Tau Robotics<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe company is offering humanoid cleaning services for $30 an hour to selected applicants in San Francisco. Koch said the service is aimed in part at expanding access to home cleaning.<\/p>\n
“I think many of our initial customers are people who didn’t have house cleaners, or are not that frequent house cleaners, human house cleaners, so it mainly just makes the market bigger,” Koch said.<\/p>\n
Koch said current artificial intelligence technology cannot fully control a humanoid robot on its own. Instead, he said, a person operates the robot from a central location with assistance from AI.<\/p>\n
Videos provided by Tau Robotics show the humanoid robots performing cleaning tasks. One video, which was sped up, shows a robot exiting a minivan before a cleaning job.<\/p>\n
Not everyone is convinced the technology is ready for widespread use. Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley engineering professor with 40 years of experience in the field, expressed skepticism about the capabilities of humanoid robots in home cleaning.<\/p>\n
“I really think it is too early,” Goldberg said. “I would be very surprised if these could do anything close to a useful job of cleaning a house. So, being able to pick up objects off the floor is even still a challenge for robots today. And being able to sweep and wipe out areas of, you know, counters and underneath things, that is very, very difficult.”<\/p>\n
Koch acknowledged the limitations of the technology but said the robots are already capable of handling some household chores.<\/p>\n
“But like, vacuum cleaning for example, that’s working pretty well already. And yeah, like basic, wiping the kitchen counter. That’s also pretty doable,” Koch said.<\/p>\n
Goldberg also raised questions about the prerecorded videos showing the robots at work.<\/p>\n
“You don’t know if it’s been speeded up, you don’t know if there’s a human behind-the-scenes, you don’t know if they’ve kind of very carefully constructed the environment just right, so it works that time,” Goldberg said.<\/p>\n
Despite questions about the technology’s current capabilities, both the promise and challenges of humanoid robotics remain evident. The long-term goal is a humanoid robot capable of cleaning an entire home at a low cost, potentially making home cleaning services more accessible.<\/p>\n
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