I don't understand the obsession with humanoid robots that many seem to have. Why would you make a car repairing machine human-shaped? Like, what would it use its legs for? Wouldn't it be better to design it tailored to its purpose?
Economies of scale. The humanoid form can interact with all of the existing infrastructure for jobs currently done by humans, so that's the obvious form factor for companies looking to churn out robots to sell by the millions.
Can, but an insectoid form factor and much smaller size could easily be better. It's not so common that being of human size is an advantage even where things are set up to allow for humans.
Not only that but if humanoid robots were available commercially (and viable) they could be used as housemaids or for.. companionship if not more. Of course, we're entering SciFi territory but it's long been a SciFi theme.
Legs? To jump into the workshop pit, among other things. Palms are needed to hold a wrench or a spanner, fingers are needed to unscrew nuts.
Cars are not built to accommodate whatever universal repair machine there could be, cars are built with an expectation that a mechanic with arms and legs will be repairing it, and will be for a while.
A non-humanoid robot in a human-designed world populated by humans looks and behaves like this, at best: https://youtu.be/Hxdqp3N_ymU
This is such a bad take that I have a hard time believing it's not just trolling.
Really, a robot which could literally have an impact wrench built into it would HOLD a SPANNER and use FINGERS to remove bolts?
Next I'm expecting you say self-driving cars will necessarily require a humanoid sitting in the driver's seat to be feasible. And delivery robots (broadly in use in various places around the world) have a tiny humanoid robot inside them to make the go.
Really, a robot which could literally have an impact wrench built into it would HOLD a SPANNER and use FINGERS to remove bolts?
Sure, why not? A built-in impact wrench is built in forever, but a palm and fingers can hold a wrench, a spanner, a screwdriver, a welding torch, a drill, an angle grinder and trillion other tools of every possible size and configuration, that any workshop already has. You suggest to build all those tools into a robot? The multifunctional device you imagine is now incredibly expensive and bulky, likely are not reaching into narrow gaps between car's parts, still not having as many degrees of freedom as human hand, and is limited by the set of tools the manufacturer thought of, unlike the hand, which can grab any previously unexpected tool with ease.
Still want to repair the car with just the built-in wrench?
Ugh, still missed by a long shot. How about instead of a convoluted set of dozens of tiny, weak joints, there's a connection that delivers power (electric, pneumatic, torque, you name it) to any toolhead you want, and the robot can swap out like existing manufacturing robots do. A hand tool for picking things up may be reasonable in rare cases,, but even that won't look like a human hand, if it's not made by a madman. But yeah, let's prioritize a bad compromise of a humanoid with 5 000 joints instead of basically an arm with 10 joints that achieves the same thing, because little robot cute and look like me me
Alright, let's run this thought experiment further then.
You suggest a connector to connect to a set of robot-compatible tools, fine. That set is again limited by what the robot manufacturer thought of in advance, so you're out of luck if you need to weld things, for example, but your robot doesn't come with a compatible welder. Attaching and detaching those tools now becomes a weak point: you either need a real human replacing the tools (ruining the autonomy), or you need to devise a procedure for your robot to switch tools somehow by detaching one from itself, putting it on a workbench for further use, and attaching a new one from a workbench.
The more universal and autonomous that switching procedure becomes, the more you're in the business of actually reinventing a human hand.
But let's assume that you've succeeded in that, against all odds. You now have a powerful robotic arm, connected to a base, that can work with a set of tools it can itself attach and detach. Now imagine for a second that this arm can't reach a certain point in the car it repairs and needs to move itself across the workshop.
Suddenly you're in the business of reinventing the legs.
More and more, cars are not built with repair in mind. At least not as a top priority. There are many repairs that now require removal of substantial unrelated components or perhaps the entire engine because the failed thing is just impossible to reach in situ.
Nuts and bolts are used because they are good mechanical fasteners that take advantage of the enormous "squeezing" leverage a threaded faster provides. Robots already assemble cars, and we still use nuts and bolts.
