurance, will be damn near obsolete. And with populations constantly on the rise, won't it be fun to watch what happens to them all?